The Burden of Housing Costs Hits Its Peak
The “America’s Rental Housing” report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) of Harvard University paints a gloomy reality of the rental market as 22.4 million renters are cost burdened, and evictions and homelessness are on the rise.
While rent growth slumped for professionally managed apartments to 0.4% in the third quarter of 2023 from 15.3% in early 2022, rents remain above pre-pandemic levels, according to the report. Last measured in 2022, 22.4 million renter households spent more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities.
Of cost-burdened households, 12.1 million had housing costs that consumed more than half of their income—an all-time high for severe burdens, the report notes. The strain, which is being felt across all income ranges, has risen the most for middle-income renters earning $30,000 to $44,999 annually or $45,000 to $74,999 annually at 2.6 percentage points and 5.4 percentage points, respectively.
Chris Herbert, managing director of the JCHS, says, “What I have observed in Massachusetts, and I think it’s been true of California too, is one thing that changed is the fact that the issue of housing affordability is no longer a problem just of the poor.”