By Jonathan Smoke | realtor.com
America’s rental affordability crisis came into focus this week when the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies released its 2015 report on rental housing. Among its alarming findings: A record-setting number of renters paid more than 30% of their income for housing last year, as their wages remained stagnant. And as grim a portrait as it paints, we think the problem is even worse.
Harvard’s report highlighted that 49% of renting households are cost-burdened, meaning that they struggle to pay their other bills because of the high cost of rents, and 26 percent are severely cost-burdened. But the nature of a big report like this is that its data is out of date before it gets released. Rent growth has been accelerating throughout this year, so 49% is likely already more than 50 percent.
