San Francisco Is Least Affordable Rental Market, Florida Getting Worse

The Center for Housing Policy‘s Paycheck to Paycheck report names San Francisco as the most expensive rental market in the United States. While this is of little surprise, New York City came in at 13, while Los Angeles was tenth. As a whole, rents were much higher on the coasts than on the interior of the country.

The CHP related these rents to the ability of people to pay for them:

he study found that in the vast majority of metropolitan markets, fair market rents have held steady or increased – occasionally surpassing monthly mortgage payments for a median-priced home. Specifically, retail salespeople continue to be priced out of renting a two-bedroom apartment in every market studied. Janitors fare almost the same, being able to afford a two-bedroom apartment in only one of the 210 rental markets studied. Licensed practical nurses are unable to rent a two-bedroom apartment in 55, police officers in 12, and elementary school teachers in 11 of the markets studied.

Overall, rents have increased 89 percent and only 23 markets saw their rents decrease from 2008. The study noted that Florida’s trends were particularly troubling:

Rising rents and declining homeownership costs are particularly noteworthy in Florida. The income needed for homeownership dropped more than 20 percent in 12 Florida markets while typical two-bedroom rents across all of the Florida markets studied rose, on average, nearly six percent – twice the median rent increase in the study as a whole. At the same time, wages for many community workers remained flat or decreased in numerous Florida markets.

I would be surprised of the trend of rising rents is not reversed between 2009 and 2010. With so many homes sitting empty due to overbuilding and foreclosure, there has to be some effort to rent these places out at affordable rates. And at some point, rents will have to begin to match the incomes of people looking for a place.

Photo via alexik on flickr.