
Where People Spend the Most and Least on Rent in America - emberdev
https://priceonomics.com/where-people-spend-the-most-and-least-on-rent-in/
======
bernardino
I live in Irvine, CA, and per the article we are the sixth most expensive for
a renter. I live with my parents and three sisters and we do pay $1950 for a
two bedroom apartment, three dollars off the actual median.

Though what I find hard to believe is how my family does it. I attend a local
community college close by, and have been doing so for the past four years
after high school. Every year I fill out the FASFA (a Free Application for
Student Aid limited to only six years), and I usually ask my parents for their
tax record of the past year which gives me a look at our overall income.

My parents for the last four years combined have made roughly an average of
$31,000/yr. I've never asked them why we initially didn't move to a cheaper
state when we migrated from Mexico, but I assume they enjoy the quality of
life here. Though I'm skeptical on whether the trade offs are worth it. We
give up most of our life for work, so we may have a few hours off in the week
and the weekend. And the the latter applies to my mother, older sister, and I,
it does not apply to my father who works the entire week as a gardener with
his own workers and clients and only gets a few hours each week (more now
since it gets dark earlier with autumn/winter daylight savings).

Though above all, I find it odd that we give our only life (?) to living for
rent, food, and necessities. Which is not to say work is bad, after all, work
I think has three functions: “to give a man a chance to utilise and develop
his faculties; to enable him to overcome his egocentredness by joining with
other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services
needed for a becoming existence.” But otherwise, I still believe there ought
to be a healthier and more natural approach to modern day work and life
balance.

The quote above is from E.F. Shumacher’s Small is Beautiful: Economics as if
People Mattered. A book I have come to admire and tend to revisit from time to
time.

~~~
ttonkytonk
You are spot on.

I am homeless because I don't work, but really all I desire is a good spot to
put my tent. Of course I enjoy free food and amenities such as the library,
but I also volunteer at the soup kitchens and some other functions from time-
to-time at least. I have no desire to work 50 hours or more a week at a
thankless job at this time. That _does not_ mean I'm comfortable with being a
"smooch", just that I think it's kind of irrelevant.

We need to give up the blame/excuses game and focus on the health of
communities as a whole.

~~~
extra88
You get paid to do a job, why do you need thanks as well?

I wonder if your current lifestyle will make it difficult to transition to
another lifestyle when it's no longer sustainable or you tire of it. At least
you're volunteering and as odd as I find it to be homeless and spending time
on this site, it suggests an interest in and connection to activities that
will work out later.

BTW, a mooch is someone who lives off others ("to mooch" is also a verb). A
smooch is slang for a kiss.

~~~
ttonkytonk
I don't literally need thanks, but it needs to be something that doesn't make
me miserable. It seems restaurants stay competitive by being high stress.

I don't code BTW; I found HN by chance and noticed there are many general
interest articles so I don't see it as a problem.

~~~
extra88
Many people do those jobs and aren’t miserable. That doesn’t mean there’s
something wrong with you if you would be. I don’t know what made you think of
restaurant work but most are not busy all the time. It’s true that most are
low-paying and often tiring.

I didn’t assume you code, I don’t really.

------
no_protocol
> In our new data study, we analyzed the anonymized data spanning three years
> from tens of thousands of verified loan applicants from Priceonomics
> customer Earnest to see how much people actually pay in rent across America.

The sample may be fairly large but it is almost certainly not representative.
These figures only represent the subset of the population who would use an
online financial services company _AND_ actually did use it.

I would expect data from sources such as the Census Bureau to be much more
representative of reality. Here is one visualization of such data I found [0].
These figures are much, much closer to the actual conditions I have personally
observed in multiple states.

My guess is that the reported figures from Earnest miss large categories such
as low-income and elderly people. The numbers are way too high for many
states.

[0]: [http://overflow.solutions/demographic-data/national-
data/sta...](http://overflow.solutions/demographic-data/national-data/state-
level-analysis/what-is-the-average-rent-in-each-state/)

~~~
morgante
Seriously, shame on Priceonomics for publishing this blog at all. This is
textbook selection bias: of course people who need online personal loans are
going to have different financial profiles from the average.

------
GFischer
Something I don't understand is that, even with shockingly high rent prices,
no smaller units seem to be built.

As a South American and having seen European housing, the only city that has
something equivalent to what's "normal" here is New York.

Not even San Francisco builds small apartments/condos. An average 2-bedroom in
Europe or in Buenos Aires is 600 square foot, and that's the size of a studio
apartment in the United States. I'm not saying going to extremes like Tokyo
and their 300 square foot apartments (I lived in a 200 square feet studio for
a couple of years, it's doable).

I did a quick search and the 1000 dollar apartments/condos for rent in New
Jersey are similar in size to 1000 dollar apartments here in Montevideo... but
there are no 500 dollar equivalents!

I think most people in the U.S. think they NEED that much space (even when
they don't).

~~~
doctorwho42
I understand from an outside view it may look like we think we NEED that much
space... But really it's economics of building development, primarily ROI for
the building company. It's more profitable to make more expensive type of
housing on that land than it is to make small apartments or starter homes.
Hence the seemingly barren housing options within the small apartment and
small/starter home markets... It sucks...

~~~
1_2__4
And people say this is necessary when we built thousands of starter homes in
decades past and somehow developers still made scads of cash.

~~~
ams6110
There was a lot more available space then.

------
neogodless
"In an average lifetime, an American will spend about $1.6 million on the core
essentials of survival: food, shelter, and transportation. The largest portion
of that—nearly one-third—goes toward housing costs."

I guess shelter != housing in this statement, but it seems if you're talking
about three items comprising a total, the largest one cannot be less than one
third, right? :)

~~~
harryh
I too found this statement confusing. If you click through the link you'll
find that the source says something slightly different:

"Over 78 years, one spends an average of about $1.6 million dollars just to
survive. Of this, one spends about $1M on housing, food, and cars."

So (according to the source) survival costs 1.6M of which the 3 biggest
expenses add up to 1M. They don't say what comprises the other 600k.

Health care? Eduction? Clothing? Child care? Just some guesses....

------
IkmoIkmo
I thought this was kind of a weak article, or at least not particularly
interesting... it's essentially just a bunch of tables with an exclamatory
note on the outliers.

More importantly, I'm missing things like household size and square footage.

I mean, nobody is really interested in a rent prices in and of itself. We're
interested in affordability, i.e. how much does it cost to rent per person, or
per amount of area.

If you look at the average household size in Utah and Montana for example, and
divide median state rent by each, you'll find the median rent per person in
the household is $480 and $530 respectively, despite median rent being $1500
and $1270.

i.e., you may think it's less affordable to rent in Montana, but on a per
capita basis, it's actually the opposite.

They do mention things like education and income typically being higher in
expensive places, making this a one-sided story on affordability, but mostly
leave it outside the scope of the analysis. A shame, cause it's interesting
stuff!

~~~
Spooky23
Those aren’t really valid metrics for rent without a lot of controls in the
study.

People make due when they need to — they cram into whatever space they can
afford for 25-40% of income.

------
crazygringo
Much like the author, I'm tremendously surprised to see L.A. at the top --
this doesn't match anything I've heard before, or what I hear anecdotally.

The author says: "One possible explanation for Los Angeles being more
expensive than the Bay Area is if renters in Los Angeles are less likely to
have roommates or a rent controlled apartment."

Curious if anyone here on HN has any alternative hypotheses? Perhaps
technicalities of city boundaries? (E.g. NYC includes Queens, Staten Island
and the Bronx, whereas from my understanding LA proper excludes much of the LA
"area".)

~~~
rowha
Rent in SF is much higher & you get a lot less. The other day I met a lady
looking at 1BR aparrments and she said in the newer buildings, it was $6500 to
$7500. $3500 is the average price for a 1BR.

Rents are going slightly down in SF. You can rent a room for $1200-1500 and
pay $300-400 month in parking. A friend was paying $1900 month to share a
place with 5 people in Russian Hill.

In LA, you can live at the Ritz for $5500/month.

~~~
closeparen
Yeah, no. Even in the <5 year old gleaming towers around Transbay Terminal,
$7500 is at least a 2BR. 1 bedroom is around $4500 depending on the size/view.
I rent a comfortable studio on an upper floor for $3200.

------
dahart
Top 5 cities: LA $2600, San Jose $2502, SF $2333, NY $2141, San Diego $2058

It's been a while since I lived in the Bay Area, but has San Jose really
surpassed San Francisco? Or is this a function of SJ having larger apartments
than SF on average, or something like that?

I wonder if the list would be quite different for a specific type of
apartment. A single renter living in 800 square feet will probably pay a lot
more (I speculate) in NY than San Jose? Where a family of four living in 1200
square feet (not the norm, I realize) might not even be able to find a place
in a few of these cities.

Bottom 5 cities: Toledo $550, Memphis $728, Glendale AZ $751, Kansas City
$885, Lincoln NE $907

The average for the lowest cities is surprisingly high. This makes me curious
about Toledo -- how is the lowest rent city 25% lower than the next lowest?
That seems like an outlier. Is Toledo out of space, or depressed, or only
renting studio apartments or something? How does Toledo compare to Detroit,
where it's easy to find a small apartment in the $400s?

~~~
sidlls
The article explicitly states that they are measuring the amount people
actually pay, not per unit rented. So a person renting in SF might pay less
for a more expensive unit compared to one in LA only because the person in SF
is sharing rent with more people.

~~~
arebop
Also, 1/3 of rental housing in SF is rent controlled, meaning that rent
increases are limited to a fraction of the CPI. This causes a large difference
between current market rates and what established tenants pay. It explains
both the low prices reported here, and some of the seeming discrepancy between
wages and housing costs as reported by market sources.

~~~
amorphid
I pay $1550 for a small studio in SF. My neighbor pays less than $300 for his
apartment, which is the same size as mine. I've lived there since 2016, he has
lived there since 1985-ish.

------
will_brown
>LA residents also pay the highest percentage of their income in rent (23.9%)

Not according to the Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development American Housing Survey. That honor is reserved for Miami with an
average of 27%, and 1/3 spending 50% of their income on rent.

~~~
twoodfin
I wonder if there’s some adjustments for demographics going on here. Miami
presumably has a larger % of low income retirees than LA.

~~~
will_brown
Well the numbers are probably even more alarming for millennials (18-34). For
example, the national average of millennials living with parents is 31%, but
in Miami that number is 44.8%, again the highest nationwide and more
disturbing that number was 15% in 2005. And of the millennials who do rent,
they spend on average 54% of their income on rent [1].

[1] [http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estate-
news/ar...](http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estate-
news/article134594879.html)

------
gwright
I didn't see any attempt to normalize the rents to per square foot. How can
you compare average rents if the average unit size isn't the same?

~~~
extra88
Because you can't simply find an apartment sized to fit. Even if you can
afford only 200 sq. ft. but are okay with that, it will be hard to find in
most communities. You need 1 place to live, not X sq. ft. to live.

But price per sq. ft. is not completely irrelevant and can be useful to know.

------
ransom1538
"It's been a while since I lived in the Bay Area, but has San Jose really
surpassed San Francisco?"

It is misleading. It has to do with averages. A large portion of SF residents
are on rent control. So if you poll 10k SF people and ask their rent you get
lower rental rates -- since in SF many are locked in and cannot afford to
move. When you average the rents, you get a rental rate from over a decade
ago. Example, if you are moving to SF today - you are looking at 3500$[i] for
a run down 2brd. If you wanted to move to San Jose -- you might actually find
a 2brd for $2500. I check every month and know the neighborhoods really well
of Manhattan and SF. SF is more expensive - since Manhattan has more inventory
and no rent control over 2k.

[i] [https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/d/open-must-see-
huge-2-...](https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/d/open-must-see-
huge-2-bed-2/6410690636.html)

~~~
busterarm
> since Manhattan has more inventory and no rent control over 2k.

Not exactly...There's several different kinds of rent regulation in NY. You're
probably thinking of the rent-stabilization cutoff at $2700? Technically there
are many apartments that are considered rent-stabilized with rents well above
$2700 -- the building that I live in, for example, where virtually all rents
are north of $3500, has over 80 stabilized units in a building with 96 units.
About 31% (as of a few years ago) of technically rent-stabilized buildings
have loopholes that allow normal increases on rent that landlords do take
advantage of. To these tenants, rent-stabilization has little more effect than
a right-to-renew.

Rent controlled apartments are much rarer, comprising only of about 27k units
across the five boroughs. There are two of these in my building. The number of
rent controlled units is dwarfed by the number of apartments under other
regulation, like SCRIE, Mitchell-Lama, etc., comprising of about 280k units
total.

NYC's total housing inventory is slightly above 3.2 mil units, of which 1.34
mil are under some kind of rent regulation.

[http://www.nycrgb.org/downloads/research/pdf_reports/17HSR.p...](http://www.nycrgb.org/downloads/research/pdf_reports/17HSR.pdf)

~~~
ransom1538
Yeah my point was NY does have much rent control.

From the passage of the Rent Regulation Reform Act of 1997 to the Rent Act of
2011, rent stabilization was restricted to apartments where the legal, or
stabilized, rent was under $2,000 per month. The 2011 law raised that to
$2,500. The unit could be deregulated once the rent went above $2,000 under
the 1997 law, $2,500 under the 2011 Act, and is either vacant or the household
adjusted gross income was over $175,000 under the 1997 act or is $200,000
under the 2011 law, for two consecutive years.[1

------
ryanmarsh
Texas just barely edged out NY for more expensive rent. Seriously. This is why
averages across entire states are worthless for understanding many economic
factors affecting people.

This is Info-fastfood. There’s no nutritional value in this data. First off
the data should be presented in at least a county level or MSA. A cloropleth
map would be nice too.

~~~
extra88
> Texas just barely edged out NY for more expensive rent. Seriously.

So? New York State is not New York City. New York City is populous but the
rest of the state's cities pale in comparison and in decline. Texas has
multiple expensive cities with populations over a million. And rents in NYC
vary widely; Manhattan is much more expensive than Staten Island.

~~~
sremani
The problem is the rent control apartments in NYC skew the data and does make
it apple to apple. That is the difficulty here. Rural NY to Rural TX, I will
bet anytime that Rural TX is cheaper especially in the Rio Grande Valley and
West Texas.

~~~
BenchRouter
> The problem is the rent control apartments in NYC skew the data and does
> make it apple to apple

Last time I checked, rent controlled apartments make up ~1% of housing units
in the city, and that number decreases all the time (because the supply of
rent controlled apartments is constantly decreasing). So, I think I'd need to
see a citation that rent control has any serious effects on NYC housing
prices.

I'm not saying that 1% couldn't have larger effects, but given the small
amount of rent-controlled units I think the burden of proof is on you here.

> Rural NY to Rural TX, I will bet anytime that Rural TX is cheaper especially
> in the Rio Grande Valley and West Texas.

Why? I think you have a very different picture in mind of what rural NY looks
like. There are a ton of extremely poor towns and cities up near Rochester and
Buffalo. Lots and lots of rust belt remnants in the western part of the state
that haven't recovered:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_Belt#/media/File:Total_mf...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_Belt#/media/File:Total_mfctrg_jobs_change_54-02.png)

Maybe it's $50 for a 1 bedroom in west Texas vs. $60 for a 1 bedroom on the
outskirts of Hammond NY, but I don't think that's a very meaningful
difference.

~~~
extra88
Yes, I was thinking more the Southern Tier for remote New York but Hammond is
a good border town example of very un-NYC New York living.

My guess is remote parts of Texas are probably still cheaper. It's so big,
remote towns can't be bedroom communities, they're less well-regulated so
building costs are probably lower, and property taxes are probably lower (less
expensive maintenance than in NY weather and they don't take care of their
citizens as well).

------
api
Kansas City and Detroit are both real deals if you can find good work or bring
it with you. Both have cool personality and very nice areas and are dirt
cheap.

~~~
avenoir
I can only comment on Kansas City, as I used to live there and I agree with
you. It's great for the time being, however, it is starting to grow very
rapidly. Not quite at, say, Denver's pace but it makes me wonder how long the
city will keep its low prices. The rent prices were listed at $954 in MO and
$1127 in KS. Both are on the expensive side and i literally don't know anyone
who pays this much for rent. You can find a very nice place (20 minute drive
from downtown) on both KS and MO sides of Kansas City for $500-$700 per month.

------
sremani
Surprise to see Plano TX on the list of top 10 cities with highest percentage
of Income spent on Rent.

Toyota and bunch other companies have moved their HQ or operations here, it
may have to do something about it.

~~~
kodablah
Most of the data predates Toyota, and many of those HQs are in the NW side
where several cities intersect. The reason, I suspect, is that the article
chooses top 100 cities by population, so Plano squeezes in. It does not have a
ton of apartments, but the ones it has, especially west, are expensive and
fairly new. Most of the inhabitants, in my experience, are service industry to
serve the otherwise (former?) highest income per household city, meaning many
spend a large portion on rent. That's one theory... the other being it's just
a few % points putting them up there and may be just the current multifamily
real estate swing.

------
skybrian
If I had to pick a place to live off the cheapest cities list, I might look
more closely at Pittsburgh or Tacoma. Why so cheap?

~~~
psyc
I did some research on a few neighborhood forums about Pittsburgh. The most
common type of comment was something like "Pittsburgh isn't nearly as bad as
people think. I've only been robbed twice."

------
touchofevil
I can attest to the fact that LA rents have gone insane in the last maybe 5
years. A run-down 1 bedroom apartment in a working-class neighborhood of LA
(Palms) without central air and no dishwasher will rent for $1700/month at the
minimum. I'm currently apartment hunting in LA and it's brutal.

~~~
JBlue42
I'm with you. I'm luckily 'stuck' in my studio ($1221/mo) but at least it's a
nice area, near a subway, and central to a lot of job opportunities. Even
though I'm looking for jobs, I really can't consider any that are going to
have me moving and paying more for rent without a significant step-up in
salary. We have very high rents here (high demand due to lack of housing) and
very low wages (due to amount of people, I guess?).

I don't know if I would consider Palms 'working class' but it definitely is
advantageous in being cheaper than other places since the whole town of Palms
is essentially all apartment buildings and located near job centers in Culver
City, Venice, and Santa Monica up the road / Expo line.

------
shmerl
Average New Jersey rent is higher than average New York rent? That's a bit
unexpected. But I guess NYC is way different from the state as a whole.

Also, average rent is obscure, if it lumps together different housing sizes.
Breaking it by number of rooms would make it more usable.

~~~
BenchRouter
Yeah, I mean it's easy to forget about places in NY with low costs of living
like Binghamton.

Even in the city, it's easy to forget that most people don't live in
Manhattan/the expensive parts of Queens and Brooklyn. A sizable minority,
sure, but not most.

~~~
shmerl
Brooklyn is expensive in general because it's most populous borough in NYC.

~~~
BenchRouter
Ehhh not expensive if you go out to, say, Brownsville. Brooklyn is much, much
more than just Williamsburg and Park Slope.

~~~
shmerl
Never tried Williamsburg or Park Slope, but finding a good apartment for
decent price is very hard no matter where. Of course prices drop if subway is
harder to get to.

~~~
BenchRouter
I mean, I'm not sure what your price range is but this is literally the top
result on Craigslist right now:

[https://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/abo/d/fantastic-1-bdr-
apt...](https://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/abo/d/fantastic-1-bdr-apt-
available/6410581369.html)

Granted it's Craigslist so who knows how legit it is, but if you're willing to
share with roommates/etc. I don't feel like it's super hard to find a great
apartment if you're willing to live further out.

~~~
meandave
This listing is 100% Fake

------
danans
Another statistical perspective on this is the percentage of households whose
housing costs exceed 30% of income, as depicted here:

[http://www.governing.com/gov-data/economy-finance/housing-
af...](http://www.governing.com/gov-data/economy-finance/housing-
affordability-by-city-income-rental-costs.html)

This gives a starker picture, with Flint, MI having the largest %, despite its
low rents, and Sunnyvale CA having the lowest % despite its very high overall
rents.

------
wott
2 questions:

Is there some VAT (or sales tax, as I think you call it) applied to rents in
the USA?

If so, is it included in the figures of the article or when people comment
here and quote rent figures?

~~~
Tiksi
Nope, not in any state I'm aware of. in fact in some states with property
taxes, you can deduct the portion of your rent that would be used for the
property tax by the landlord from your state taxes.

~~~
dmode
Arizona has it. But I don't believe any city in California does

------
k__
How many people are renting homes in the US?

I always hear people talk about their mortage, as if buying a home was the
only thing that goes over there.

Probably has to do with the bad social security?

~~~
josephpmay
There's a huge generational shift going on. It used to be that everybody owned
a home, often starting in their 20's but definitely by their 30's. Now more
and more people are still renting into their 30's

Housing costs in America have gone through the roof, so it's much harder to
afford a down-payment. Also, it's generally said that millennials place a
higher value on mobility and prefer to live in urban cores, where more of the
housing is rentals and there are fewer single-family homes.

~~~
JBlue42
Or urban cores are where decent jobs are.

But yeah, also having grown up in a rural area, sidewalks to get to places are
nice.

------
cafard
Aurora, Colorado, shares a boundary line with Denver. Denver is at the bottom
of the most expensive, Aurora midway in the least. But Aurora is a pretty big
city these days, I think. I wonder how much the rent varies between places
right on the Denver line and those way out east.

------
ttonkytonk
Interesting article.

Seems it would be ideal to use post-tax income. Is the norm that you shouldn't
pay more than 30% based on pre- or post-tax income?

The graph on education level does not include those not graduating high
school.

~~~
1986
> The graph on education level does not include those not graduating high
> school.

The data appears to come from a company that largely handles refinancing
student loans.

