As will probably come as no surprise to most readers, The Times reports this morning that people nationwide are spending more of their take-home pay on housing than they did at the beginning of the decade. (The darker areas in the map, above, indicate the areas with the highest rate of growth in housing burden.) While high housing costs have always been associated with the major coastal cities, some of the greatest percentage increases came in the midwest and in suburban areas across the country. In Brooklyn, as well as the Bronx and Queens, about a third of all renters hand over at least 30 percent of their gross incomes to their landlords every month. Within the five boroughs, Brooklyn and Manhattan had the slowest rates of growth (6%) while Staten Island had the highest (19%). New York isn’t the worst, though. That distinction goes to certain high-growth areas of California, Colorado and Texas. Housing prices have gone up much more than incomes have, said Christopher Jones, vice president for research at the Regional Plan Association in New York City. Clearly, you can’t sustain that sort of imbalance over the long run. There’s only so long that housing prices can go up without sustained increases in income to support them.
Across Nation, Housing Costs Rise as Burden [NY Times]
NYC Housing Prices Have Skyrocketed [NY1]