![Where is housing affordability most strained among the renter population? [OC]](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/uj29qp0jq7we1-1536x1001.png "Where is housing affordability most strained among the renter population? [OC]")
Housing affordability maps often use median income as a benchmark, but that measure usually includes homeowners, which can blur the picture for renter households. So, where is housing affordability most strained among the renter population?
Sources: John Burns Research and Consulting, LLC; Zillow; 2023 American Community Survey via tidycensus.
Posted by SweetYams0
13 Comments
Sedona up there wrecking Arizona
I’m sure these correlate to municipalities with the most red tape to build new housing
Sioux Falls and Denver in the same category is wild to me
It’s odd to use blue (cool color) to represent the low end of this scale when only the darkest blue is a reasonable amount of money to spend for renting.
More of a sad comment on housing costs than any issue with the map though.
As someone who lives in a blue area and looked for a house last year, this only tells part of the story, mainly the assumption of a 20% down payment.
Saving up a 20% down payment on a house that isn’t 50 years old and needs a ton of work is hell. At the same time, the insurance cost on the ~3% down payment loans is equally hell.
Half of my state being in the red certainly hits hard.
What’s up with that spot in Montana?
People usually use the term “housing affordability” to mean the affordability of housing in general, which includes rental housing.
It looks like you are using it to mean something more like “first home purchase affordability”.
You should also disclose the actual mortgage interest rate that was assumed – that can change within a year, and even within December 2024 it changed significantly.
Chicago being blue is a surprise. It’s not the most overpriced city but it’s not cheap
Surprising Tennessee is shown as so affordable. The Nashville area here is insanely expensive
This is America teetering on the brink of collapse. Throw on 10-20% increase due to tariffs and you will start to see the dominos fall.
America: Go West Young Man! Strike out for luck and fortune in new places!
Also America: please don’t move to *my* town
Gotta say this isn’t so much “dataisbeautiful” but kinda ugly. Are these supposed to be counties, or combinations of counties? Regions? Even if so, the geography is very incorrect. That section of Texas that’s orange-ish is like in the middle of nowhere — it’s too far east to be the Austin area, too far north and west to be the Houston area and too far south to be DFW. That area on an actual map is extremely rural and probably doesn’t cost very much to live in.