These Are The Least Affordable Neighborhoods In NYC

NEW YORK, NY — New Yorkers generally struggle to afford the city's notoriously steep rents, but some struggle more than others depending on their neighborhood, according to a new RentHop study.

The apartment rental website compared median two-bedroom rents with the most recent available median income data to determine the city's most and least affordable neighborhoods.

The citywide median rent for a two-bedroom apartment cost about $3,650 as of June, while the overall median income is $58,856. That's less than half the $146,000 one would have to earn to comfortably afford that median rent, RentHop says.

Renters struggle the most in East Harlem, the Lower East Side and Bedford-Stuyvesant — neighborhoods with some of the lowest median incomes in the city.

The typical two-bedroom unit in East Harlem's 10035 ZIP code goes for $2,550 a month. That means a renter earning the median income of $26,893 would have to spend more on rent than they make in a year, the study says.

The same is true for the Lower East Side, where the median income is $35,594 but the median two-bedroom rent is $3,300. New Yorkers would have to earn $132,000 a year for that price to be affordable — meaning rent accounts for 30 percent of one's monthly income, RentHop says.

A Bed-Stuy renter earning the median income of $31,549 would have to spend 96 percent of their income on rent for the median two-bedroom apartment, which goes for $2,525 a month, the study shows.

At the other end of the spectrum, some neighborhoods are "affordable" despite having astronomical rents because their median incomes are so high, RentHop found.

For example, the median two-bedroom rent in Tribeca is more than twice East Harlem's at $5,498. But that's manageable for a renter with the neighborhood's median income of $234,958 — about four times the median income for the city overall, the study shows.

But New Yorkers who aren't as well-heeled can still find an affordable apartment in certain areas. The median two-bedroom rent in Flatbush, Brooklyn's 11210 ZIP code is just $1,975. That would eat up about 40 percent of that area's median income of $59,520, the study shows.

See how affordable your neighborhood is on RentHop's interactive map below, and read the full study here.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the relationship between citywide median rent and median income. The median income is less than half what one would have to earn to comfortably afford the median rent, not more than twice.

(Lead image: Photo from Shutterstock)