How Unaffordable Is The Seattle Metro Region?

SEATTLE — Looking to rent a new apartment? You might consider avoiding the Seattle area. Researchers at the University of Southern California crafted a new method of measuring rental markets that they say better captures how affordable a metro area’s rental market is.

The findings, published recently in the peer-reviewed policy research journal Cityscape, show that incomes are, unsurprisingly, not keeping pace with rent.

The Seattle metro area ranked as the 22nd least affordable, the study found, just behind San Jose, California, and ahead of Philadelphia.

Washington, D.C., meanwhile, earned the dubious honor of being the least affordable rental market in America. California also fared poorly overall, with four metros ranked among the 10 least affordable. They are:

1. Washington, D.C.
2. San Diego, CA
3. Virginia Beach, VA
4. Los Angeles, CA
5. Riverside-SB, CA
6. New Orleans, LA
7. Miami, FL
8. Denver, CO
9. Houston, TX
10. Sacramento, CA

The researchers built what they call the “constant quartile mismatch” indicator to compare rent and income changes from 2000 to 2016 for the top and bottom 25 percent of renters. The release said the indicator provides a more accurate picture of the growing mismatch between increasing rents and incomes in each metropolitan area.

While rent distributions shifted upward in most metros, income distributions improved very little.
Median rent climbed 17 percent, but the median yearly income of renters actually fell 2.5 percent, the researchers found.

Dowell Myers, professor of urban planning and demography at USC, told USC News the affordability problem is “acute among the poorest people,” though it impacts a much broader constituency of people.

“The new findings measure the growing stress felt by renters at all levels of the income distribution, showing how much larger a share are forced into upper rent brackets compared to before,” he said.

In contrast, cities further from the coastline have fared better. Chicago saw its affordability mismatch in the top rental bracket grow by just 14.5 percentage points. In Nashville it was 13.1 points and in Milwaukee it was just 6.8 points. Raleigh ranked as the most affordable major city, with the top rental bracket growing just 3.7 points.

(Sign up for our free daily newsletters and Breaking News Alerts for the Seattle Patch)

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.