The State of New York City Rent Affordability in 2016

New data provides quantitative evidence of the widening gap between what New York City households can afford and what they are likely to find in the city’s increasingly expensive and competitive private rental marketplace. According to StreetEasy’s annual New York City Rent Affordability Report, the typical New York City household is expected to spend nearly two-thirds of its annual income on market-rate rent this year, a considerably greater burden than just last year[i].

Using the median rent-to-income ratio, which measures the share of income spent on rent, the typical household in New York City is expected to spend 65.2 percent of its total income on market-rate rent in 2016. That figure was 59.7 percent in 2015, an alarmingly high figure in its own right but nearly six points lower than the forecasted rent burden this year.