New York City renters in market-rate apartments can expect to spend nearly 60 percent of their income on housing, as opposed to the recommended 33 percent, according to a recent study by StreetEasy, an online real-estate listing service, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The commonly cited guideline is that people should be prepared to spend one-third of their monthly income on housing costs. However, the study has found that measure doesn’t even come close to making sense for the average New York City renter:
The study also found that Brooklyn renters carried the heaviest burden, compared with what they make, according to the StreetEasy report. In New York City as a whole, people need to spend 58.4 percent of their incomes on the median rent of $2,690 a month. In Brooklyn they would have to spend 60 percent to write the borough’s typical rent check of $2,487 a month.
Alan Lightfeldt, a data scientist at StreetEasy, said the study reflected the rapid growth in the popularity of the borough as a place to live, while the incomes of lower-income or middle-income residents who may have lived there for years haven’t grown as quickly.
and this is why we need affordable housing with a wide range of incomes,which seems to fall on deaf ears,no affordable housing in parkslope,clintonhill,fortgreen etc homeless on the rise,still stuck on this 80/20 program instead of having 50/50 or a real 100 percent affordability these poli-tricks aka politicains can care less,there family don’t have to apply for affordable housing,we do.