Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Salt Lake City ranks as the fourth-most affordable rental market in the U.S.
- Renters in Salt Lake City earn nearly 9% more than needed for typical rent.
- Providence, Rhode Island, is the least affordable, with a 41.25% income shortfall.
SALT LAKE CITY — Looking to rent in the Salt Lake metro area? A new analysis says it's now the nation's fourth-most affordable rental market.
Renters in and around the Utah capital city earned nearly 9% more than needed to cover the cost of the typical apartment, according to December data posted by nation's largest brokerage website, Seattle-based Redfin.
That's based on Salt Lake-area residents making an estimated $64,271 in median income, 8.86% higher the the $59,040 deemed necessary to pay the $1,476 median asking rent there.
Three Texas cities rank higher on the affordability scale than Utah's largest metropolitan area — Austin, Houston and Dallas. Austin tops the list with renters in the Texas capital making a median income that's 25.14% above what's needed to pay the $1,394 median rent.
For Houston, that number is 17.61%, and for Dallas, it's 10.30%. Rounding out the Top 10 list of affordable rental markets are Raleigh, North Carolina; Denver; Phoenix; Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; and Nashville.
Austin also saw the biggest improvement in rental affordability over the past year, with the pay required to afford the typical apartment now $10,840 less, a 16.3% drop from December 2023.
Redfin said like many Sun Belt areas, Austin has seen high levels of multifamily housing construction in recent years, so "rents are now starting to fall as supply increases and demand levels off."
Where are rents the least affordable?
Currently, the worst place to find an affordable place to rent is Providence, Rhode Island, where the shortfall between what people have to earn to rent a typical apartment is 41.25%, given median pay of $50,408. There, it takes an $85,800 salary to cover the asking $2,145 rent.
Trailing Providence on the worst affordability list compiled by Redfin are: Miami; New York City; Los Angeles; Boston; San Diego; Riverside, California; Tampa; Philadelphia and Buffalo.
However, the data used in the analysis is from December, before the deadly LA wildfires that have destroyed at least 10,000 homes began. Redfin's chief economist, Daryl Fairweather, has said that's going to lead to worsening affordability for Angelenos.
"I think that the LA wildfires are going to make Los Angeles less affordable to live in," Fairweather told the Deseret News. "The wildfires depleted the stock of housing in Los Angeles by a significant amount, and that should push up rents and home prices."
Nationwide, Redfin said the $63,680 renters must make to afford the $1,592 median asking rent for an apartment is the lowest since March 2022 and down 0.4% from a year ago. In August 2022, renters needed nearly $5,000 more in income for a typical apartment.
Are more apartment owners offering concessions to renters?
Zillow reported the typical asking rent for all rental properties across the U.S. was $1,965 in December. That's 3.4% higher than the year before compared to an average rent growth of 4% prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Also a Seattle-based real estate company, Zillow noted rents have gone down in 32 major metro areas. The largest monthly fall was in Denver, down 1.3%; followed by Salt Lake City, San Jose and Portland, all down 0.6%; and Austin, down 0.5%
Concessions offered to renters reached what Zillow called a record-setting level of two out of every five rental listings on its website, declaring, "It's fair to say that concessions in the multifamily market are here to stay."
Such concessions, Zillow said, "can offer some financial relief to renters, but they can also be a sign of increased vacancies driven by the recent strides in multifamily construction and more renters choosing to stay put."
