District renters need to bring in more than $132,000 in annual earnings in order to pay 28 percent of their income or less on the average two-bedroom apartment, says a new analysis from financial advice company SmartAsset. Renters are considered “cost-burdened” by rent when they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs and “severely cost-burdened” by rent when they spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing costs.
The average rent for a two-bedroom in D.C. is $3,100 a month, or $37,200 a year, according to SmartAsset, which made its calculations using April 2019 data from Zillow. A household therefore has to make $132,857 annually to pay no more than 28 percent of its income for such an apartment. Meanwhile, the median household income in D.C. is about $82,000 a year, says SmartAsset. Only San Francisco and New York outranked the District as pricier among the 25 largest U.S. cities, having average two-bedroom rents of $4,593 and $3,800.
“In general, the median income in a city is not enough for the average person to avoid being housing cost-burdened,” SmartAsset finds. “Each of the top 10 cities on our list has a median income that is less than the income needed to pay 28% or less of your income in rent.” Home prices, including rents, in D.C. and across the U.S. have gone up significantly in recent years.
A recent study from listings company RentHop found that median rents for one-bedroom apartments near 71 percent of Metro stops in the region increased between 2018 and 2019. That compared to such median rent increases near 55 percent of Metro stops the year prior.