Location, location, location.
Rental markets are heating up all over the continent, but there are specific cities that are feeling the brunt of this phenomenon.
In places like San Francisco, Brooklyn, San Jose, Seattle, Vancouver, and Denver, city councils are starting to move into panic mode as regular citizens like teachers and nurses are voicing concerns about not being able to afford housing.
Simultaneously, many communities are rightfully concerned about the “brain drain” of their young people, who are moving for greener pastures (i.e. where rent or property is affordable) to start their families.
Mapping Rent Prices
The situation of skyrocketing rents is a tricky one with no silver bullets.
Given the circumstances, our contribution in today’s post is to provide some context and perspective on the situation. In the above chart, we mapped 148 cities in the U.S. and Canada and color-coded these cities based on average rent price.
The size of each circle corresponds to city size as reported by U.S. Census and Statistics Canada data, and they represent the populations of the cities themselves – not the surrounding metro population. This means that Long Beach, CA is not lumped into Los Angeles, CA, for example.
The chart was inspired by a compilation of data from WalletWyse, who used Numbeo estimates of the cost of living across these cities. Numbeo bases its rent estimates based on user-generated data for each city.
As a final note, we omitted cities from the original list with fewer than 100,000 residents, and we kept NYC split up into boroughs.
Massive Disparity
Although rents are rising everywhere, some cities are seeing clear separation from the rest of the pack.
| Rent | $1,000 or less | $1,000-$1,500 | $1,500-$2,000 | $2,000 or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| # of Cities | 66 | 56 | 17 | 9 |
| % of Cities | 45% | 38% | 11% | 6% |
There are 26 cities with rents higher than $1,500, and only two cities with rent over $3,000 (Manhattan and San Francisco).
Meanwhile, there is a significant chunk (46%) of the cities on the list with average rents below $1,000, including several cities that have rent for as inexpensive as $500-$650 (Springfield, MO, Quebec City, QC, or Fort Wayne, IN).
Did anything surprise you about the map and data?
Just buy instead of rent.
You can buy a whole house in, say, Detroit for $1000.
Just non-buy•nary pronoun a property: it’s they & theirs – not mine.
The old Marie Antoinette joke.
http://Www.yurts.com
Statistics only mean something if you understand the details of the data that comprise them.
In every major metropolitan city, there are high rent districts and low rent districts. The low rent are not always shitholes, and the high rent aren’t always safe utopias. If you work closer to a lower cost area, then the average means nothing to you…only what you are paying.
The city of Atlanta is relatively small in geographical area. Some areas are ridiculously overpriced, while some are quite reasonable. The greater Atlanta area (the counties beyond the defined city limits), contain anywhere from quite reasonably affordable places to outrageously priced ones. Again, all about where you work and where the rest of your life goes on.
But in every case, government zoning regulations, building restrictions, federal reserve easy money policies, and so many other government intrusions into the marketplace, have made housing prices far, far higher than they ever would have been in a truly free market.
In 1960 3 billion people populated the earth. By 2000 it was 6 billion. Presently 7.44 billion people populate the earth. Out of that population today 4 billion people live in the cities.
Isn’t it time we start thinning out to the less populated areas? These statistics really bring out to view our herd mentality.
Isn’t it time we start thinning out to the less populated areas? – T-bird
Is that what you call your ‘coyote mentality’?