Demand for multifamily units continues to grow. But at the same time, a growing number of renters are struggling to afford the monthly cost of these units.
Apartment List last month reported that as of 2024 22.2 million U.S. renter households were considered cost burdened. This means that they spent more than 30% of their monthly income on rent. That 22.2 million renters equaled 51.8% of all renter households in the United States.
Some renters face even greater financial challenges. Apartment List reported that 11.2 million renter households in 2024 spent more than half of their income on rent, making them severely cost-burdened.
The percentage of cost-burdened renter households reached a new high in 2024. Apartment List reported that just 48% of U.S. renter households in that year spent less than 30% of their income on housing.
And though more recent figures aren’t available, it’s a safe bet to say that this hasn’t improved since 2024.
As Apartment List says, rent burden has long been an issue in the United States. But the trend in recent years represents a reversal of the modest progress that was made during the 2010s. Following the Great Financial Crisis, the renter cost-burden rate hit a peak of 53.4% in 2011. But in the following years, it gradually improved, eventually dipping to 48.4% in 2019.
That progress has since been reversed by the record-setting rent growth that occurred in the U.S. multifamily market in 2021 and 2022, according to Apartment List. There were 2.4 million more cost-burdened renter households in 2024 than there were in 2019. Even though the current rent burden rate is slightly lower than it was from 2010 to 2012, the number of renter households who are burdened by their housing costs has never been higher, according to Apartment List.
Rent burden is an issue across the country, but as Apartment List reports, it’s more of a challenge in certain areas. Markets along the coasts and in many parts of the southern United States tend to have a higher rate of renters who are cost burdened. In the Midwest, cost burden rates are below the national average, Apartment List said. In fact, Apartment List refers to many markets in the Midwest as being among the last bastions of housing affordability.
Florida has the largest cost burden problem, with 62.1% of renters being cost-burdened in 2024. Pittsburgh boasts the lowest rate of cost-burdened renters among the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the country. But even here, 44.9% of renters struggle with rents that consume more than 30% of their gross monthly incomes.
Other Midwest markets in which renters enjoy relatively low cost burden rates are St. Louis, 45.8%; Minneapolis, 47.4%; and Oklahoma City, 48%.
Overall, though, the rent burden has worsened in each of the country’s 25 largest metropolitan areas, according to Apartment List. This suggests that renters across the country will continue struggling with rising rents in the foreseeable future.
