Study: Renters’ rise extends beyond big cities to suburbs

In the American imagination, suburbs are places to buy a house and put down roots. But a growing percentage of suburbanites rent, according to a new study.

About 29 percent of suburbanites living outside the nation's 11 most populous cities were renters in 2014, up from 23 percent in 2006, according to a report released Tuesday by New York University's Furman Center real estate think tank and the bank Capital One.

The finances of home ownership since the mortgage meltdown might be a lead reason for the change, but the cost of renting also is rising in most of the biggest metropolitan areas, the study found.

Adding to data showing a national rise in renters in the past decade, the report zooms in on Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington and their suburbs. For a national benchmark, the researchers also looked at all metropolitan areas encompassing a city of at least 50,000 people.

"It's the extensiveness of the affordability problem that is notable," Laura Bailey, Capital One's managing vice president of community development, told The Associated Press before the report's release.

Still, the study shows some of the nation's biggest rental markets have become more, not less, affordable to their typical tenants. Some findings:

In the suburbs

Renting is still more common in big cities than their suburbs. In Miami and New York, about two-thirds of residents rent. But the gap is narrowing.

In the Atlanta area, the increase in the suburban rental population between 2006 and 2014 was twice the size of the entire tenant population in the city itself. Eighty percent of the growth in Dallas-area renters happened outside the city limits. Nearly half of residents outside the city of Los Angeles are tenants.

Nationwide, 37 percent of all households nationwide now rent, the highest level since the mid-1960s, Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies noted in December.

Making the rent

Typical tenants could afford fewer than half the rental homes available in metro areas nationwide in 2014, under officials' traditional definition of affordability: spending under 30 percent of income on rent and utilities. (Government-ese for people who spend more: "rent-burdened.")

But the picture differs from city to city, depending on the interplay of median rents and incomes. The percentage of rent-burdened tenants actually declined moderately between 2006 and 2014 in Boston and Houston, while staying flat in Chicago and San Francisco and rising elsewhere.

The toughest markets

It depends how you measure it. The Washington, D.C., and San Francisco metro areas had 2014 median rents topping $1,500 a month but also the highest median tenant incomes: $57,000 for San Francisco and $58,200 for Washington. That made them relatively affordable: Half of San Francisco-area tenants and 49 percent of Washington-area ones were rent-burdened. (The national metro-area average was 53 percent.)

Contrast that with about two-thirds of tenants in the Miami area, where the median renter made $34,300 a year while paying $1,150 a month.

The easiest markets

The Houston and Dallas areas boast the lowest big-metro median rents (around $950 in 2014). With median incomes around $38,000 a year, fewer than half of tenants are rent-burdened.

Reasons for the trend

Experts attribute the renter surge partly to the foreclosures, financial struggles, stagnant incomes and tighter credit that followed the mortgage meltdown. Researchers also note the wave of young adults — often renters — in the large, so-called Millennial generation, though the Harvard study in December noted a majority of U.S. renters now are 40 and older.

Overall trends

Nationally, home ownership continues to slip, especially with the younger generation. The overall U.S. home ownership rate fell to 63.4 percent last year, the lowest rate since 1967. It peaked at 69.2 percent in 2004, and the 50-year average is 65.3 percent.

According to Census data, the home ownership in the Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson area fell from 69.3 percent in 2006 to 64.6 percent in 2013. 

Economists say four out of 10 houses sold have traditionally been acquired by first-time buyers. That number is closer to 30 percent these days.

The contrast is even sharper in the new-home market, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Prior to the recession, about a third of homes being built were entry-level properties. That has fallen to below 20 percent.