Study ranks income needed for renters
Pricey San Francisco units can exceed annual pay of local renters, but Houston ranks below Austin and Dallas in affordability study
A new study finds Houston renters need to make $51,643 to afford the average two-bedroom apartment, a far cry from the $187,800 a year San Francisco residents need to earn to comfortably afford the average $4,382 a month rent there.
Renters need to make $51,643 a year to comfortably afford the average two-bedroom apartment in Houston, a new study by SmartAsset found. That places Houston on the more affordable side of 25 cities ranked by the financial website.
But that annual pay wouldn't even cover the $52,600 it costs to rent an apartment in the nation's most expensive market of San Francisco for a year, according to SmartAsset. To rent in San Francisco, where units average $4,382 a month, residents would need to make $187,800 a year to comfortably afford it.
Rents in Houston average $1,205 per month or $14,460 a year, according to SmartAsset, which calculated how much someone would need to earn in each city in order to spend only 28 percent of their income on rent.
In New York residents need to make more than three times the salary required to live in Houston, SmartAsset found. To afford the $3,789 a month rent in New York, residents need to make $162,386 a year.
Houston's average cost to rent a two-bedroom unit is below the monthly average of $1,431 in Austin and $1,324 in Dallas. Renters need to make $61,329 in pay to afford Austin and $56,743 to afford the Dallas digs.
Other Texas cities on the list are Fort Worth ($1,124 rent, $48,171 income needed); San Antonio ($1,085 rent, $46,500 income needed), and El Paso ($773 rent, $33,129 income needed).