We here at 33N think a lot about housing and its affordability (or lack thereof). Last fall, we looked at the rental affordability market in a snapshot and a series of follow-up blog posts (which you can read here, here, and here).

While we plan to revisit this topic later in the year with fresh data, it’s a good time to introduce you to a tool developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta to track rental affordability across the entire southeastern US region. According to the Atlanta Fed’s website, the tool uses ACS one-year Public Use Microdata Sample from 2015 to 2021, with the option to visualize data at the state, region, or city level. The site reports that “cost-burdened” is defined as those households paying more than 30% of income on housing, while “severely cost-burdened” is defined as those paying more than 50%.

Looking at the region level, we see that a total of 48.3% of renter households in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell MSA were considered cost-burdened, and exactly one-fourth of all renter households were considered severely cost-burdened in 2021. Compared to other large MSAs in 2021, we find that:

  • 44.6% of renter households in the Nashville MSA were cost-burdened;
  • 50.5% in the New Orleans MSA are cost-burdened;
  • 58.0% in the Miami-Dade MSA were cost-burdened; and
  • 51.2% in the Tampa-St. Petersburg MSA were cost-burdened.

Thus, Atlanta features a relatively smaller proportion of renter households which are considered cost-burdened. Unsurprisingly, the largest segment of severely cost-burdened renter households came from those which earned 30% of less of the area median income (AMI), shown to be $91,046. Similarly, cost-burdened renter households decreased as the percentage of AMI increased, as shown in the graphic below:

The relative scarcity of affordable and available rental units can be seen in the next segment of the tool. For 2021, there exists only 25 affordable and available rental housing units per 100 renter households who earn at or below 30% of AMI, a metro-wide deficit of 123,220 rental units affordable to those households. For renter households earning at or below 50% of AMI, there exists only 45 affordable and available per 100 such households, a metro-wide deficit of 159,251 units affordable to those households. And for renter households earning at or below 80% of AMI, there exists only 92 affordable and available units per 100 such households, a deficit of 34,917 units affordable to those households. , as shown below:

Further demographic data showing cost-burdened renters by race/ethnicity and age can be found on the full dashboard which can be accessed here. Alternately, we have embedded the full Tableau dashboard into the post below so you can explore it directly: