Congratulations: Valentine’s Day is over, you’re still single, and you’re fine with it.
Well, maybe except for the rent. Single renters pay a premium over couples and roommates who split expenses (even when the roommates have separate bedrooms). Moreover, a recent report from Moody’s Analytics showed that the typical American renter is rent burdened (paying 30 percent or more of income for rent), making things particularly rough right now for singles.
A recent study by RentHop took a look at the 50 largest U.S. cities to determine where studio rent — the cheapest way for people to live alone — was most and least affordable. Using income data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the advertised rents of studio apartments listed from Jan. 1 through Nov. 18, 2022, researchers found the percentage of a single person’s income needed to afford a median-price studio in each city. The 10 most and 10 least expensive cities are shown in this week’s chart.
New York City turned out to be the hardest city in which to afford the median studio rent, which came in at $3,016, or about 44 percent of the average local single income. Miami was next, with studio rents at $2,070, or 37 percent of average single income.
The best-case scenario was found in Albuquerque, where the median studio rent was just $700, equating to about 15 percent of local singles’ income. Next up was Wichita, Kan., at 16 percent — even though its median studio rent of $575 was 19 percent higher than it was in 2021.
Increases were harder to handle in already expensive areas like New York, where studio rent climbed about 23 percent year over year, from $2,450 to $3,016. But even in Columbus, Ohio, the fifth least expensive city, studio rent jumped by nearly 35 percent, from $625 to $849. Renters in only two of the 50 largest U.S. cities — Fresno, Calif., and Fort Worth — saw the median studio rent fall.
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