The Bronx Is the Least Affordable County for Renters in the U.S.
Brooklyn is not a cheap place to live, and it’s getting less affordable all the time. But in case you have dreams of escaping to another borough to land some housing that won’t eat up most of your paycheck, well, you better start thinking about Queens or Staten Island. The Bronx is the least affordable county for renters in the entire country, real estate company RealTrac found.
Using data from the U.S. Department for Housing and Urban Development, RealTrac compared the average rent of a three-bedroom apartment, divided by the annual median income of each county. By that criteria, the average Bronx resident can expect to spend 68 percent of their paycheck on rent. While the overall rent is lower than Brooklyn ($2,000 a month for a three-bedroom place), the Bronx’s median income is much lower, just $34,388. That means that the sting of high renting costs hits particularly hard.
But don’t feel left out. Brooklyn still made the top five least affordable rental markets, next to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Miami-Dade counties. Great!