Report Finds DC Rents Rising Faster Than Other U.S. Cities

• February 7, 2010

by Mark Wellborn

If you have thought that your monthly rent has been increasing steadily over the past few years, you are right.

A report released by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute on Friday that looked at DC’s rental market shows that rents increased more in the District between 2000 and 2007 than in a number of other major cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Boston.

The report found that the number of rental units in the city with rent and utility costs of $750 or less fell from 69,000 in 2000 to 45,000 in 2007. During that same period, the number of rental housing units with costs of at least $1,500 a month more than doubled, from 12,000 to 27,000.

As the inventory of low-cost rentals has decreased and rents in the city have increased, 40 percent of DC households now spend almost a third of their annual income on rent.

From the report:

“Combined with sharply rising home values and the conversion of many rental units to condominiums, a growing number of DC residents are faced with housing affordability problems. The problems are especially acute for DC’s lowest-income households, most of whom now spend half or more of their income on housing. Although housing prices have moderated over the past year as the housing market cooled, rents and home prices remain far higher than a decade ago.”

To read the full report, click here.

1 Comment

1. Simon Landau said at 6:11 pm on Sunday February 7, 2010:

   This is exactly why tons of DC residents are picking now as the time to buy.  According to Forbes, DC is one of the top five cities to buy instead of rent right now.