Increasingly unaffordable housing for New Yorkers

Having a roof, owned or rented, it is becoming less affordable for New Yorkers.

The accounts are simple and painfully clear. Income families, especially middle and lower class have fallen and are increasingly giving less of whether to pay for homes that do nothing but go up in price on virtually most of the state.

The fact is that more than three million households paid for their residence more than 30% of their income, a percentage that marks the dividing line between what is affordable and what is not in terms of housing. Worse yet, those three million, half paid more than 50% of their income to cover the costs of your home or apartment.

Are data collected by the comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, in a report published yesterday, which is based on census figures (PDF) for 2012.

According to these, from 2000-2012 the average income of those with home ownership have fallen by 1.6% and those who rent have been reduced by 7.1%.

Meanwhile, the price of houses has gone the opposite way.

And it is much more serious for those who pay rent as income increases have been 18.6% while costs associated with the property (benefit historically low interest rates) have also risen but less, almost 10%. The real estate taxes increased by 12.3% in the state and have played an important role in the assessment of costs.

It is not unreasonable to think that these figures have been accentuated since the 2014 square foot prices in most of the state and rents have grown very significantly in recent months but the average wage has increased. The labor market is still healing the wounds left by the Great Recession of 2007-2008 and no upward pressure on wages.

Thus, according to figures DiNapoli, since 2000-2012 households are paying rent that costs more than 30% of its revenues have grown from 40.5% to 50.6% of the sum total. For those who have owned their home, the percentage has also increased almost eight percentage points (see illustration).

For renters, the worst ratio of rising costs has been given to those residing in Bronx County.
Up to 57.6% of those who pay the rent in this area have to spend more than 30% of what they earn it. Followers of Greene County (a rural area in the north of the state), Ulster, Rockland, Orange, Suffolk, Putnam, Moroe, Queens, Westchester and Nassau.

In the case of New York County (Manhattan) although housing costs are the most expensive in the country, income, on average, are slightly higher so it is among one of the places with the lowest proportion of tenants affordability problems.

The comptroller said that this "unfortunate trend has negative implications for economic growth and for the quality of life of New Yorkers."

"When half of the income is used to pay the place where you live, you're going to tighten their belts in other daily needs," DiNapoli said in a statement.

The reality is that when lack affordable housing in the state, businesses are complicated efforts to recruit and retain employees if they have difficulty affording a place to live or have to do, trying to balance a budget on rent or asphyxiated by mortgage.