How much do households in North Carolina spend on rent?
About $1,131 per month, or 30.0% of their income, in 2022. This was measured by comparing median rent and median monthly income for renting households.
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Comparing rent to renter income provides one measure of rental affordability. Dividing rent by income provides what is called a rent-to-income ratio. A higher ratio of rent-to-income indicates rent is less affordable while a lower ratio indicates it’s more affordable.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development considers households with a rent-to-income ratio of more than 30%, that is, households that spend more than 30% of their income on housing, to be cost-burdened. Cost-burdened households may have less money for other necessities such as food, healthcare, or savings. When median monthly rent is more than 30% of average monthly income, it means a typical household would meet the definition of housing cost-burdened.
The national rent-to-income ratio reached a high of 33.8% in 2011 following the Great Recession. In North Carolina, the rent-to-income ratio reached 33.5% that year. Most recently, in 2022, North Carolina’s rent-to-income ratio was 30.0%, 1.7 percentage points lower than the national rate.
In 2018–2022, the average rent-to-income ratio across metro areas was 30.8%. The metro areas with the highest and lowest ratios were the Mayagüez, Puerto Rico area at 56.9% (highest) and Sheboygan, Wisconsin area, at 21.7% (lowest). In North Carolina, the highest and lowest were New Bern, NC area at 33.0% and Hickory, NC area at 26.1%.
During that period, Raleigh, North Carolina had the highest median rent at $1,366 per month and highest median monthly income at $4,619 out of fifteen North Carolina metro areas. Its rent-to-income ratio was eighth highest in the state.
