Rental housing affordability declined in 82% of U.S. metropolitan areas between 2014 and 2023, with renters experiencing the equivalent of an average $256 annual reduction in income after accounting for changes in housing quality. That’s according to a new report released Tuesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Research Institute for Housing America.

The report, Housing Demand and the Decline in Rental Housing Affordability, written by Gary Engelhardt, Ph.D. of Syracuse University, examines the role of housing demand in declining rental affordability. It introduces a new approach to measuring affordability that accounts for changes in housing quality, rental prices and household economic decisions.

“Traditional measures of rental affordability often fail to distinguish between rent increases driven by improvements in housing quality and those driven by rising housing costs,” said Engelhardt. “Our research finds that while rental housing affordability declined in most of the country, as much as half of the increase in rental expenditures over the past decade is associated with improvements in housing quality.”

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