Here’s a info-packed chart from Saint Paul’s latest Marketwatch report — this one subtitled “Trends in the unsubsidized multifamily rental market” — showing average rents for different apartments of different sizes, along with the 60% AMI level for the city.
Voila:
The full document, available here, has a lot more charts about the state of the housing market in Saint Paul these days.
Here’s the description of the chart:
From 2010 to April 2018, average rent rose 16% in Saint Paul to $1,075. While this is still lower than the average for the 7-county metro ($1,197 as of April 2018), for low- and moderate-income renters, this increase is significant.
By traditional measures, rent is considered affordable when a household spends no more than 30% of its income on housing. At first glance, Saint Paul rental homes appear to be attainable to many families in need of affordable housing — based on area median income (AMI)5. As shown in the chart below, for households earning 60% of AMI the average rent in Saint Paul
5- Area median income is calculated for the 13-county HUD Metro MN-WI area of Minneapolis- St Paul- Bloomington.
is within reach. Even a two-bedroom apartment is just $29 per month beyond what a four-person household earning $51,480 annually (60% AMI) can afford.
However, when measured against the city median income (CMI) rather than the regional median income, that affordability evaporates. Again, as shown in the chart below, the average one-bedroom rents for $262 more per month than a household earning 60% of CMI can afford. The average two-bedroom is also far out of reach, with the average rent $385 more per month than a household earning 60% of CMI can afford.
As shown here, many rents are out of reach for people making below average incomes, at least at the city level. Finally, here’s another chart ripped from the report, showing increase or decrease of rents for different parts of the city.
Honestly, many of these numbers are lower than I would have thought given how tight the rental market has become in the city. Some of them, however, show large increases.
And keep in mind that these numbers do not account for new units constructed in Saint Paul, if there were any. For example, there have been hundreds of new housing units added to areas like Downtown, West 7th, or Union Park which would affect average rents by adding units at the high end, but fewer examples of new construction in neighborhoods like Como or Highland.