When it comes to , local residents are bearing a pretty big burden when it comes to writing that monthly rent check.
According to the and the , more than 41 percent of Denver area renters are spending more than 35 percent of their income just to pay rent. The study looked at gross rent paid, which included utilities. In Denver, the median gross rent was $920.
That put Denver slightly above the national median gross rent of $871, which according to new data found that 44 percent of all renter households had a housing cost burden in 2011, an increase of 1.85 percentage points from 2009. A housing burden is determined to exist when a household spends 35 percent or more of income on housing costs.
The findings showed that while the recession may have ended, that doesn’t mean good times are here again for everyone. With a decline in the homeownership over the last several years due to the mortgage and foreclosure crisis that forced people out of their homes and made mortgage lending more dicey, larger percentage of households have turned to renting their homes between 2009 and 2011.
Denver’s percentage of “burdened renters” was the same as cities like Austin, Minneapolis, Nashville, Providence, R.I. and San Antonio.
Even in the “” — Orlando — renters were among the most burdened, with 52.87 percent of renters paying more than 35 percent of their income for .
In Tampa, 49 percent of renters are considered burdened; in San Diego, 48 percent of renters are burdened while , Atlanta, sees 45 percent of its renters are burdened.
Only 80 of the 366 metro areas experienced a statistically significant change in median gross rent between 2009 and 2011, with 23 areas seeing an increase and 57 areas experiencing a decrease.
