Got 27 hours in your day? If not, and you’re a minimum-wage worker in the District, you’re out of luck. That’s how many hours you’d need to work every weekday in order to afford fair-market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in D.C., according to a recent study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
But if D.C. seems to be getting impossibly more expensive these days, try McKinney or El Paso, Texas. Using census figures, the personal finance site NerdWallet calculated the increase in median rent in America’s 200 largest cities from 2007 to 2012, and the District comes in third place, behind the two Texas cities. McKinney, a Dallas suburb and one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, logged a 43 percent increase in its median rent over that five-year period, and El Paso posted a 34 percent gain. D.C.’s median rent went up 33 percent, from $871 to $1,158. (The study doesn’t take into account unit size or type—-and so D.C.’s rental units are probably much more expensive per square foot relative to those in McKinney than the chart above would indicate—-but the rate of change should still reflect each city’s overall rental landscape.)
The study shows rents in D.C. overtaking those in New York, whose median rent was $27 per month more expensive than D.C.’s in 2007 but $64 less than D.C.’s in 2012. San Francisco remains the priciest city in the country, with a median rent of $1,459. Both of those cities showed lower increases in median rent than D.C. over the five-year period: 22 percent for New York and 28 percent for San Francisco.
Below is the top-20 list:
Images via NerdWallet