Sonoma County ranks high for ‘cost burdened’ renters

A new study ranks Sonoma County 15th among U.S. communities with renters who are deemed “burdened” by the amount of income they must spend for housing.

An estimated 55.1 percent of the county’s renters last year spent more than 30 percent of their incomes on rent, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the online rent site Abodo.

Families that pay more than 30 percent of income for housing are considered “cost burdened” and may have difficulty affording other basics such as food, clothing, transportation and medical care, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,

The Abodo study comes at a time when the county’s average apartment rent climbed last quarter to $1,813, an increase of 7.6 percent in the last year, according to Real Answers, a Novato company that tracks data from large rental complexes. For context, the average two-bedroom, one-bath unit rents for $1,723, an increase of 7.7 percent.

County rents have soared 49.5 percent in five years, rising from $1,213 in the third quarter of 2011.

Abodo said it undertook the new study to see how hard it is for renters in different communities to keep housing costs beneath the 30-percent threshold.

Nine of the top 19 metro areas on Abodo’s list were from California, including Riverside-San Bernardino, which ranked fourth with 58.7 percent of its renters surpassing the threshold. Also on the list were Los Angeles, fifth; Fresno, seventh; Oxnard, eight; Stockton, ninth; San Diego, 10th; and Sacramento, 18th. San Francisco ranked 66th with 48 percent of renters exceeding the threshold.

The top-ranked metro area for the United States was Miami, with 63.9 percent of renters paying more than 30 percent of income for rent.

The study also looked at how the housing cost burden falls across different income groups.

In the county, 87.4 percent of renting families making less than $20,000 a year are deemed cost burdened, compared to 11 percent of those with incomes of $75,000 or more.

Among renters in the county’s median income range of $50,000 to $74,000, 46.1 percent spent above the threshold on rent.

The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University last year estimated that in 2013 nearly half of all the nation’s renters were spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing. That figure is substantially higher than a decade ago and roughly twice the rate of 1960.

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @rdigit