Mass. apartment rents tops in US

New England found least affordable region

By Thomas Grillo, Globe Correspondent, 9/9/2003

For the second consecutive year, Massachusetts is the most expensive state in the nation in which to rent an apartment, according to a survey by the National Low Income Housing Coalition in Washington, D.C.

A full-time worker in Massachusetts would have to earn $22.40 per hour -- more than three times the minimum wage of $6.75 -- to afford the fair market rent of $1,165 for a two-bedroom dwelling, the report said. The wage is based on how much an employee must earn while paying no more than 30 percent of income in rent.

"Housing costs are still rising in Massachusetts and it's having a tremendous impact on the ability of low- and moderate-income people to afford an apartment," said Aaron Gornstein, executive director at the Citizens' Housing and Planning Association, a statewide group that supports affordable housing initiatives.

The report, "Out of Reach 2003: America's Growing Wage-Rent Disparity," also found that New England was the least affordable region in the country. Connecticut ranked 6th overall for rental costs and New Hampshire 9th, the survey said.

In the national survey, the Bay State was followed by California, New Jersey, New York, and Maryland in rental prices. In 37 states, the amount of income required to rent a two-bedroom apartment is more than twice the prevailing hourly wage of those states.

While Manhattan has among the highest rents in the nation, when rural areas of upstate New York state are factored into the equation, Massachusetts becomes the more expensive state in which to rent, the study's authors said.

Rents in the Boston Metropolitan Statistical Area -- which stretches from Boston, south to Duxbury, north to Gloucester and as far west as Southborough -- are the highest in the state at $1,419 for a two-bedroom apartment. The greater Lowell area was second highest at $1,065 and the greater Brockton area was third at $1,046.

"Out of Reach 2003" also found that two working parents, each earning the minimum wage, must work nearly 70 hours apiece, per week, to afford a median-priced two-bedroom unit in Massachusetts. A single person earning the minimum wage must work 133 hours per week to afford the same two-bedroom unit.

Furthermore, the report found that there is no community in Massachusetts in which a person earning the minimum wage can afford the fair market rent for an apartment.

The report, paid for by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Housing Assistance Council in Washington, relied on data from the Department of Housing & Urban Development and the US Census.

Skip Schloming, executive director of the Small Property Owners Association in Cambridge dismissed the findings, saying the study is flawed because it assumes that the minimum wage person is living in mid-priced dwellings.

"There's a rental housing ladder from the bottom to the top and they're saying people at the bottom can't afford housing priced in the mid range," Schloming said "People at the bottom are living in housing at the bottom and that kind of housing should be preserved."

Kathryn Berger, a 24-year-old student at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, said she's not surprised by the findings. She had hoped to find a rental for less than $1,000, but had to settle for a one-bedroom apartment for $1,175.