Report: Black and Hispanic renters could afford less than 2 percent of Boston rentals
There are significantly fewer options for black and Hispanic renters in metro Boston, according to a report Zillow released Tuesday.
There are significantly fewer options for black and Hispanic renters in metro Boston than for other racial groups, according to a report Zillow released Tuesday.
The median income for a black household in the area was $49,611 in 2017, according to the report, and that household would have to spend 62.8 percent of its income in order to afford the median-priced rental here ($2,595 per month). It’s ideal not to spend more than 30 percent of your income on rent, according to the report. Using that criterion, the share of rentals a black household with the median income could afford on Zillow in 2017 was only 1.6 percent. For Hispanic households, it was even less — 1.2 percent. For Asian and white earners, it was a little more than 40 percent each.
The website’s definition of “metro Boston” is Suffolk, Middlesex, Essex, Norfolk, and Plymouth counties, as well as Rockingham and Stratford counties in Southern New Hampshire.
Nationally, a renter making the median household income in 2017 ($59,250) could afford 42 percent of the listings on the site, but for a black household making the median household income for that demographic ($39,647), the figure was only 16.2 percent — less than a third of what white and Asian households could afford
“The desire to own a home is similar across all races, but the difference in homeownership rates between races is wide – a lasting legacy of the historical income gap,” said Aaron Terrazas, a senior economist for Zillow.
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