It’s no secret that rents in the city are rising.
Studies show that in the past seven years, rents have risen twice as fast as wages in New York City and landlords usually ask a tenant to pay at least 30 percent of his or her income.
Using data that outlined the median asking rent for the third quarter of 2017 and median income for households in Queens in 2016, real estate website StreetEasy mapped out how much a Queens resident should earn to live in a specific neighborhood.
The median asking rent in Queens is $2,200, which means a household would have to earn $88,000 to rent in the borough. The study also found that in nine of more than two dozen neighborhoods StreetEasy tracked, the household income needed to afford renting is at least 50 percent more than the household income earned in the borough.
If you’re looking to rent in Fresh Meadows, the study shows a household must make at least $110,000, or 76.8 percent above the borough’s median income. Other neighborhoods in northeast Queens such as Whitestone and Little Neck also topped the list.
In neighborhoods like Long Island City, where rentals are constantly being constructed, the median asking rent is $2,570, requiring a household to make at least $120,000, or 65.3 percent more than the borough’s median household income.
The more affordable neighborhoods include North Corona, where the median asking rent is $1,650 and the median income is $66,000; Briarwood, where the median asking rent is $1,725 and the median household income is $69,000; and Woodhaven, where the median asking rent is $1,750 and the median household income is $70,000.
StreetEasy acknowledges that some renters do not pay market-rate rents because they live in rent-controlled or rent-subsidized apartments, affordable housing or public housing or may have leases set at lower rates. Many New Yorkers also take on several roommates to help alleviate the cost burden.
“So while comparing market-rate rents with borough-wide incomes is not a perfect match, it gives insight into the struggle for affordability in the NYC rental market by showing what a household must earn to rent a market-rate apartment in a given neighborhood,” said Mariela Quintana, researcher at StreetEasy.
