Montgomery County’s renters don’t have too many complaints against their landlords, but half of them are sweating the rent, according to results of a county survey released Monday.
Graph: Issues important to renters. And yes, those are Peeps. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.
About 50 percent of the survey’s 588 respondents said they didn’t expect to afford the rent at their current homes in the next five years. The results, pulled together by the county’s tenant work group, didn’t explain why respondents felt this way. However, half of the tenants surveyed said they’d seen annual rent increases of 4 to 7 percent. Most (75 percent) had their rents raised at least once in five years.
“This survey shows that many tenants are subject to rent increases that go well beyond the voluntary county guidelines,” Matt Losak, a renter and chairman of the tenants work group, said in a press statement. “We need rental housing laws that ensure tenants more long-term security.”
Both short- and long-term affordability were important issues to renters, the survey found, but so were crime and personal safety (see graph). While the data suggested comfort inside the home and around the neighborhood, tenants felt less secure in parking areas and other open spaces around their buildings.
At least tenants were getting along with their landlords.
The survey found more than 80 percent of respondents were comfortable hitting up the landlord with questions or concerns, and 72 percent said the landlords were responsive. The majority of tenants — 87 percent — also said they’d never gotten a taste of discrimination from past, present or potential landlords. For the 66 tenants who did, it was based mostly on race, color or national origin, they claimed.
The majority of tenants dropped at least $1,000 each month on rent alone, though the bulk paid somewhere between $1,000 and $1,500 monthly. That didn’t include the utility bills that 69 percent of renters paid; for 38 percent of them, that meant picking up bills for electricity, heating fuel, and water and sewage services, the survey found.
Of the 80,000 rental units in Montgomery County, 85 tenants in the 20910 zip code completed the survey. That zip code includes Silver Spring’s central business district.
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Everyone sweats the rent. The survey didn’t address the yardsticks used for judging when a rent payment is unaffordable, and to whom. Should a low- or moderate-income household that spends a
large share of their income on housing to live in a “better” neighborhood be viewed as having an affordability problem or as having just made a choice to spend more on housing?
Re: “Should a low- or moderate-income household that spends a
large share of their income on housing to live in a “better” neighborhood be viewed as having an affordability problem or as having just made a choice to spend more on housing?”
We have a problem if a low or moderate-income household (say, one making 25 to 50% of the county’s median income) is spending a large share of their income (say, 35% or more) on housing, not because they choose to live in a desirable part of the county but because there are no areas in the county with rents that would cost less than 30% of their income.
Focusing exclusively on housing costs as a share of income glosses over difficult decisions about how to define and measure affordability that warrant greater public debate. We have a problem if we’re using surveys like this to make Public Policy…
DogsRule,
Housing and rental costs in Montgomery County is a big problem for people making more than half the county median income.
I have an issue with how landlords and real estate developers price properties close to public transportation networks. Rents for apartments skyrocket as we get closer to a Metro train station. Even high-traffic bus lines can generate higher rents.
Now, here is the problem. Most lower-to-middle income rely on Metro rail and bus transportation to commute for work or errands. I know that most lower income people do NOT prefer to commute by vehicle for long distance travels. But they are being shut out of downtown Silver Spring because of the “convenience” to numerous bus lines and the Red Line Metro station.
Since when does convenient access to Metro become a privilege for the upper-income, professional class in the DC area? After all, most yuppies own their own vehicles anyway. They can easily afford the $100+/month parking garage fees in some Silver Spring developments. And you have a surprise number that commute by vehicle to Northern Virginia or Rockville area. You think that someone making below $50K per year doesn’t want the same privilege of walking to the grocery store or the Metro rail station? Even working class want the same thing.
So, yes, it is about CHOICE…but it’s a painful choice for lower-to-middle class Montgomery County residents. No one should have to devote a significant percentage of his income to paying the rent…even if the neighborhood has close accessibility to Metro and shops.
I had numerous Internet battles with posters on the Penguin site who argued that gentrification works well for everyone…let the free market and God sort out the carnage. I laugh at those MFers today when I see empty units in the newer condo and leasing developments in Silver Spring. Even the $75-$100K yuppie crowd is not going to pay $2,300 per month for a 1 bedroom closet in the Veridian. Greed is a real bitch if you are a landlord/real estate developer.
How one conceives of and measures housing affordability matters to policy making as well as public perceptions of the scope and nature of the problem. It’s why we need to debate before we decide who can easily afford what.
I think when determining affordability, we should take into account not just how much people spend on housing but what they get in return for it in terms of neighborhood and housing quality as well as in terms of proximity to jobs and shopping. In my opinion, this report/survey falls short of everything but hyperbole.
I’m proudly one of the many people that IHY duked it out with on this blog because I so strongly feel his opinions are unsubstatiated by fact.
I’m a die hard liberal Democrat, but there are a few good lines from Reagan worth quoting. In this case, as I shake my head side to side I quote “There you go again….”.
Real estate is cyclical and this low cycle too shall end, albeit more slowly than those int the past. With most developers it’s (usually) not greed, it’s profit. IHY, if you want to vent your anger, it should be at the lending institutions who f’d the country by loaning trillions of dollars to lower income renters who should have NEVER been buying houses because they didn’ thave the income or qualifications. That fueled hyper demand and hyper price inflation. A developer certainly can’t say no to those people when they were buying…it would be against Fair Housing laws.
While you laugh at the deep slump in the real estate market, the real victims aren’t the yuppies or the “greedy” develolpers, but the millions of working class people who are jobless because the yuppies you hate aren’t buying from or supporting the businesses that construct, manage and operate the housing you think should not cost more.
And finally, unless you want a socialist society and government you will always pay more to live in the center of a developed urban area with public transportation. No, it’s not fair, but the alternative is not the rosy picture you believe it to be.
Actually, Woodsider…I call myself a social democrat. I believe that the market system distorts and destroys community, family, the environment and the meaning of self-worth. Socialism has a lot more “street cred” today thanks to the financial crisis and the housing bubble.
As a side note: a liberal democrat thinks the Senate health care bill should be passed and signed by Obama like ASAP. Never mind the serious capitulations made to the private health care insurance and Big Pharma industries. A Social Democrat (Progressive) believes in a nationalized health care system similar to what exists in Canada or the UK. I am sending letters to Mikulski and Cardin to oppose this bill.
I beg to differ about the yuppies not hurting. Ask anyone who bought condos in Silver Spring during the height of the bubble, how much the value of their property has dropped. Furthermore, they are stuck in their condo until the real estate market picks up again. See how that sucks for them!
I also think the real estate developer can say NO to a prospective low-income buyer. According to the supposed RATIONAL market system, the developer cannot make a sale to someone who does not have means to make a home purchase. Of course, we know the market system encountered an EPIC FAILURE when the mortgage lenders and banks decided to rig the game. Correct me if am wrong, but I thought Fair Housing laws dealt specifically with race, gender and age–not socio-economic status.
The everyday lives of employed yuppies have not changed just because the value f their home has declined, unless they need(ed) to sell. Otherwise,like everyone else who owns a home for the long term you ride out the ups and downsnof the market. Like stocks, it’s just value on paper until you sell.
Regarding fair housing, if the prospective purchaser has been approved for the loan, then the developer can’t deny them (simple version). Only some buyers finance through the developer, and in those cases the developer would be at fault for lending with ridiculously low standards.
The booms and busts of capitalism do lots of damage, and real estate booms are especially awful. Local government reliance on real estate taxes is bad, too. The tax system should be much more progressive, and based upon income. Big housing profits also depend upon human population growth — at a time when more and more human labor is being replaced with technology. So where are all those underemployed humans going to live — doubled up? Where will their clean water come from? Where will their wastewater go? Will we ever talk about an economy with more stability? Will we even mention the notion of population stability? Will health care reform provide free contraception, or will the steady stream of ads for Cialis, etc. continue?