Renting in Houston is a bargain compared to the high prices of New York City, Chicago and San Diego. But that doesn’t mean Houston is more affordable for residents.
A Kinder Institute analysis of federal estimates shows Houston had the second-highest share of “cost-burdened” renters — people who spend more than 30% of their income on housing — among the 10 largest U.S. cities in 2024. About 293,000 renters, or roughly 55% of renters for whom spending rates were calculated, crossed the widely cited threshold at which residents often struggle to afford other basic necessities.
Houston’s high rate of cost-burdened renters cuts against the city’s reputation as an affordable destination relative to the nation’s coastal hubs.
While the median Houston rent ranked second-lowest among the 10 largest cities — about $1,400 per month — local renters also earned the least. The median household income for Houston renters totaled about $48,100, while renters in several other cities earned $10,000-plus more.
Michelle Smirnova, director of the Kinder Institute’s Center for Housing and Neighborhoods, said Houston’s reputation as an affordable city can mask the reality for lower-income households.
“There are a lot of advantages that we have in Houston, but that obscures the fact that we are doing really poorly for the poor, and increasingly for the middle class,” Smirnova said.
The city’s rental affordability challenges come as current and prospective homebuyers contend with elevated housing prices, mortgage rates, homeowners insurance premiums and property taxes.
The number of renters in the city jumped by 90,000 in 2024 compared to the prior year, a 7.5% increase. By contrast, the number of homeowners fell by nearly 13,500, a 1.2% decline. The city’s Black homeownership rate particularly tumbled, falling 15.6%.
The rental cost and living arrangement analyses only include data for the city of Houston. They don't capture unincorporated Harris County, other municipalities in Harris County or neighboring counties.
Assistance and earnings
Researchers and advocates said several factors make renting in Houston more unaffordable than other major cities.
Houston’s affordable housing policies and government investment are relatively modest compared to several cities.
In New York City and Los Angeles, rent control ordinances cap annual increases in rent on hundreds of thousands of units. (Rent control critics argue that such policies place an unfair burden on landlords and discourage new housing construction that could help bring down housing prices.)
Chicago and Philadelphia don’t allow rent control, but both cities’ local housing authorities provide financial support to help cover rent to tens of thousands more residents than Houston.
At the same time, Houston renters often struggle to earn high enough wages to cover rent and other costs.
While the city is home to several higher-paying industries, it has an above-average share of workers in several sectors with relatively low wages. They include construction, food preparation, transportation, and maintenance and repair work.
In addition, five of the 10 largest U.S. cities have a local- or state-mandated minimum wage that exceeds $15 per hour. Houston and other Texas cities rely on the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
“Houston attracts people for oil and gas and healthcare, and it’s attractive and affordable to people at the higher income strata,” Smirnova said. “But we are such an unequal city that the experience of people at the bottom is dire, and increasingly there is no middle.”
A growing burden
Recent trends suggest the city’s affordability pressures are becoming more widespread for Houston renters.
The estimated share of Houston renters who are cost-burdened increased from 50.9% in 2022 to 51.2% the following year and 55.5% in 2024.
Notably, the median household income for Houston renters fell $2,600 year over year in 2024, or 3.8%. The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the city rose by about $26 per month, or 1.8%.
Nicole Cassier, chief strategy officer for the Houston affordable housing nonprofit Avenue, said Houston’s predicament shows new construction alone won’t make the city affordable for the hundreds of thousands of households struggling to afford rent.
“We can’t just build our way out of the problem while simultaneously losing the affordable housing we already have,” she said. “It is a production and a preservation problem.”
Smirnova said the Kinder Institute recently partnered with the city of Houston and Harris County to launch a housing dashboard that tracks how much subsidized and non-subsidized housing is available to households earning 30% to 80% of the area median income. The information can help policymakers determine where to encourage new construction, offer tax incentives or pursue mixed-income housing.
“We are really interested in understanding other factors that erode affordability, including utility costs, property taxes, insurance, the cost of climate disasters themselves and rebuilding — all of the invisible factors that may erode affordability, but really boil down to: What is the true cost of housing in Houston?” she said.
