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Affordable housing construction skyrocketed across the country over the prior five years, with one metro taking the cake for building the most units: Seattle.
Developers completed about 310,000 new affordable apartments from 2020 through 2024, a 73 percent surge compared to the prior five-year period of 2015 to 2019, according to a report from RentCafe.
Of those 310,000 new units, about a third — nearly 91,500 — were built in 2024. RentCafe’s data stretches back to 2015, and each year has seen an increase in new units built.
The report attributes the spike in affordable construction to policy measures like the low-income tax credit, the American Rescue Plan Covid-19-era relief package, which directed funds into housing, and new or expanded state tax credit programs.
Among the country’s largest markets, Seattle saw the most units built from 2020 to 2019, almost 14,300, representing a 40 percent growth compared to the prior five-year period.
One of the largest new affordable housing complexes in the metro was Four Corners at 8102 Evergreen Way in Everett, which has 430 units and is supported by a $1 million grant from the Connecting Housing to Infrastructure Program.
The Emerald City surpassed New York City by just 50 units.
Meanwhile, the markets seeing the fastest growth rates in affordable housing construction are in the Sun Belt. First place was San Antonio, Texas, which recorded an almost 223 percent increase in affordable apartments from 2020 to 2024 compared to the prior five-year period. Following San Antonio was Phoenix (206 percent increase) and Charlotte (191 percent increase).
The Big Apple, where affordable units comprised roughly 32 percent of all new housing deliveries, ranked fourth in the country in terms of growth, as the metro experienced a more than 185 percent increase compared to the prior five years.