Miami housing costs soar past affordability threshold

Miami rents have climbed high enough to consume 43 percent of the typical household income, according to a new analysis by real estate website Zillow.

That’s up from a historical average of just over 25 percent of household income for the area, the New York Times reported. The high cost of rent and utilities is putting the squeeze on middle-class city-dwellers, according to the article — especially considering the industry rule-of-thumb that says spending more than 30 percent of household income on housing is unaffordable.

The report attributes the jump to a similar rise in land prices, caused by Miami’s voracious appetite for luxury condominiums — making affordable housing tough to build anywhere near Downtown, according to the Times. Moving to the suburbs isn’t necessarily affordable either — Miami was the most expensive metropolitan area in the country when housing and transportation costs were factored in to a 2012 study by the Center for Housing Policy, the article said.

The icing on the cake is the number of residents with another big cost factor to bear: Half of all rental applicants were paying off student loans as of last fall, compared with only a quarter of applicants in 2008, CoreLogic told the Times. [NYT] — Angela Hunt

(Photo of Miami from Shutterstock)