Report: Average salary needed to rent in New Orleans rent is $64K
26th February 2024 · 0 Comments
By Fritz Esker
Contributing Writer
The real estate marketplace Zillow recently published a report on rental rates across the country. According to the report, the typical rent in New Orleans is $1,603 a month and the salary needed to afford market rate rent is $64,000 per year.New Orleans is still below the national average, as the average salary needed to afford market rate rent in the United States is $78,304 a year. According to inflation-adjusted data available from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey one-year estimates, the median household income for Orleans Parish is $52,322.
As points of comparison for New Orleans among other Southern cities, the typical rent in Houston was $1,644 per month and Birmingham was $1,374 per month. Typical rent in Memphis was $1,454 per month and Charlotte was $1,772 per month. The survey did not take into account average wages in those cities.
The most expensive cities for rent in the report were San Diego ($2,964 a month), San Francisco ($2,984), Boston ($3,056), San Jose ($3,177) and New York ($3,115).
On a national level, rents are up 3.4 percent from last year. Rents are up from last year in 47 of the 50 biggest metro areas in the country.
Alma Luna, a New Orleans-based cybersecurity consultant who works remotely, recently left her two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in Mid-City near City Park because the rent had climbed to $2,200 per month. She chose to move to Gentilly, where she has a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with a side yard for $1,800 per month.
“It (rent in Mid-City) definitely got too expensive for me to be able to do it alone,” Luna said.
Luna said her landlord had told her the rent increase was due to mounting insurance costs. She also added that many of her neighbors moved out of her neighborhood before she did so the rent increase was not limited to her residence.
Daiquiri Jones, organizing and community engagement lead for Orleans Parish for the Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative, said, “The reasons we hear from landlords blame rising costs, such as insurance, and while this is true to an extent…the national trend shows rent increases outpacing wage increases. In a city like New Orleans, it is a disaster…Some landlords refuse to raise rent much if at all, which is a powerful act, but many use these increases as an opportunity to seek out renters, often those new to the city, who have higher incomes.”
Jones added that the current climate makes renters less likely to report quality-of-life issues with their apartments to landlords because the cost of moving and finding an apartment now is so high.
A local bartender (who preferred to remain anonymous) lives with four roommates in an 1,800-square-foot apartment in Broadmoor for $1,250 per month. He said he has only experienced a $50 rent increase in recent years. He said pay in the service industry is still good for hourly employees.
“Business is good, definitely not great, but getting better since the pandemic,” the bartender said regarding the service industry.
Some New Orleanians have found themselves in more dire situations, according to Monique Blossom, director of policy and communications for Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center.
“We’ve also observed an increase in calls from previous clients who are in need of rental assistance for a second or third time, which indicates that there is a serious problem with housing affordability in New Orleans,” Blossom said.
Blossom stated that New Orleans was already experiencing an affordable housing crisis before the COVID-19 pandemic, but that the pandemic has exacerbated it. She emphasized that illegal evictions still take place in the Crescent City. She also added that even a small increase in rent can have significant effects on renters in the current climate.
“It’s not just housing that has become more expensive, there’s inflation in utilities, groceries, all the basics a family needs to get by,” Blossom said.
This article originally published in the February 26, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
