N.J. has fourth highest rents nationwide, study finds PDF Print Email

Published: March 14, 2012
By Sarah Portlock

New Jersey ranks fourth in the nation for the most expensive place to rent a two-bedroom apartment, leaving nearly two-thirds of renters in the Garden State unable to afford an apartment that size, according to a study released yesterday.

The data, from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, comes as no surprise to Newark resident Marlene Vaughan. The mother of three has been unemployed for a year and a half, and recently moved into the Pacific Apartments, an affordable housing complex in the city’s Ironbound neighborhood, after her home in East Orange faced foreclosure.

"The people who live here are all nationalities and backgrounds," said Vaughan, 47, who pays $1,109 each month for her three-bedroom apartment. "It just goes to show you so many people, of all walks of life, need this affordable housing."

Thirty-three percent of New Jersey households are renters, and a family must earn an hourly wage of $25.04, or $52,081 annually, to afford the so-called fair market rate for a two-bedroom apartment, without paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing. That rent, at $1,302, includes utilities. Based on those figures, 62 percent of renters in New Jersey are unable to afford fair market rent, according to the annual report.

Fair market rent is derived from the rents in the 40th percentile of an area, and are determined on an annual basis by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

By comparison, residents must earn $31.68 per hour in Hawaii to afford apartments there, $28.96 in Washington D.C. and $26.02 in California. At the other end, renters need to earn only $11.50 in West Virginia, $11.41 in Arkansas and $9.88 in Puerto Rico to afford a two-bedroom apartment, the report found.

"New Jersey has become less affordable in the last year," said Diane Sterner, executive director of the Trenton-based Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, which worked with the federal group on the report. In 2011, a household income of $51,044 annually was needed to afford rent and utilities.

"We need our leaders to invest in New Jersey’s future and help create the homes our residents need, and empower municipalities to transform their neighborhoods into vibrant, affordable, safe communities," Sterner said.

The most expensive fair market rents in New Jersey are in Bergen and Passaic counties at $1,515 per month, where renters need an annual income of at least $60,600. Cumberland County has the lowest rents at $1,017, where residents need to make $40,680 annually.

"If people are not earning the type of money that matches up with the rents on the market, we need to be doing something about that," said Joseph Della Fave, executive director of the Ironbound Community Corporation. "The matter of affordable housing is not an issue that stands by itself — it’s about the quality of life for people, it’s about strong neighborhoods and communities, (and) it’s about a strong state of New Jersey as well."

In a statement, the New Jersey Apartment Association called the report "an annual reminder" that New Jersey is an expensive place to live, but said it failed to tell the whole story.

"To measure our lifestyle here by the relative cost of apartments to minimum wage earners in Bergen County, where the average income is 400 percent higher than minimum wage, insults what the real issues of affordable housing are: regulation and development policy," the statement said. "We have the resources and the capacity to create more affordable housing in this state, but what we don’t have is the will to reduce regulation and encourage development."