Americas most expensive metros are becoming affordability traps for long-term renters

While pandemic-era low mortgage rates have paralyzed the housing market, a parallel renter “lock-in” effect is gripping the nation’s most expensive metros, as tenants in New York City and Los Angeles find it financially impossible to walk away from below-market leases.Long-term renters—defined as households that remain in the same rental unit for at least five years—make up roughly 36% of all tenant households in the US, according to a new report from Realtor.com analyzing the 2024 American Community Survey data across the 100 largest metros. A typical long-term renting household is headed by a 55-year-old adult, living in a household of two people and two bedrooms, with a median household income of $48,500. Although some long-term renters stay in place by choice, either because they crave stability or have a particular affinity for their neighborhood, for others, moving has become a financial impossibility.“In high-cost markets where moving means surrendering a below-market lease for a unit that could cost hundreds of dollars more per month, the decision to stay is less about stability and more about survival,” says Realtor.com economist Jiayi Xu.“Higher borrowing costs have pushed many renters out of the market, so they are staying renters longer than planned,” Nadia Evangelou, principal economist at the National Association of Realtors, tells Realtor.com.“At the same time, higher rents in recent years have made it harder to save for a down payment, reinforcing that cycle.Perhaps unsurprisingly, the largest concentrations of long-term tenants are found in the nation’s most expensive metros and their nearby “refuge markets” where leases are cheaper by comparison, which creates a separate set of challenges.New York tops the ranking with the highest share of long-term renters across the largest 100 metros, at 53.3%.

Los Angeles is not far behind, at 49.6%.Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and mo...