Is Fresno unaffordable? Rising housing costs put strain on renters, homeowners
Over the past few years, the average amount that Fresno households spend on housing — whether they are renters or homeowners with a mortgage — has climbed faster than household incomes.
It’s a combination that’s putting greater financial pressure on residents at a time when the city is already confronting a shortage of affordable housing — pressure that is but one factor contributing to Fresno’s growing homelessness issues.
The U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development even has a term for it: “cost-burdened.” A household is considered cost-burdened if more than 30% of its household income is spent on housing costs, including rent or mortgage and utilities. In Fresno, almost two-thirds of renter households and more than one-third of homeowners with a mortgage fall into the cost-burdened category.
In 2023, that was more than 48,500 renter households in Fresno and more than 21,000 homeowners with a mortgage.
Those include more than 34% of renters, and almost 17% of mortgage-paying homeowners, who spend more than 50% of their income for housing costs and are deemed “severely cost-burdened.”
The more money that a household has to shell out for rent or a mortgage, the less they have left over for food, clothing, education, health care, transportation, and other family necessities or emergencies — nearly all of which are also being affected by higher prices.
Between 2021 and 2023, the most recent data available from the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household income for renter households grew from about $41,600 to about $45,300, an increase of just under 9%.
But in that same span, the median rent soared by more than 22%, rising from $1,166 per month to $1,427.
The result of that increase, in tandem with a significant rise in electricity rates, has been an increase of almost 2,400 renter households in the cost-burdened category.
Among homeowners with a mortgage, a 10.3% increase in median household income was outpaced by a 17% increase in average monthly housing costs and a rise of almost nine percentage points in the number of mortgage-paying households that are cost-burdened.
While the percentage of cost-burdened renter households had wobbled between 52% and 62% since 2010, the 63% of renter households cost-burdened in 2023 was the highest share in at least 13 years of data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Similarly, the 36.6% of cost-burdened, mortgage-paying households in 2023 was the highest level since 2013.
Not uniquely a Fresno issue
The phenomenon of reduced housing affordability is hardly unique to Fresno, but is apparently more acute than other parts of the state and nation.
A recent analysis by ApartmentList.com determined that Fresno and the surrounding San Joaquin Valley region tend to have more affordable apartment rents than other California rental markets. However, the analysis also found Fresno County ranked seventh among the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. for having the highest renter cost-burden rate at just over 60% — eight percentage points higher than the U.S.
The ApartmentList report notes that, nationwide, the number of renter households that are cost-burdened reached an all-time high in 2023. Across the U.S., an estimated 52% of renting households are cost-burdened. That’s about 22 million households.
“Since 2019, rents have grown faster than renter incomes in 82 of the nation’s 100 largest metros,” the report states.
“With more than half of renters (nationwide) spending an unhealthy share of their income on rent, it is clear that significant work must be done to alleviate a housing affordability crisis that has now extended to virtually every part of the country,” wrote Chris Salviati, a senior housing economist and author of the ApartmentList report.
The ApartmentList report, based on 2023 U.S. Census Bureau data, also notes that the rent-burdened figures for other Valley counties are:
- 49.8% in the Modesto/Stanislaus County metropolitan area.
- 59.2% in the Merced/Merced County metropolitan area.
- 53.8% in the Hanford/Corcoran/Kings County metropolitan area.
- 52.5% in the Visalia/Tulare County metropolitan area.
Not evenly distributed
The financial pressures of housing costs climbing faster than household incomes varies within the city of Fresno and across Fresno County. A Fresno Bee analysis indicates that of 225 individual Census tracts countywide, 41 tracts that account for about 16,000 renter households have fewer than one-third of their renters falling into the rent-burdened category – including three tracts in which no renter households were counted as cost-burdened.
By contrast, there are 103 Census tracts containing more than 71,000 rental units in which at least half of the renter households were cost-burdened. In 23 of those tracts, more than two-thirds of renters were cost-burdened.
The highest percentages of cost-burdened renters were more than 87% in a Census tract in the western Fresno County farming community of Firebaugh; almost 84% in a tract in southeast Clovis; and more than 83% in a tract on the western outskirts of Fresno.
This story was originally published January 5, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
