Rental prices in Maryland and across the country are cooling, but Marylanders of all incomes continue to struggle with rental affordability, according to a new report.

Research from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies finds that after a period of rent growth in the post-pandemic years, rental increases nationally hovered near zero. At professionally managed apartment complexes, asking rent prices declined by a little more than half a percent. But more renters – including those with high income – are now more rent-burdened than ever.

Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate at the center, said affordability challenges among Maryland renters are at historic highs.

"So we are certainly seeing a bit of a slowdown in demand, seeing rents coming down especially in markets where there was a lot of new construction," she said. "But at the same time, we’re going into these conditions with really, really challenging affordability circumstances. We’re now at a record high number of renter households who are experiencing cost burden."

In 2001, Marylanders only paid a quarter of their income toward rent. Now, renters pay more than 31% of their income toward housing.

Airgood-Obrycki said a slight decrease in rent costs for one year does not compensate for the decades worth of increased rent costs that have far outpaced incomes.

"Rents are rising faster than incomes over the last couple of decades," she said, "and so that’s part of why we’re seeing such widespread affordability challenges and such widespread cost burdens across the country too. We’ve had two big periods of rent increase – the Great Recession and then the pandemic – and in both of those periods incomes really lagged. We just have this growing gap."

According to the report, since 2001, Maryland renters have seen their incomes grow only 4%.

Source: Public News Service