Analyzing housing affordability of U.S. renters during the Great Recession, 2007 to 2009

During the somewhat recent Great Recession, there was a popular notion that housing affordability for all renters had deteriorated. In this study, we investigate this notion by utilizing two national merged American Housing Survey (AHS) data sets from 2007 to 2009. We analyze housing affordability for renters, comparing and contrasting four subgroups in terms of their monthly average household incomes and housing costs, among other variables. We conduct descriptive statistics and multinomial logit analyses in order to predict the probability of a renter being in a given subgroup. We find that 62.90% of renters had increased household incomes but decreased housing cost burdens or decreased household incomes and decreased housing cost burdens, dispelling the notion that housing affordability has deteriorated. We also find that changes in average household income and staying or becoming employed or married translates into high odds of being in subgroups with increased household incomes.