For Many People of Color, Access to Affordable Homes Is Scarce

In 2017, less than half of the rental listings on Zillow were affordable for the typical U.S. household. For black and Hispanic households, the share of affordable listings is much smaller.

Indeed, households earning the median white household income can afford three times as many rental home listings as those earning the median black household income, and almost twice as many as those earning the median Hispanic household income, according to Zillow’s research. "If the typical black and Hispanic households were willing to spend up to 45 percent of their income on rent, they would still have had fewer listings to choose from than the typical Asian household spending just 30 percent of income on rent."

Even more shocking is expanding that budget to 60 percent for the typical black household still yields just 64.3 percent of all listed homes— 3.1 percentage-points fewer than Asians sticking with the 30 percent rule-of-thumb. Put another way: the typical black household could spend twice as much of their paycheck on rent as a workaday Asian household and still find fewer rentals within even that wildly bloated budget. The burden is real for many people of color: The supply and price of available rentals often require them to put more of their income toward housing expenses than whites.

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