Housing Affordabilty: Renters and Owners

This indicator shows the percent of households who are not housing cost-burdened, defined as those who spend less than 30% of their income on housing costs, including rent or mortgage, utilities, taxes, insurance, and fees. 

Between 2018 and 2022, about 2 in 3 King County households (65.0%), including renters, owners with mortgages, and owners without mortgages, paid less than 30% of their income for housing costs and were therefore considered to have affordable housing costs. Fewer renters (52.0%) compared to owners with mortgages (71.5%) had affordable housing costs. Households that pay a high percentage of their income for housing have less money for other necessities including food. 

• Trends: The rate of households in King County with affordable housing costs was did not change much between 2013 (62.7%) and 2022 (64.2%). Over this same time period, the proportion of mortgage holders who had affordable housing increased from 65.2% to 72.3%. However, it did not grow for renters.   

• Race and ethnicity: Black/African American (46.1%), Hispanic/Latino (58.3%), and multiple race (60.7%) headed households were all less likely to have affordable housing costs than the King County average. 

• Gender: Male-headed households (70.3%) were more likely to have affordable housing costs than female-headed households (61.6%).  

• Age: Households headed by people 18-24 years old (35.8%) were less likely to have affordable housing costs compared to households headed by all other age groups. However, those headed by people ages 65 and older were also less likely to have affordable housing costs than King County average.  

• Income and poverty: Households with higher incomes were most likely to have affordable housing costs. Nearly all (96.1%) households earning $150,000 or more annually had affordable housing costs, compared to only 12.7% of households earning less than $20,000 per year. Similarly, households experiencing poverty were least likely to have affordable housing costs. Less than 1 in 6 households earning less than 100% of the federal poverty level (15.1%) and about 1 in 5 households at 100-199% of poverty level (20.5%) had affordable housing costs. In contrast, most households earning 400% or more of the federal poverty level (86.7%) had affordable housing costs.  

• Region and city/neighborhood: Overall, households in South King County (62.6%) were less likely to have affordable housing than households in East King County (70.5%). Additionally, households in 12 cities/neighborhoods were less likely than King County average to have affordable housing costs, including Federal Way – North Corridor (49.8%), Kent – Central (52.6%) and West (54.7%), North Highline/White Center (54.9%), Seattle – University District (36.5%), and Seatac (56.3%).