Housing Affordabilty: Renters and Owners

This indicator shows the percent of households who are housing cost-burdened, defined as those who spend 30% or more of their income on housing costs including rent or mortgage, utilities, taxes, insurance, and fees. 

Between 2020 and 2024, 34.2% of King County households, including renters, owners with mortgages, and owners without mortgages, paid more than 30% of their income for housing costs and were therefore considered to have unaffordable housing costs. More renters (46.8%) compared to owners with mortgages (28.2%) had unaffordable 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, including renters, owners with mortgages, and owners without mortgages, with unaffordable housing costs did not change much between 2015 (33.4%) and 2024 (35.5%). However, it has increased slightly for renters in King County outside Seattle from 45.2% in 2015 to 51.1% in 2024.

• Race and ethnicity: BIPOC households were the most impacted by housing affordability. Black (61.0%), Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (58.5%), American Indian/Alaska Native (55.6%), and Hispanic/Latino (55.2%) had the highest rates of unaffordable housing. 

• Gender: Female-headed households (53.9%) were more likely to have unaffordable housing costs than male-headed households (41.4%).  

• Age: Households headed by people 75+ years old (71.6%) were more likely to have unaffordable housing costs compared to households headed by all other age groups. However, those headed by people ages 18-24 (63.3%) and 65-74 (62.7%) were also more likely to have unaffordable housing costs than households headed by people ages 25-64 (39.9%-50.2%). 

• Income and poverty: Households experiencing poverty were most likely to have unaffordable housing costs. Almost 9 in 10 households earning less than 100% of the federal poverty level (85.8%) and about 8 in 10 households at 100-199% of poverty level (82.4%) had unaffordable housing costs. In contrast, households earning 400% or more of the federal poverty level (16.5%) had the lowest rate of unaffordable housing costs.  

• Region and city/neighborhood: Overall, households in South King County (56.4%) and North King County (54.9%) were more likely to have unaffordable housing than households in East King County (39.4%) or Seattle (43.9%). Over 2 in 3 households in Seattle’s University District (67.9%), Federal Way – North Corridor (67.9%) and Des Moines and Normandy Park (67.2%) had unaffordable housing. The lowest rate of unaffordable housing was in Seattle’s Magnolia and Interbay neighborhood, at 28.4%.