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 2019 and 2023, about 2 in 3 King County households (64.9%), 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 (51.8%) compared to owners with mortgages (71.6%) 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, including renters, owners with mortgages, and owners without mortgages, with affordable housing costs did not change much between 2014 (64.7%) and 2023 (64.0%). However, it has fallen slightly for renters from a high of 55.4% in 2015 to 51.4% in 2023.  

• Race and ethnicity: BIPOC households were the most impacted by housing affordability. Black (46.2%), Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (55.4%), Hispanic/Latino (56.3%), and American Indian/Alaska Native (58.1%) had the lowest rates of affordable housing. 

• Gender: Male-headed households (70.1%) were more likely to have affordable housing costs than female-headed households (61.5%).  

• Age: Households headed by people 18-24 years old (36.6%) 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 households headed by people ages 25-64. 

• Income and poverty: Households with higher incomes were most likely to have affordable housing costs. Nearly all (95.6%) households earning $150,000 or more annually had affordable housing costs, compared to only 12.3% 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 (14.1%) and about 1 in 5 households at 100-199% of poverty level (21.1%) had affordable housing costs. In contrast, most households earning 400% or more of the federal poverty level (86.4%) had affordable housing costs.  

• Region and city/neighborhood: Overall, households in South King County (62.0%) were less likely to have affordable housing than households in East King County (70.6%). Less than half of households in Federal Way – North Corridor (47.9%) and Kent – Central (48.8%) had affordable housing. However, the lowest rate of affordable housing was in Seattle’s University District, at only 35.6%.