The ability of Rochester area residents to afford housing has declined in recent years, for both owners and renters. By 2009, 10.5% of all area households were paying more than half of their income for housing, compared to about 8% just four years earlier. At this level of housing cost burden, families often must make difficult choices between paying for housing and other necessities such as transportation, food, and prescription medicines.

About 4,400 owner households and 3,000 renter households now pay more than half of their income for housing.  This is an increase of nearly 48% in the number of owners and 24% for renters since 2005. The burden falls especially heavily on lower-income Rochester area residents. Over half of households earning less than $50,000 per year pay more than they can comfortably afford for housing, according to HUD guidelines, compared to 1 in 8 households with incomes above $50,000.

Median Household Income, 2009: $62,465

Median Renter Household Income, 2009: $31,273 

Unfortunately, the Rochester area, like the state of Minnesota as a whole, has seen a marked increase in both the number of homeless people and the number of foreclosures since the middle of the decade.

Technical information on these charts can be found here.