Think it's hard affording a home here? Pity the poor renter.
Last year a Northern Virginia worker needed to make $24.73 an hour ($51,438.40 a year) to afford the average $1,286 fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment, says the non-profit Center for Housing Policy in Washington, D.C. That is out of reach for most of the service industry workers - the burger flippers, hotel workers and sales clerks - that keep the DC/VA/MD economy humming. Even an entry-level worker in a white collar job might have trouble making that much.
To be fair, paychecks of sales clerks and service workers fell short of rents in all 210 metropolitan areas studied.
DC/MD/VA tenants didn't even get the advantage of falling home prices last year. Local workers needed to earn an additional $2,433.60 last year to cover the increase in rent from 2006.
Want a real deal on rents? Move to Brownsville, Texas, where you only need to may $9.87 an hour ($20,529.60/year) to afford the $513 rent for a two-bedroom.
Here's a PDF version of the full report on rental affordability: CLICK HERE
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