The National Low Income Housing Coalition recently released its annual study Out of Reach, which reports the gap between renters’ wages and the cost of rental housing across the US. 🏠

Which got us thinking — how much does it cost, on average, to rent a two-bedroom apartment in the Raleigh metro area? 🧐 Let’s break it down by the numbers.

💰 $1,022. The Fair Market Rental (FMR) price (including utilities) for a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Raleigh — more expensive than 95% of the national averages. Across NC, the average FMR for the same-sized apartment is roughly $773.

💰 108. The number of hours you’d have to work per week on minimum wage (in NC this is $7.25 per hour) to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Raleigh. A renter that makes the mean wage for the state would need to work 44 hours a week to afford the same-sized apartment.

💰 3.1. The number of full-time jobs — at minimum wage — it takes to afford a two-bedroom apartment (FMR) in Raleigh.

💰 2%. The percent that Raleigh’s rents have increased over the past month, according to Zumper.

💰 $19.65. The hourly wage a Raleigh resident would have to make to comfortably afford a one-bedroom apartment in the city. That’s a yearly income of $40,880.

💰 35%. There are 166,642 households (out of a total 482,401) currently renting in Raleigh, making up roughly a third of the city’s population.

💰 28. NC currently ranks as the 28th most expensive state for renters in the country. Hawaii is the most expensive + Arkansas is the least expensive.

For more city data, state data, and to compare with other metropolitan areas, go here and click around. It’s really fun to put our numbers beside Hawaii’s. 💸 Plus, click here to search apartments for less than $1,100 in downtown Raleigh.

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