Hiya, Nooga — Trista here. 👋 The National Low Income Housing Coalition released a new study that reports the gap between renters’ wages + the cost of rental housing. 🏡

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

By the numbers

💰 $832. The Fair Market Rental price (including utilities) for a two-bedroom in the Chattanooga Metropolitan area. In TN, the FMR for the same-sized apartment is $889, which is $357 less than the national average.

💰 88. The number of hours you’d have to work per week on minimum wage (in TN this is $7.25) to afford a two-bedroom apartment in Chattanooga. A renter who makes a mean wage would need to work 45 hours a week to afford the same-sized apartment.

💰 $16. The hourly wage a Chattanooga resident would have to make to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the city. That’s a yearly income of $33,280.

💰 35%. There are 55,173 households (out of 157,913) currently renting in Chattanooga, making up 35% of the city’s population.

💰 34. Tennessee ranks as the 34th most expensive (or 16th least expensive) state in the country for renters. 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. 💸

Poll