How many Nevada renters pay more than half their income for rent?

In Clark County nearly 80,000 renter households pay half their income or more for rent and utilities; in Washoe County about 17,000 households do. The data used to estimate these numbers comes from the American Community Survey five year estimates for 2010 to 2014. With average rents rising faster than average incomes, it is likely that these numbers already have increased in both regions. For example, for Las Vegas, HUD's estimates for median income increased 5% from 2015 to 2017 and for Reno, 7%. Over the same time average rent increased 13% in Las Vegas and 26% in Reno.

For those households paying more than half of their income for rent and utilities, of most concern are the households with the lowest incomes. For the 104,000 renter households earning less than half of median household income, 67,000 households in Clark County were estimated to be paying more than half of their income for rent and utilities. An example of this for 2017 would be a household of three in Las Vegas that earns $28,000 a year and pays rent and utililites of over $1,167 a month leaving the remaining $1,167 a month to cover all other expenses. Of these type of households, most earned less than 30% of median income. For our example, that would mean the three-person household earns less than about $20,000 per year and spends over half of that on rent and utilities. 

In Washoe County there were an estimated 26,000 households that earned less than half of median income. Of these, 15,000 paid more than half their household income for rent and utilties. 

For more information about rent burden see Rent Burden Statistics for Washoe and Clark County Part I.

To request this data for another Nevada County please contact Elizabeth Fadali at efadali@housing.nv.gov.

Sources: U.S. Housing And Urban Development income limits and HUD 2010-2014 Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS) datasets (special tabulations of Census Bureau American Community Survey data), ALN and Johnson And Perkins apartment data, and author's calculations.