Southeastern Rental Affordability Tracker
The tool demonstrates the abundance of southeastern renter households that pay more than 30 percent or 50 percent of their income on housing. A new feature shows the share of cost-burdened renters by race or ethnicity or by age.
The availability of stable and affordable housing can provide households the opportunity for economic mobility and resilience. It can also be a competitive advantage for communities seeking to attract and retain employers and workers. Households with lower incomes are limited in the rents they can afford and, therefore, the housing choices they have. This tool provides estimates of the location, number, and share of renter households across the Southeast that pay rents that exceed affordability standards. It can also be used to understand market-level gaps in available rental housing stock at various income levels and geographies.
The tool displays the state of rental affordability and availability in the Southeast using American Community Survey (ACS) one-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) data from the US Census Bureau for 2022 and 2023. Users can visualize data at the state, region, or city level. (See the Data Definitions and Sources section for information on the methodology and regional definitions.) This tool illustrates the number and share of renter households that are cost-burdened or severely cost-burdened—paying more than 30 percent or 50 percent, respectively, of their income on housing—and shows the need for additional affordable rental units in the Southeast.
Communities looking to increase their supply of affordable housing and achieve a better balance of housing options at all rent levels can use this tracker to help define housing affordability challenges by exploring the availability of affordable rental units and presence of cost-burdened renter households in their area.
This tool is an update of an earlier data analysis performed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida. Previous updates of the tool included historical data from 2015 through 2021. These data are temporarily unavailable on the tool pending reconciliation of 2020 census boundaries (released in 2022) with those from 2010.
Explore the Data
How the Tool Works
This tool provides rental housing affordability measures based on a selected geography (state, region, or city). The map can be used to show results for a single geography across the six states that lie fully or partially within the Atlanta Fed's District: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and portions of Louisianna, Mississippi, and Tennessee. If no geography is selected, the tool will display values for the entire Atlanta Fed District.
Rental Affordability Snapshot
The snapshot includes a pie graph of the overall share of cost-burdened renter households by degree (not cost-burdened, moderately cost-burdened, severely cost-burdened) in a chosen area. For example, you can view the percent of cost-burdened households in the Birmingham-Hoover, Alabama, region in 2023 to learn that 44 percent of renter households were cost-burdened.
The snapshot also includes a bar chart of the number and share of cost-burdened renter households by household income. Income categories are based on the area median income (AMI) displayed above the chart. Categories (extremely low income, very low income, low income, moderate income, and upper income) are defined in the Data Definitions and Sources section below.
Individual Renter Demographics
This section provides the number and share of individuals living in cost-burdened renter households by race or ethnicity, age group, presence and age of children, year moved into housing unit, marital status, and number of earners in the household. While the Rental Affordability Snapshot breaks down the number and share of cost-burdened households, this demographic information is measured at the individual level rather than at the household level.
The Select Income Level menu allows the user to explore these data further by the income level of the renter household. This section can be used to identify vulnerable renter populations. If the census estimate for individuals in any demographic category is too small to report with statistical confidence, data are not displayed.
Affordable and Available Rental Housing Units
In this section, the first bar chart shows the estimated number of rental units that are affordable and available per 100 renter households by income category for the selected geography. Users can also see the surplus or deficit of total units in each category. For example, a user can look at the number of affordable and available units for renters at or below 50 percent AMI in Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida, MSA (metropolitan statistical area) in 2023 to learn that for every 100 renter households, there are only 25 rental units that are both affordable and available.
The second chart shows how many units are affordable but unavailable at a given income level due to households with higher incomes occupying them. For example, in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida, MSA in 2023, 33,712 of the 107,182 affordable units at or below 50 percent of AMI were occupied by households earning over 50 percent of AMI.
The third chart shows the income levels of all renter households occupying units at an affordability level. For example, in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Florida, MSA in 2023, the 33,712 units affordable at or below 50 percent of AMI occupied by households with higher incomes consisted of 13,957 low-income households, 9,736 moderate-income households, and 10,019 upper-income households.
Data Definitions and Sources
Rental Affordability Snapshot
Area median income (AMI): The calculated family median income within the region, provided in the Rental Affordability Snapshot. For data displayed at the state level, the AMI varies by region. See the Southeastern Rental Affordability Tracker Methodology for a detailed description of how the AMIs are calculated.
Income categories:
- Extremely low income: A renter household for which household income was equal to or less than 30 percent of the regional AMI.
- Very low income: A renter household for which household income was more than 30 percent and equal to or less than 50 percent of the regional AMI.
- Low income: A renter household for which household income was more than 50 percent and equal to or less than 80 percent of the regional AMI.
- Moderate income: A renter household for which household income was more than 80 percent and equal to or less than 120 percent of the regional AMI.
- Upper Income: A renter household for which household income was more than 120 percent of the regional AMI.
Cost burden:
- Moderately cost burdened: Renter households for which gross rent was between 30 and 50 percent of the monthly household income.
- Severely cost burdened: Renter households for which gross rent was more than 50 percent of the monthly household income.
- Not cost burdened: All renter households for which gross rent was less than 30 percent of the monthly household income.
Individual Renter Demographics
Available Demographics and Included Categories:
- Race and ethnicity: The tool uses the census categories of (non-Hispanic) Asian, (non-Hispanic) Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, and (non-Hispanic) White. For simplicity, these categories are labeled Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White, respectively.
- Age group: The tool uses census data on age to create groups for ages 5 or younger, 6 to 17, 18 to 34, 35 to 54, and 55 or older.
- Age of children: The tool uses census variables on presence and age of children in a household to categorize household with children less than 6 years only, children 6 to 17 years only, children less than 6 years and children 6 to 17 years, and no children.
- Year moved: Households are categorized by how recently they moved into their housing unit. The categories are 12 months or less, 13 to 23 months, 2 to 4 years, 5 to 9 years, 10 to 19 years, 20 to 29 years, and 30 years or more.
- Marital status: The tool allows for comparison of households with and without a married couple (Married and Not Married).
- Number of Earners: The tool uses census data on the employment status of adult household members to categorize households by number of adult wage earners. Categories include One Adult, No Earners, One Adult, One Earner, Two Adults, No Earners, Two Adults, One Earner, Two Adults, Two Earners, and Other/Group Quarters.
Affordable and available rental units: A unit is considered affordable if gross rent did not exceed 30 percent of the monthly household income at the given income threshold, adjusted for number of rooms. A unit is available if it is either vacant or currently occupied by a household at or below the given income threshold. The surplus or deficit is calculated as the total number of rental units that were affordable and available at a given income level minus the total number of renter households at or below that corresponding income level. The affordable and available units per 100 renter households are calculated as the number of rental units that were affordable and available to households at or below a given income threshold per 100 households at or below that income level.
Regions: Census Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) were used to re-create cities and the metropolitan statistical areas, micropolitan areas, and nonmetropolitan areas defined as regions in this analysis. PUMAs are assigned as closely as possible to the actual boundaries of these regions; however, in some cases, the difference between the PUMA geography and the standard census geography requires either the addition or subtraction of certain counties. For details, see the Southeastern Rental Affordability Tracker Methodology.
Data Sources
We constructed the regional snapshot of rental housing affordability and the availability of rental housing units at several scales for the Atlanta Fed's District by using the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) one-year Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) data for 2022 and 2023.
Related Materials and Research
Where are the Affordable Rental Units? (2025)
Southeastern Rental Affordability Tracker Methodology (2024)
Sheltering in Place? A Closer Look at Pandemic Rental Instability in Six Southeastern States (2023)
Keeping Up with Rent: Recent Rent Hikes and Their Impact on Affordability Standards (2023)
Emergency Rental Assistance Insights from the Southeast (2022)
Housing Policy Impact: Federal Eviction Protection Coverage and the Need for Better Data (2020)
Assessing the Size and Spread of Vulnerable Renter Households in the Southeast (2020)