Between 2010 and 2018, the percent of households in the NCTCOG region who spent less than 20% of income has risen from 43.8% to 48.2%. In the same period, households that spent over 20% of their income on housing decreased. This could mean that housing in general is becoming more affordable, or the cost of housing is growing slower than household income.
Typically, the rule of thumb is not to spend over 30% of household income on housing.1 This category has decreased from 29.6% of the region to 27.4%. After factoring in population growth, this translates into an increase of 27,853 households in the absolute number of households paying over 30% of their household income on housing.
From 2010 to 2018 the housing supply of the NCTCOG region grew by 10% from 2.5 million housing units to almost 2.8 million units in 2018.