SPOKANE, Wash. — The average hourly wage of a Spokane renter is $17.39, which is just barely below what is needed to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment in Spokane.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), these are the hourly wages Spokanites need to earn to afford to rent different size apartments:
- One bedroom: $15.29
- Two bedroom: $19.87
- Three bedroom: $28.21
- Four bedroom: $33.56
NLIHC estimates the average Spokane renter earns $42,058 annually, which works out to approximately $20.66 per hour. With this wage, an individual should be able to spend approximately $1,051 per month on rent.
Fair Market Rent (FMR), a statistic developed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to determine payment standards for certain housing, is considered in the NLIHC data.
Here is Spokane's FMR breakdown:
- One bedroom: $795
- Two bedroom: $1,033
- Three bedroom: $1,467
- Four bedroom: $1,745
According to Spokane's FMR, a person earning the average renter's wage should be able to afford a one or two-bedroom apartment.
However, the average price of a one-bedroom in Spokane is $1,045, more than NLIHC's FMR for a two-bedroom.
This isn't unusual, according to Dezda Finn, a Spokane real estate broker and property manager. She said she's seen rent prices skyrocket in recent years, and the people being impacted by these increases the most are the locals.
"The population that are moving to Spokane are in a financial position to afford more, and so they essentially are making it so that rents are going up because they'll pay it and because there's nothing else available," Finn said.
These prices are essentially pushing locals out of Spokane, according to Finn, the majority of whom are renters.
Spokane does have apartments and houses that are priced on the lower end of the pricing range. However, these low prices often mean the property will be located in a less desirable neighborhood.
"The less desirable neighborhoods, people are not willing to pay a higher rent, and so the rent needs to be lower to accommodate the people who are willing to live there," Finn said.
Another factor impacting the increase in rent prices is the lack of availability. Finn said there really isn't a lot of anything right now, which means competition for a place to live is high and can sometimes lead to higher prices.
"I've been managing properties in Spokane going on 20 years [the vacancy rate] has always been below 5%," she said. "We've been below 1% for probably 3-4 years, maybe a little bit longer. Through COVID, it's kind of gotten tighter and tighter."
Right now, Finn said Spokane is operating on a 10-year housing shortage. Statewide, the Department of Commerce estimates one million homes will need to be added to keep up with the population growth.
"We've underbuilt for 10 years, and so we're significantly missing that middle housing," she said. "At some point, there's going to be enough building but we're just struggling."
The cost of building a home in Spokane increased dramatically less than two weeks ago after the city council raised fees for new water and sewer hookups. Some developers now fear they may be forced to stop construction all together, which may continue to add to the housing shortage.
Gov. Jay Inslee proposed that $4 billion be used to provide housing as a solution to what he calls the state's "scourge of homelessness" while some of those funds could go toward affordable housing.
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