Examining Recent Declines in Low-Cost Rental Housing in Atlanta, Using American Community Survey Data from 2006-2010 to 2009-2013:

Implications for Local Affordable Housing Policy

Dan Immergluck1

October 12, 2015

                                                            1 Professor, School of City and Regional Planning, Georgia Institute of Technology. Contact at

dan.immergluck@coa.gatech.edu. Kevin Mara provided valuable research assistance in downloading and assembling the American Community Survey data.

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The rapid pace of rental housing construction in the city of Atlanta over the last few years

has been remarkable. Coming out of the worst real estate recession since the Great Depression,

the multifamily housing industry in Atlanta came roaring back over the last several years. This

boom has brought with it significant benefits to the city, especially in terms of revived

construction employment and the promise of stronger property tax revenue for the city, the

county, and the Atlanta Public Schools. At the same time, the nature of this revival is one

dominated almost entirely by high-cost, luxury rental apartments, with essentially no

development of more affordable multifamily rental units. According to Haddow and Company,

which regularly tracks apartment building activity in Atlanta, as of March of this year, there were

over 11,000 apartment units under construction with another 9,000 proposed. The great bulk of

these are luxury units. From 2012 to 2014, according to the CoStar Group, 95 percent of rental

units built in Atlanta were luxury units.2

The huge surge in the construction of luxury rental units occurred in the wake of

thousands of modest-income families having been forced out of their homes during a record-

setting foreclosure crisis. Tens of thousands of families have flooded the rental market as

foreclosures mounted, mortgages got much tougher to obtain, and wages stagnated. The market

has not been producing affordable, decent-quality rental units in the city for those who need them

most, especially in locations near mass transit and jobs, and with access to quality schools. The

foreclosure crisis certainly led to many formerly owner-occupied homes being converted into

rental units, but in many neighborhoods some homes still sit vacant as speculators failed to

convert them to decent rental housing, leaving behind dilapidated or distressed properties.

Moreover, the locations of some of the single-family homes that are available for rent are not

always what some families need in terms of jobs, schools, transportation or other critical

amenities.

                                                            

2 Haddow and Company. 2015. Apartment Market Summary. First Quarter 2015. http://www.haddowandcompany.com/uploads/5/5/1/3/55135301/intown-atlanta-apartment-market-summary-1q2015.pdf. Kusto, L. 2015. New Luxury Rental Projects Add to Rent Squeeze. Wall Street Journal. May 20. http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-luxury-rental-projects-add-to-rent-squeeze-1432114203.

 

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Rents for many of the newly constructed apartments in the City of Atlanta tend to run in

the $2 (or more) per square foot range, with small 600-foot apartments often renting for $1,200

or more and 1,200-foot units more suitable for families frequently renting for over $2,500 per

month or more. Yet, the wages of most low- and moderate-income Atlantans – and even middle-

income Atlantans -- have not risen appreciably, and many would welcome the opportunity to

benefit from the positive developments occurring in the city such as the Beltline, the growing

vibrancy of many neighborhoods, and improved transit and other public services.

Those without an understanding of the segmented nature of housing markets may leap to

the conclusion that the increasing supply of luxury units will lower the cost of lower-end units by

increasing the overall supply of rental housing. There is a serious problem with this logic. First,

as the industry follows a herd mentality by chasing the luxury rental market, owners of, and

investors in, lower-cost units may disinvest out of more affordable units, converting them to

upscale, much more expensive units or demolishing them to make way for luxury units or

nonresidential uses. While the increased development of luxury units may have a marginal

negative effect on high-end rents, this activity may actually draw capital away from the more

affordable sector leading to disinvestment and shrinkage of that supply. The two ends of the

market are in-fact segmented from each other, but they compete for land and capital and so the

proliferation of the luxury market may, in fact, result in less on the more affordable end.

Meanwhile, those with modest incomes may be faced with higher rents in the lower-cost

segment of the rental market, or may even try to stretch themselves – perhaps too far - to afford a

small but expensive unit in the luxury market.

In fact, while developers have been aggressively competing over building in the luxury

rental market, the available evidence suggests that the number of affordable, low-cost rental units

has declined in the city. While data on such affordable units is not perfect, we can look at the

federal American Community Survey to examine some information on occupied, low-cost units

to get at least a partial picture of what is going on. Unfortunately, the regular American

Community Survey data do not provide rental unit data disaggregated by both size and rental

rates, so it is difficult to get a complete picture of low-cost units. That is, we can assess how

many rented units in a neighborhood cost less than $1,000 per month, but we do not know – at

least at the neighborhood level -- what portion of these are studio versus three-bedroom

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apartments, for example. Therefore, these data will not help us identify large apartments that

might be affordable on a per-square-foot or per-room basis. However, we can count the number

of units in a neighborhood, of whatever size, that are rented for less than $750 per month. These

units are what I call “low-cost” rented units. Arguably they are relatively affordable even if they

are studio apartments, although one- or two-bedroom units at this price would be even more

affordable. (A typical studio apartment is typically 500-700 square feet, so $750/month would

relate to about $1.50 per square foot in rent for a studio. Many of these units, however, are likely

to be one-bedroom units.)

Notwithstanding the limitations of the data, examining changes in the number of

occupied units that are rented for less than $750 per month gives us a good sense of the rate of

loss of at least one important segment of the affordable housing stock.3 By “affordable” here, I

do not intend to connote subsidized stock only. Rather, these data include all rented units,

subsidized or unsubsidized, that have low rents. Given the limits of rental market subsidies, the

majority of such units are expected to be unsubsidized.

Table 1 gives changes in the numbers of units rented for less than $750 per month across

two waves of the American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is conducted annually, but for

small areas like census tracts, the Census Bureau pools five years of data together before

releasing the data; otherwise the sample sizes would be so small as to make the data unusable.

Therefore, I compare the 5-year ACS sample data including the years 2006 to 2010 (called here

the 2006-2010 data) to the 5-year ACS sample including the years 2009 to 2013 (called here the

2009-2013 data). The data, then, measure change over a three-year span (the period ending in

2010 to the period ending in 2013).                                                             

 

3 According the standard 30 percent of income threshold for affordability used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) and many others, a rent of $750 per month is affordable to a household earning $30,000 per year or more. HUD’s estimated median family incomes for 2010 ranged from $50,030 for a one-person household to $71,800 for a four-person family. This means that $750 is affordable at approximately 42 percent of area median income (AMI) for a family of four but is affordable at 60 percent of AMI for a one-person household. Since most units below $750 are likely to be more suitable for singles than for families of four, viewing the $750 per month rent as affordable to those at an income level of at least 60 percent of AMI threshold is probably the most appropriate. This is roughly equivalent to the income threshold used in most federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects.

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Table 1. Loss of Low‐Cost (<$750/month) Rented Housing Units 

in the City of Atlanta from 2006‐2010 to 2009‐2013* 

 

Census Tract Group

Number of Units Rented for Less than $750/Month 2006-2010

Change in Units Rented for Less than $750/Month 2006-2010 to 2009-2013

% Change in Units Rented for Less than $750/Month 2006-2010 to 2009-2013

Number of Tracts

Median Tract Poverty Rate

Median Tract % African American

Increase of over 100 units 2,604 1,370 52.6% 7 31.8% 95.1% Increase of 51 to 100 units 1,385 523 37.8% 7 40.2% 69.8% Increase of 21 to 50 units 2,670 424 15.9% 13 12.7% 80.9% No Subst’l Change +/-20 units 3,649 88 2.4% 28 20.2% 29.2% Decline of 21 to 50 units 3,066 -660 -21.5% 18 18.3% 52.3% Decline of 51 to 100 units 7,201 -1,849 -25.7% 26 24.4% 84.9% Decline of over 100 units 12,119 -4,792 -39.5% 26 32.1% 82.6%

Entire City of Atlanta 32,694 -4,896 -15.0%

Estimated Annual Loss Rate -1,632 -4.4%  

*Includes occupied rented units where tenants report paying less than $750 per month in rent. Source: American Community Survey 5-year Census Tract Estimates for 2006-2010 and 2009-2014. Rented units in both single-family and multifamily properties are included.  

 

Table 1 shows that the number of low-cost rental units declined by 15 percent over a

three-year period, for a total net decline of 4,896 units. At an annualized rate, this equates to a

loss of 4.4 percent per year, or about 1,600 units per year. Again, these are just units rented at

less than $750 per month and are not at all equivalent to the total loss of “affordable units.” The

latter would certainly include many larger units, especially those with two or three bedrooms,

where a rent of $800 or $1,000, for example, is likely to be considered affordable for many

moderate-income families with children. Rather, this estimate measures just one segment of the

affordable rental market.

Figure 1 illustrates the neighborhood distribution of gains and losses in low-cost rented

housing units across the city. Census tracts colored in various shades of pink or red are those

where there was a sizeable (more than 20 units) decline in units rented for less than $750 per

month. White tracts are those where the change was between -20 and +20 units over the three-  

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Pitigigiaigia 

 

Change in Occupied Units Rented for under $750/month, 2006-2010 to 2009-2013

Loss of 101 to 319 units Loss of 51 to 100 units Loss of 21 to 50 units No Substantial Change: 0 +/- 20 units Gain of 21 to 50 units Gain of 51 to 100 units Gain of 101 to 269 units

*Includes occupied rented units where tenants report paying less than $750 per month in rent. Source: American Community Survey 5-year Census Tract Estimates for 2006-2010 and 2009-2014. Rented units in both single-family and multifamily properties are included.

Figure 1. Change in Low‐Cost, Rented Housing Units in the City of Atlanta

from 2006‐2010 to 2009‐2013* 

MARTA Stations 

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year period, and those in various shades of green saw increases of more than 20 units over three

years. The categories used in Figure 1 match those used in Table 1. In total, 70 census tracts,

more than half of the tracts in the city, saw a measurable decline in low-cost units, while only 27

tracts saw measurable gains (the remaining tracts saw no measurable gain or loss). More

importantly, only 14 tracts saw gains of more than 50 units, while 52 tracts saw losses of more

than 50 units, with 26 of these experiencing losses of more than 100 units.

It is important to point out that these are net losses or gains at the neighborhood level. In

some neighborhoods, a gain of rental units may have occurred despite some formerly rented low-

cost units becoming unoccupied, demolished, or converted to owner-occupancy. Also, these

changes occurred in the wake of the foreclosure crisis, where many single-family homes were

converted from owner-occupied to rental-occupied following foreclosure. Despite this

phenomenon, the overall trend was toward a loss of low-cost rented units in most neighborhoods. 

Table 1 shows that the neighborhoods with the greatest declines and those with the

greatest increases in low-cost rental units tended to have relatively high rates of poverty. This

may reflect two trends. First, in some high-poverty neighborhoods, there was significant

conversion of foreclosed properties to low-cost rentals. In other neighborhoods, however, the

disinvestment in the low-cost rental stock overwhelmed any conversions to rental properties.

This may have been due to gentrification pressures, or to other factors.

Figure 1 shows that the neighborhoods that suffered large declines in low-cost rented

units are located in many different parts of the city, including neighborhoods close to major job

centers, transit corridors, and MARTA stations. 

 

Implications for Local Affordable Housing Policy

This brief analysis examines only one portion of the affordable housing stock in Atlanta,

those units actively rented for less than $750 per month. It therefore captures only a portion of

the likely substantially larger loss in affordable units in the city in recent years. However, it does

demonstrate that this one portion of the affordable stock is shrinking at an appreciable rate,

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almost 5 percent annually. Meanwhile the supply of luxury units continues to grow without

significant positive spillover on the affordable segment of the market.

To its credit, Invest Atlanta, the City of Atlanta’s development authority, has recently

articulated a set of proposals aimed at addressing the need to rebalance rental housing in the city.

In its extensive “Housing Strategy” document released earlier this year, the agency identified a

wide variety of potential balanced development policies similar to those used by cities that have

experienced similar development pressures, such as Seattle and Washington, DC. Many of these

proposals, including a mandatory inclusionary zoning policy, could prove critical to stemming

and even reversing the decline of affordable housing in the city. Some political leadership in the

city appears intent on moving forward with some of these proposals. In addition to a meaningful

inclusionary zoning ordinance, the city will need to identify a significant source of funds to

provide for the construction and rehabilitation of truly affordable units, especially for those

families earning less than 80 percent of the metropolitan median income. (The needs of those

earning below 50 percent of the metropolitan median are the most acute.) The evidence is clear

that quality affordable housing, especially when linked to good public services such as transit

and education, is a key to economic opportunity and mobility. The time for such investments is

now.