Market-rate renters keeping up with rising rents in US: study

New York

A POPULAR narrative of the US housing market has been that big city prices are locking out young buyers, feeding a cycle in which a growing number of people are forced to rent at ever higher rates as demand overwhelms supply. Throw in the fact that wages haven't kept pace, and you have a world where a wide swathe of Americans can't save enough to ever buy that first home.

The reality may be a bit more complicated. It's true that, when combined with a lack of government support for affordable housing, this situation has pushed the number of cash-poor renters to a new high. Some 26 per cent of US renters paid at least half their income to landlords in 2014, up from 20 per cent in 2001, according to …