Evictions Are More Common Than You Think: Who’s Most at Risk?

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For many tenants, the rent is just too darned high—especially in some of the nation’s priciest cities. But the alternatives (couch surfing, moving back in with the ‘rents, or sleeping in a car or homeless shelter) aren’t exactly appealing either.

With prices rising across the nation, about 20% of renters couldn’t pay their bills in full for at least one of the past three months, according to a recent report from Apartment List. The rental apartment website estimates that about 3.3% of renters, or 3.7 million Americans, have experienced an eviction as a result.

The report was based on the more than 41,000 responses Apartment List received for its annual survey.

“This is a really serious issue, to have all these people struggling to pay their rent each month,” says Apartment List’s housing economist, Chris Salviati. “It uproots households and communities, creates chaos or instability in their lives, and it can be very difficult to recover from an eviction.”

Renters may go without enough food, medications, or transportation in order to write that monthly check. So once folks lose the roof over their heads, it’s often difficult to get it back. Evictions usually stay on credit reports for seven years, making it difficult for would-be renters to qualify for new abodes. And there isn’t enough government housing assistance for the poorest Americans to go around.

“Without stable, affordable shelter, everything else falls apart,” Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City,” previously told realtor.com®. The book told eight real-life stories of Milwaukee residents and families who were grappling with evictions.

“If you get evicted, you have a 20% higher likelihood of losing your job within 12 months,” he said. “It’s such an overwhelming stressful event that it can cause you to make mistakes at work.”

Kids whose families have been evicted are more apt to suffer academically and develop behavioral issues. And being kicked out of a home is part of a slippery slope that often leads to homelessness.

Who’s most likely to be evicted?

Black households, who are more likely to be the targets of discrimination from landlords and housing courts, had the highest rates of eviction. About 11.9% of black renter households faced losing their homes within the past year, according to the Apartment List report. That’s more than double the 5.4% of white households that faced eviction over the same time period.

Asians had the lowest percentage of eviction threats, at just 2.5% within the past year.

Those with children were twice as likely to face the threat of an eviction. About 30.1% of single parents said they had a hard time paying rent in the past three months, while 27.2% of married couples with kids reported the same.

The culprit is predominantly the high costs of child care for working parents. The average cost of day care for toddlers can set families back $8,043 to $18,815 a year, according to a Care.com analysis. That’s particularly tough for lower-income families.

Renters who didn’t go to college, and therefore are likely to earn less money, are also almost twice as likely to be threatened by eviction.

The most eviction-prone areas aren’t where you’d think

Ironically, renters in dirt-cheap parts of the country are more likely to experience eviction. That’s because there often aren’t a lot of good-paying jobs—or any jobs, really—in these areas. And it’s hard for residents without incomes to pay rent. These areas may have also been hard-hit by the foreclosure crisis.

Eviction rates are higher in the South and Midwest than in the rest of the nation, according to the Apartment List report. It’s the worst in Memphis, at 6.1%, followed by Phoenix, at 5.9%; Atlanta, at 5.7%; Indianapolis, at 5.6%; and Dallas, at 5.6%.

The expensive coastal cities, such as San Francisco and New York, have lower rates of eviction. But that’s because the economies of these areas are stronger and workers are typically paid higher wages to offset bigger housing costs.

“A place like San Francisco has a super-competitive housing market,” Salviati says. “If landlords have more discretion of who to rent to, a renter who is likely to miss a rent payment would probably have a hard time even finding an apartment in the first place.”

The post Evictions Are More Common Than You Think: Who’s Most at Risk? appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

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