Housing Needs Assessment · part 3 of 5
What households can afford
What can households here actually afford, and where is the gap? Built from cached public datasets (Census, DOLA, HUD) with live Census API fallbacks.
Screening tool only. Data snapshots are for early-stage community planning and site research using public Census, DOLA, and HUD datasets. They are not a certified housing needs study and do not substitute for a CHFA-required market analysis or formal due diligence.
How this jurisdiction compares to its county
A county average hides its own spread. These are the same measures computed the same way at both levels.
Select a geography above to load housing data
Executive Snapshot
Rental Affordability Gap by AMI Tier
—Renter households who need affordable rental units at each income band. Both card rows below count renter households (demand) — the first cumulative (≤ each AMI; includes everyone below), the second the non-overlapping cohort within each tier; neither row subtracts existing units. The separate Net of existing affordable supply box further down is the one that nets out rental units already priced affordable, to estimate how many still need to be built. Source: ACS B25118 renter-household income + B25063 gross rent against HUD 2025 income limits, with HUD CHAS as a county-level fallback. Owner households are excluded — the rental gap counts only households competing for rental units.
ACS 2020–2024 households under the unadjusted county 30% AMI cutoff; the CHAS tier table below uses HUD's size-adjusted limits and an older window, so its counts run lower. See methodology.
Renter households who need affordable rental units — cumulative (≤ this AMI; includes everyone below)
Households who need affordable rental units — within this tier (non-overlapping; 7 cells sum to ≤100%)
Need distribution across AMI bands — each band's share of the ≤100% total
HUD Fair Market Rents & Income Limits
HUD Fair Market Rents (FY2026) by bedroom size and FY2026 county Income Limits by household size for the selected county. Source: HUD User.
FMR = maximum contract rent eligible for Housing Choice Voucher program subsidy. Income limits set affordability thresholds for LIHTC, HOME, and other programs.
▸ Why use HUD MTSP income limits?
CHFA does publish annual Multifamily Rent & Income Limits tables — the ones LIHTC compliance monitors use. They are derived from HUD's published Multifamily Tax Subsidy Project (MTSP) area median income (AMI) for each county using the same IRC §42 formula shown here:
LIHTC monthly rent ceiling = AMI4-person × tier% × 30% ÷ 12
- HUD MTSP is the upstream authoritative source. CHFA's tables are derived from HUD's published MTSP numbers using the same IRC Section 42 formula.
- HUD publishes machine-readable data (huduser.gov/datasets/il.html). CHFA publishes annual tables for compliance reference.
- Computing from MTSP makes the rent-ceiling formula visible while preserving CHFA's published tables as the binding application reference.
For CHFA application submissions: calculated limits should be checked against CHFA's published tables. If a discrepancy appears, CHFA's published tables are the binding reference — cross-check here before submitting.
Sources: HUD MTSP FY2026 county Income Limits (huduser.gov/datasets/il.html); CHFA Multifamily Rent & Income Limits (chfainfo.com/rental-housing/asset-management/rent-income-limits); IRC §42(g)(2)(A) rent ceiling formula.
Rent triangulation — existing vs. asking
Three rent measurements side-by-side so you can see which figure applies to which question: underwriting (FMR), cost-burden math (ACS), or what a new tenant will actually pay (ZORI).
Homeownership affordability
Annual household income required to buy the typical home (not rent it) under a 30-yr fixed mortgage at today's rate, holding the full monthly PITI payment — Principal & Interest, property Tax, Insurance, and PMI — to no more than 30% of gross income. Compare against the local median household income bar to see the gap.
How this is calculated
Rent burden distribution
Share of renter households by gross rent as a percent of income (ACS DP04 / GRAPI bins).
Households spending ≥30% of income on housing are considered cost-burdened; ≥50% severely burdened.
Age-stratified rent burden (ages 55–62 and 62+) is available in the HUD CHAS data shown in the adjacent panel. Select a county to view CHAS breakdown by AMI tier.
Cost burden by AMI tier (HUD CHAS) (county-approx)
Renter households by income tier (% of Area Median Income) showing not-burdened, moderately burdened (30–50% of income), and severely burdened (>50%) households. Source: HUD Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy (CHAS).
Why only 4 tiers? HUD CHAS Table 9 publishes income at four bands only (≤30 / 31–50 / 51–80 / 81–100% AMI) — finer 10% increments aren't in the source dataset. For a 7-band breakdown of unit shortfall (renter households needing vs. units available at each tier), see the Rental Affordability Gap by AMI Tier panel above, which derives renter-household counts from ACS B25118 × HUD income limits.
Counts here use HUD CHAS 2018–2022 with size-adjusted income limits (HAMFI); they run below the ACS-based demand headline, especially in student-heavy markets. See methodology.
Stacked bar chart showing renter households at each AMI income tier (≤30%, 31–50%, 51–80%, 81–100%) broken down by housing cost burden status.
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How Affordable Has Housing Become Over the Last 15 Years?
Rent, home prices, and income compared to 2009 — does housing pace incomes, or outpace them? Combines three publicly-available series at the county level. Sources: Census ACS 5-yr (2009, 2014, 2024); FHFA House Price Index (annual, FHFA HPI); DOLA State Demography Office 2024 mid-projection for population context.
Owner Housing Cost Burden
Owner households by monthly housing costs as a percentage of household income. Costs exceeding 30% indicate a cost burden. Source: ACS DP04.
Current rental gap & affordability
Today's renter-household shortfall by income tier and cost burden — distinct from the 20-year production outlook in the projections section below.
Select a geography to view current rental gap analysis.
How this estimate combines cost burden, AMI gap, and projections
The estimate combines three signals: (1) current renter cost-burden counts by income tier, (2) AMI affordability gap counts (units affordable vs. households), and (3) forward DOLA-based household growth projections over the selected horizon.
These are integrated to show both the current unmet need and the future incremental units needed. Treat this as a planning-screening synthesis rather than a certified market study.
County-proxy caveat for place/CDP selections: when sub-county series are unavailable, county-level labor market and projection context is used as a proxy and scaled to the selected geography.
Methodology & Data Sources
This section updates as you change geographies and as cached datasets become available. All sources link to the primary publisher.
Primary Data Sources
Data refreshes automatically via GitHub Actions. Full data sources inventory · Data freshness status