Report: Hudson Valley Rent-Wage Gap Continues to Widen

NEWBURGH—The latest report by locally-based Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress on the region’s wages as it relates to the cost of rental and for-sale housing once again finds that for many the price tag continues to be “out of reach.”

Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress and its Center for Housing Solutions & Community Initiatives recently released its annual “Out of Reach 2025” report, which examined the affordability of rental housing and homeownership throughout the nine counties it serves: Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester. The report, based largely on data published annually by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, compared fair-market rents with average renter wages to arrive at the “Rent Gap”—the difference between fair market rental costs and rents that would be affordable to tenants earning average wages. In addition, the report compared 2024 home sales prices and Area Median Incomes throughout the Hudson Valley to provide what it called the “Mortgage Gap” which shows the challenges faced by median earners trying to buy their first home in the Hudson Valley.

The Out of Reach report found that the cost of housing in the Hudson Valley continues to rise faster than wages for renters and buyers. Over the five-year period from 2020 through 2025, the average rent gap grew steadily in nearly every county, with Ulster increasing by $388 (59%), Westchester by $454 (47%), and Columbia by $222 (54%). Even over the past year alone, counties like Sullivan and Westchester saw sharp year-over-year jumps of $141 (48%) and $336 (31%), respectively. For the first time this year, two working adults sharing the cost of rent in Westchester cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment without spending more than 30% of their incomes on housing costs, the report stated.

“Our latest report shows that our housing crisis in the Hudson Valley is deepening, and that our civic leaders must continue to collaborate on viable solutions to produce more housing and promote affordability. The exorbitant cost of homeownership is beyond the reach of most of our neighbors,” said Adam Bosch, president and CEO of Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress. “Rent continues to rise much faster than tenant wages. And many of our working neighbors—filling necessary and honorable jobs in our communities—are now living on public assistance in hotels because they cannot find housing at a modest cost.”

Bosch added, “The risks associated with this trend—a shrinking workforce, fewer customers for local businesses, and greater migration out of the region—are too big for us not to act in the interest of the entire region.

One of the report’s key conclusions is that “given the high cost of new construction, many regional stakeholders worry that stricter affordability mandates could unintentionally stifle development. Tackling this crisis demands a broader toolkit—one that mixes traditional interventions with new, bold, flexible solutions. The Hudson Valley must build more housing of every type, preserve existing affordable homes, support cooperative ownership and community land trusts, enable the construction of smaller homes on smaller lots, expand zoning to accommodate mobile and tiny home communities, require landlords to accept housing vouchers, and redefine affordability benchmarks based on actual renter incomes—not medians skewed by high-earning homeowners.”

The following are some of the key findings from Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress’ Out of Reach report.

Single adults working 40 hours per week on average wages cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment in any of the nine counties. Tenants’ hourly wages would need to increase between $4.77 and $32.64 to afford fair-market rents in their respective counties.
Fair-market rents would need to decline anywhere from $248 to $1,697 per month to make them affordable for a person earning average renter wages across the region. Affordable means that tenants do not spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs.
The proportional increase in rent continued to outpace wage growth in most counties. For approximately 10 years, the proportional increase in rent has doubled wage growth; and that gap has grown more quickly from 2022-2024. This year's picture was more mixed, however.
Wages earned by a typical renter ranged from 36% to 49% of the area median income in each county, a key metric for housing policies and programs. In 2023, average renters earned 39% to 61% of the area median income. This change underscores that greater wage growth is happening in the higher income brackets, while renter wages remain stagnant.
The majority of households in the Hudson Valley cannot qualify for enough mortgage financing to purchase the median priced home in any of the nine Hudson Valley counties. This is true for one-person, two-person, and four-person households making median wages in each county. A two-person household falls anywhere from $102,257 (Sullivan) to $353,945 (Rockland) short of qualifying for enough mortgage to buy the typical home in each county. This widening gap is a function of modest wage growth compared to a skyrocketing home market that has seen median sales increase by nearly double in many of the counties since 2019, the report stated.

Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress is a nonprofit organization that provides objective research, planning, and educational training throughout the region. Pattern was founded in 1965 and serves a nine-county region that includes Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester counties.

To access the full Out of Reach 2025 report, go to: https://www.pattern-for-progress.org/portfolio/out-of-reach-2025/