Want to Rent a Studio in New York? You May Need a Roommate.

Trading space for savings in the bank is particularly appealing to people hoping to live alone. But in some U.S. cities, the median-earning renter may need a roommate to afford even a studio apartment, typically the smallest and most affordable units on the market.

While rents across the country have come down a bit recently, they continue to be far less affordable than they were before the pandemic, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. And in hot markets like Miami and New York City, they show no signs of cooling down.

The two cities have some of the least affordable studios in the country, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the U.S. census and Zillow’s top rental markets, a list curated to be geographically representative of major markets across the country. Financial and housing experts consider a home affordable if it costs no more than 30 percent of a household’s gross income. Under this guidance, the average rental prices for the smallest apartments in New York and Miami are two to three times what one person earning the median income in those cities can afford.