The 234 Apartment

Philadelphia apartment renters are most likely to relocate to Allentown over other cities in the state, according to a national survey released today by Apartment List . Allentown’s job market and its more affordable housing and quality of life are likely factors, according to the survey. While rent in Philadelphia is more affordable than similar cities across the country, its median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,160, compared to $1,100 in Allentown, according to a separate study by Apartment List , an online apartment rental marketplace . Nationwide, rents have grown by 2.9 percent over the past year. To better understand trends in renter mobility, Apartment List studied data from its annual survey of 24,000 renters to determine where renters are most likely to relocate to outside and within a state. Outside Pennsylvania, Philadelphia apartment renters are most likely to relocate to Washington, D.C., the survey said. “Renters are traditionally more mobile than homeowners,...

Hunting for a new apartment to rent can lose its excitement very quickly, but in some cities the search gets much worse, much faster. If you’ve ever been on the lookout for a new home in Philadelphia, you may have experienced the worst of renting, according to a new study. A recent report from financial website WalletHub cultivated a list of the 150 best and worst cities to live in, and while smaller cities in states such as Arizona, Nebraska, and South Dakota topped the rankings, big cities like Detroit, Baltimore, New Orleans, and, yes, Philadelphia, were staggered at the bottom of the rankings, with Philadelphia falling at No. 128 in the 150-city survey. Rankings were defined in a couple ways: rental market and affordability (weighing factors such as rent-to-price ratio, security deposits, cost of living, historical rental price changes, and others) and overall quality of life (weighing factors such as job market, driver friendliness, and the weather). Considering the weight on ...

ARTICLE OPTIONS Throughout his early 60s, Brad Buchner and his wife, Elizabeth, lived in the kind of house that many near-retirees dream of: a peaceful, manageable ranch- style property tucked in a quiet Poconos town surrounded by trees, lakes, and plentiful open space . Costing anywhere from $30,000 to $150,000, tiny homes designed by Escape Homes enable anyone to travel around the country in a single-family home. As it turns out, however, that’s exactly what Buchner and his wife don’t want as they think about the next years of their lives. Three years ago, the Buchners packed their things and headed to Philadelphia, settling down in a Center City rental . As if ditching their longtime rural digs weren ’t enough, the pair also abandoned spaciousness, swapping their three-bedroom, two-bathroom home for precisely 345 total square feet . The transition has meant parting ways with a fully finished basement and a home office, and adjusting to an ovenless kitchenette and two miniature...

As rents climb across the U.S., more people are being driven into homelessness. In some of the country’s hottest housing markets , rent increases have a strong connection with upticks in the homeless population , according to a study released this week from real- estate website Zillow . In New York City, a 5% rent hike would lead to nearly 3,000 more people becoming homeless. In Los Angeles, the same increase in rent would leave around 2,000 people without a place to live. To produce the report, Zillow created a model that analyzed different variables, including how population growth and changes in rent affect the homelessness rate. The model also considered the accuracy of homeless counts. Zillow then passed Census population figures , homelessness counts and its own rental data through the model to determine the relationship between rental prices and homelessness in different cities. The Census population numbers also take into account people who move in or out of a city, inclu...