In a new blog post Daniel McCue, a Senior Research Associate at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies reports on new analysis of rental markets which compares changes in the rental supply at various rent levels with changes in the number of renter households at various income levels.  McCue finds that that a growing number of low-income renters are competing for a shrinking number of low-rent units. The analysis also found that the rapid growth in high-income renters over the last ten years has outnumbered growth in high-rent units, and that similar trends are shared by nearly every metro area in the US.  “Between 2006 and 2016 there were notable changes at both the low and the high ends of the market.  Supply and demand at the low end of the market are going in different directions.  On the one hand, the number of renter households with annual incomes under $26,000 per year (in constant 2016 dollars) grew by 1.8 million between 2006 and 2016.  However, the number of rental units that would be affordable to these households at 30 percent of income dropped by 500,000. New supply is clearly not coming online at these low rent levels.”