Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | May 24, 2021 | Worcester Business Journal 5 mortgage payments, real estate taxes, insurance, utilities and any condo- minium fees. SMOCAPI is measured separately for units with and without a mortgage. In Worcester, around one quarter of homeowners with a mort- gage pay 35 percent or more of their income in SMOCAPI (above the "rule of thumb" for housing costs), while 40 percent pay less than 20 percent of their income (see chart 5). For renters, the Census tracks Gross Rent as a Percentage of Household In- come, or GRAPI. Gross rent is defined as contract rent plus utilities, intended to smooth over differences caused by rent contracts differing in whether utilities are included. In Worcester, 44 percent of renters pay 35 percent or more of their income in housing costs, while 21 percent pay less than 20 per- cent (see chart 4). Homeowners generally pay a lower cost, as a percentage of their income, than renters (see charts 4 and 5). is holds true regardless of income level. In the top 10 tracts by income, an average of 40 percent of householders have a GRAPI of at least 35 percent, while in the bottom 10 tracts, 48 percent do. e top 10 tracts have an average SMOCA- PI of at least 35 percent at a 19 percent rate, while in the bottom 10, the average is 28 percent above that threshold. White mortgage applicants in Worcester are approved and granted mortgages at higher rates, and denied for mortgages at lower rates, than non- white applicants. In 2019, out of more than 4,000 mortgage actions taken for white applicants, 59 percent were approved and 18 percent were denied. For the 1,400 nonwhite applications, 49 percent were approved and 23 percent were denied (some applications do not report race or ethnicity). Chart 2: Gross rent as a percentage of household income (GRAPI), Worcester Chart 3: Selected monthly owner costs as a percentage of household income (SMOCAPI), Worcester Chart 4: Percent of housing units owner and renter occupied Chart 5: Median owner-occupied unit value Chart 6: Median selected monthly owner costs Chart 7: Median gross rent W This report, along with all the Worcester Regional Research Bureau projects, is available at www.wrrb.org

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