An interesting thing happened in the St. Paul housing market in October. Rents, which had been climbing faster than inflation, finally dipped, even compared with the same time a year prior.

Also in the third quarter of 2019, developers were well underway with construction of 643 housing units in St. Paul. How many might be considered affordable? Arguably none.

A new report from HousingLink, a Minneapolis-based affordable housing data and listing service, finds that no new affordable or mixed-income housing was under construction in St. Paul last summer, though 277 affordable units were proposed.

Another 5,000 market-rate or mixed-income units also were in the concept stages.

For an analysis of housing under construction, HousingLink’s wide-ranging St. Paul Rental Housing Brief relied on data from the Twin Cities Apartment Development Tracker, a product of Finance and Commerce.

The tracker does make note of two affordable family housing and affordable senior housing developments under construction on Emerald Street toward St. Paul’s western border with Minneapolis, the Millberry Apartments and the Legends at Berry Senior Housing, which together will span some 362 units.

It’s unclear why the two projects were not listed in the HousingLink data, though the Millberry Apartments advertised a fall 2019 opening and is currently leasing.

HousingLink President Sue Speakman Gomez said she isn’t entirely surprised by the lack of new affordable units going into the ground, though she was happy to see some completed projects recently open their doors, including Ain Dah Yung on St. Paul’s University Avenue and Higher Ground’s Dorothy Day Place in downtown St. Paul.

“There’s cycles for affordable housing funding throughout the year,” Gomez said. “We often see that there’s no affordable units under construction, while there might be hundreds of market rate.”

RENTS DROP IN ST. PAUL, MINNEAPOLIS

For anyone concerned about housing costs, not all the news was glum. The nine-page report describes median rents in St. Paul falling in October compared to a year prior for both one- and two-bedroom apartments, but rising for three-bedroom apartments.

Minneapolis rents also showed decline in all three categories. It’s not entirely clear whether that indicates a slight softening in the rental market or just a temporary reprieve in monthly rents.

“We had an internal discussion, but it’s too soon to really say that for sure,” Gomez said.

Median one-bedroom rents fell 11 percent, from $1,100 a year ago to $974 in October. Median two-bedroom rents fell 6 percent, from $1,250 to $1,175.

Rents for three-bedroom apartments rose 4 percent, from $1,400 to $1,450.

Rent data was culled from HousingLink’s Twin Cities Rental Revue, an analysis of 341 rental vacancy listings in St. Paul.

MEDIAN INCOME: $70,000 PER PERSON?

The federal department of Housing and Urban Development calculates area median income based on the 16 counties of the official Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area, an area spanning some 4 million people and reaching into Wisconsin.

As a result, freshly-updated HUD calculations of area median income are fairly elevated — $70,000 for an individual and $116,000 for a family of four.

Median household income in St. Paul is about half that, or around $54,000 as of 2018. However, eligibility for affordable housing is typically set around the HUD median, not the city median.

Based on the higher-income HUD figures, a family earning 60 percent of area median income could afford more than half the St. Paul rental vacancies listed in October, or 56 percent, up from 26 percent of vacancies a year ago. Related Articles East-metro tiny house settlements for homeless face obstacles

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A family earning 50 percent of area median income could afford about 14 percent of the St. Paul vacancies, up from 4 percent a year ago.

A year ago, a family earning 30 percent of area median income could afford nothing in the St. Paul market without some form of additional assistance, according to HousingLink. That figure hasn’t changed.