When Did Apartments Stop Being Affordable?

People still often talk about apartments as if they are automatically the affordable form of housing.

Decades ago, that used to make sense. Apartments use less land per household. They share walls, roofs, plumbing, heating systems, parking, roads, and infrastructure. Compared with single-family homes, they should be cheaper to build and cheaper to live in.

But measured against income, newly delivered conventional housing stopped being affordable in stages. For single working adults, the break had clearly happened by 1990. For broader median households, the break came around 2007 to 2010. Today, a $450,000 to $470,000 apartment is about 10.5 to 11 times working single-adult income, and about 6 times broad household income. That is not affordable housing. It is expensive housing in a smaller box.

The hopeful part is that this is not a law of nature. It is a cost-structure problem. If we keep repeating the same conventional model, we keep getting unaffordable units. But if we change the model, the numbers change. Lower-cost, land-based yurt hamlets can bring housing back into the 3 to 5 times income range while also giving residents access to land, food production, shared infrastructure, workshops, and local work.

This article explains when apartments stopped being affordable, where the numbers are now, and why land-based yurt hamlets offer a practical alternative instead of leaving people with only bad choices.

How to measure affordability

A useful way to see the problem is by comparing delivered housing cost to annual income.

As a practical rule of thumb:

Housing cost as a multiple of annual income	Meaning
Under 3× income	Comfortable or broadly affordable
3× to 5× income	Still potentially affordable, but tighter
Over 5× income	Unaffordable for ordinary households without subsidy, unusually cheap financing, or higher-than-typical income

Using that standard, apartment affordability broke in stages.

When affordability broke

If 3 to 5 times annual income is still within the affordability range, and anything over 5 times income is unaffordable, then single adults were already near the edge in 1970 and 1980. By 1990, they were clearly priced out of newly delivered conventional housing.

Broader households and families held on longer. They were still within range in 1970 and 1980, tighter but still possible in 1990 and 2000, and then crossed the 5 times income line around 2007 to 2010.

Year	Delivered housing cost anchor	Single adult income anchor	Cost ÷ single income	Broad household / family income anchor	Cost ÷ household / family income	Read
1970	$21,900	about $4,700	4.7×	about $10,400	2.1×	Single adults are near the edge, families still affordable
1980	$54,700	$13,000	4.2×	$29,500	1.9×	Still broadly affordable, tighter for singles
1990	$175,000	about $20,000–$25,000	7×–9×	$51,300–$57,300	3.1×–3.4×	Singles clearly priced out, households still within range
2000	$200,000	about $23,000–$25,000	8×–9×	about $45,800–$60,000	3.3×–4.4×	Singles priced out, households strained but still possible
2007	$335,000	about $25,000–$30,000	11×–13×	about $60,000–$70,000	4.8×–5.6×	Household affordability line is crossed
2010	$390,000	about $27,000–$32,000	12×–14×	about $65,000–$75,000	5.2×–6.0×	Households now clearly beyond normal affordability
2026	$450,000–$470,000 apartment	about $42,800 working single	10.5×–11×	about $75,600 household	6.0×–6.2×	New apartments are unaffordable for both groups

That is the important historical shift. Apartments and other compact dwellings were once relatively affordable because they used less land and shared infrastructure. But over time, the delivered cost rose faster than incomes. By 1990, new conventional housing was no longer affordable for ordinary single workers. By 2007 to 2010, it had also crossed the line for median households.

That means today’s problem did not appear suddenly. The 2020s made it more obvious, but the affordability structure had already broken years earlier.

The alternative: lower-cost homes with land

The hopeful part is that the affordability crisis is not caused by a law of nature. It is caused by the cost structure of the housing model we keep repeating.

If we keep building conventional units at $450,000, $600,000, or $740,000 per dwelling, ordinary people will keep being priced out.

But if we change the model, the numbers change.

A land-based yurt hamlet brings down the delivered cost by using simpler dwellings, shared infrastructure, common facilities, local food systems, and lower land cost per household. It also gives residents something that an apartment usually cannot: access to productive land.

That matters because affordability is about more than rent or mortgage payments. It is about the whole cost of living.

Housing type	Delivered / benchmark cost	Working single adult	Broad household median	Projected monthly charge	Land included
Single-family home benchmark	$742,400	17.4× income	9.8× income	about $4,040	Private lot, usually limited productive land
Townhouse / multiplex benchmark	$603,900	14.1× income	8.0× income	about $3,300	Small lot or shared urban land
Condo / apartment benchmark	$466,900	10.9× income	6.2× income	about $2,660	No meaningful productive land
Upgraded service-core yurt / cabin-yurt	$345,000	8.1× income	4.6× income	about $1,980	About 1 hectare per adult in the hamlet model
Practical yurt-hamlet home	$235,000	5.5× income	3.1× income	about $1,410	About 1 hectare per adult in the hamlet model
Lean yurt-hamlet home	$160,000	3.7× income	2.1× income	about $990	About 1 hectare per adult in the hamlet model

The contrast is stark.

A conventional apartment can cost around $466,900 and still leave the resident with no land, no food-production capacity, no workshop, no firewood, and no productive base. It is a unit, but it is usually detached from livelihood.

A lean yurt-hamlet home can come in around $160,000, which is about 3.7 times working single-adult income and about 2.1 times broad household income. That brings it back into the affordability range.

A practical yurt-hamlet home at around $235,000 is still much closer to viability than a conventional apartment, especially for households.

And unlike the apartment, the hamlet model includes land.

In the version I have been proposing, the planning guideline is about 1 hectare per adult. That land is not just empty space. It can support gardens, orchards, perennial crops, firewood, livestock systems where appropriate, workshops, storage, children, elders, small businesses, and community life.

That is why yurt hamlets are not simply “cheaper housing.”

They are a different settlement model.

They reduce the cost of the dwelling, share the cost of infrastructure, and add productive land back into people’s lives.

Why the old apartment model no longer solves the problem

Apartments can still be useful. They may make sense for some people, in some places, for some stages of life. Older apartments built under older cost structures can still provide relatively affordable rents.

But newly built conventional apartments are now trapped by the same cost structure as the rest of the housing system: land costs, financing costs, construction costs, fees, professional costs, servicing costs, and the expectation of market returns.

Once those costs push a unit above what local incomes can carry, density alone does not make it affordable.

A dense unaffordable building is still unaffordable.

The missing piece: land, food, and productive life

Housing costs are only one part of the affordability crisis. Food prices are also rising, and any serious housing solution has to think about how people will actually live after rent is paid.

This is where land-based housing models matter.

A yurt hamlet can combine lower-cost shelter with gardens, orchards, perennial food systems, shared tools, shared kitchens, storage, workshops, and practical local work.

The lower-cost yurt-hamlet options also include something conventional apartments usually do not: access to land. That land can help residents grow food, firewood, families, skills, and small businesses.

That matters because affordability is not just about rent. It is about the whole cost of living.

A person who has access to land, tools, storage, food systems, and community support is in a different position than a person who has only a unit and a monthly bill.

A better affordability test

A better housing affordability test should ask more than whether a project creates units.

It should ask:

Can an ordinary working person afford to live there?

Can a median household afford it without becoming fragile?

Can the residents still buy food, maintain health, raise children, help neighbours, and participate in the community?

Does the model reduce dependency, or does it increase it?

Does it give people access to land, tools, food, work, and community, or only a place to sleep?

If the answer is weak, then the model is not solving the affordability crisis, even if it is called an apartment, even if it is dense, and even if it is presented as a housing solution.

Conclusion

Apartments were once treated as affordable because they used less land and shared infrastructure. But measured against income, newly delivered conventional housing stopped being affordable in stages.

For single working adults, the break had clearly happened by 1990.

For broader median households, the break came around 2007 to 2010.

Today, new apartments are far beyond normal affordability: roughly 10.5 to 11 times working single-adult income, and about 6 times broad household income. That means the housing conversation has to move beyond the illusion that apartments are automatically affordable.

Some apartments may still be appropriate. Older apartments, built under older cost structures, can still provide needed homes. But new conventional apartments are no longer the automatic affordable solution people imagine them to be.

If we want housing ordinary people can actually afford, we need models that bring delivered costs back into the 3 to 5 times income range.

The yurt hamlet model does that. It also goes further by including land, food production, shared infrastructure, workshop space, and local work.

That gives people more than a unit.

It gives them a home, a productive base, and a path toward a more secure life.