Welcome to the Jekyll and Hyde show known as the Lawrence rental market.

Two national reports released last week showed both the smiling and ugly faces of the city’s rental market, with one national apartment Web site ranking Lawrence as the fourth best city in the country for renters. A Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, however, also released data that showed Lawrence was one of the lesser-affordable rental markets in the state.

Area housing experts said there’s probably a lot of truth in both reports.

“This is a renter’s market right now,” said Barbara Huppee, executive director of the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority. “It is a better market for renters than it has been in years, but it is still definitely not an easy market for low-income people.”

Final four

First the Dr. Jekyll story – he’s the nice one. ApartmentRatings.com, an Austin, Texas-based Web site found that Lawrence trailed only Greensboro, N.C.; Columbus, Ga.; and Cincinnati as the best city in the country for renters.

The Web site, which allows renters to write reviews about their apartments for potential renters to read, ranked 138 of the country’s larger rental markets. It studied rent rates relative to average income, apartment availability and results from renter satisfaction surveys.

Katie Bencken, a co-founder of the site, said the rankings indicate Lawrence renters have a good amount of money left over after paying rent, have a large amount of apartment choices and are particularly pleased with their apartments once they move in.

“Really, you basically ranked near the top third of all our categories,” Bencken said.

The city ranked 55th in affordability, 47th in availability and 13th in renter satisfaction.

“The satisfaction score definitely helped push (Lawrence) up so high overall,” Bencken said.

Not surprisingly, Lawrence landlords were nodding their heads in agreement with the rankings.

“I think that sounds about right, especially this year,” said Connie Gore, manager of the Malls Old English Apartments. “I think we are probably a bit overbuilt in the number of apartments in town, and that has led to a lot of choices for renters.”

Jackie Putman, a leasing agent for Ironwood Court Apartments, said the renter satisfaction rates also make sense because there have been 1,240 new apartment units built in Lawrence since 2001. That has put pressure on most landlords to improve their units in order to compete.

“People like to live in the new stuff,” Putman said. “I really think people want to live in a place where no one has lived before. I think that is why this town keeps building so many apartments.”

Huppee, whose nonprofit agency makes about 1,000 rental unit inspections per year, agreed that the quality of rental units had improved significantly during the past five years.

“We do have some good, quality rentals in this town,” Huppee said. “The ones we see are fairly well maintained.”

At least one renter agreed.

“I’ve always heard that a lot of people get ripped off here,” said Bobby Sauder, a Kansas University junior. “But I’ve never had any major problems, especially in finding a place. There are a lot of good locations.”

Affordability issues

But for many people, Mr. Hyde is always lurking around the corner. The second report, by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, presented rental data for Lawrence and most other metropolitan areas in the country.

When the Lawrence data is compared to other large cities in Kansas, it shows Lawrence renters on average spend a larger portion of their incomes on housing.

“I would think one of the questions in (the Lawrence) community is whether the people who aren’t students can afford to pay the rents that are being driven by students,” said Nicole Letourneau, communications director for the coalition, which advocates for an increase in the federal minimum wage.

The report based its findings off the assumption that a two-bedroom apartment in Lawrence would cost at least $659 per month, which is an average determined for Lawrence by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

It also used statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau that suggest the average wage for a renter is $7.41 per hour. That means for average renters to spend no more than 30 percent of their income on housing – the standard the federal government uses to define affordable – they would have to work 68 hours per week to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

What it means in the real world, Letourneau said, is that it likely would take two full-time wage earners to afford a two-bedroom apartment, or people would have to spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Both options can be problematic, Letourneau said.

“There are people who have to decide whether to buy less food, or skimp on child care or maybe work longer, which may mean their children may suffer because the parents aren’t around as much,” Letourneau said.

Lawrence renters this week said it does take some searching to find an apartment that works with the wages that are paid in Lawrence. Several said finding a roommate to help share costs is important. So is knowing where to look for a good value.

“I think there is still some good value in some of the older apartments,” said Tim Davey, a renter and an employee of a Lawrence travel agency. “It seems like there are a few places that rent almost exclusively to college students. It seems like those places charge a lot higher rent. It is almost like price gouging.”

Huppee said the coalition’s study was a good one because it served as a good reminder that despite advances, the city’s rental market is still problematic for many low-income residents.

“It is a better rental market in that there are more units available,” Huppee said. “It may not be a better rental market in that the rents may still be unaffordable for those who need to rent. There’s a contradiction there. The question is how do you solve that contradiction.”