The buildings look full, the rent roll is stable and turnover is low. On paper, these are exactly the signs investors want to see in a rental market. But new research from Realtor.com suggests that in some cities, those signals are increasingly misleading because a large share of renters are staying put for a simple reason: they cannot afford to move.
The analysis focuses on metros with especially high shares of long‑term renters, defined as households that have been in the same home for at least five years. In these places, Realtor.com finds that 39.2% of renter households would face a severe cost burden if they were forced to move and lease a home at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Fair Market Rents for their area. That means nearly four in ten renter households in these markets are effectively "can't move" renters: they can manage their current rent, but they cannot afford prevailing market rents for a similar unit in the same city.
The geography of this group is not limited to the usual coastal headlines. Realtor.com highlights a mix of large and mid‑sized metros where long‑term renters are common and moving would be financially punishing. New York and Los Angeles fit that profile, but so do cities such as Providence, Worcester, Bridgeport and Fresno. In these markets, renters may be in older units, in properties with some form of rent regulation or simply paying below what the market now demands.
They are staying not because they are unconcerned about price, but because any move would push housing costs past the 50% of income threshold that defines severe burden.
For owners and lenders, the presence of this "can't move" cohort changes how familiar indicators should be read. High occupancy in a city like New York or Providence may reflect, in part, households that know that if they give up their current lease, they will not find another one they can afford. Low turnover in Worcester or Bridgeport may say as much about the lack of affordable alternatives as it does about the appeal of the building itself. The same applies in places like Fresno, where incomes lag behind rent growth and long‑tenure renters are increasingly exposed if they are forced back into the open market.
Realtor.com's decision to measure stress against HUD Fair Market Rents rather than just current contract rents is central to this picture. A household paying, say, 32% of income on an existing lease does not look severely cost‑burdened on standard measures. But when the same household is evaluated against what it would have to pay at local fair market rent for a comparable unit, the burden can jump above 50%. In long‑term renter metros, the report shows that this gap between in‑place rents and FMR is wide enough to trap a large share of tenants in their current homes.
That helps explain why some of these cities can show low vacancy alongside rising concerns about affordability. In New York and Los Angeles, for example, long‑term renters benefit from legacy rents that keep monthly payments manageable relative to local incomes. In Providence and Worcester, tenants who moved in years ago may still be paying below what new arrivals face.
In Fresno and other inland markets, older leases can similarly sit below current asking rents. Across all of these places, the report suggests, moving is less a matter of preference than of financial survival.
The result is a kind of "false stability." From a distance, occupancy and rent rolls in these metros can look resilient. Underneath, a meaningful share of households are in a precarious position: they are stable only so long as they are not asked to sign a new lease at today's prices. By quantifying how many of these renters would become severely cost‑burdened at fair market rents, the Realtor.com research offers a clearer view of that underlying fragility.
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