About 6 in 10 Dover renters spend 30% or more of their income on rent

Up from about 5 in 10 in 2006-10. No clear change since 2015-19.

58.4%: of renter households pay 30% or more, give or take 7.4 points (source).
$1,344: median monthly rent, with utilities, give or take $50 (source).
$44,129: median yearly renter income, give or take $4,037 (source).

Share of Dover renters paying 30% or more of income on rent

Each point is a 5-year survey estimate, so neighboring points share years. We tested only 2006-10, 2015-19 and 2020-24, which do not overlap.

Source: Census American Community Survey, table B25070. Download the data (CSV).

See the numbers as a table

Survey years	Paying 30% or more	Give or take	Paying 50% or more	Give or take
2006-10	48.4	5.2	28.9	3.8
2007-11	53.8	6.2	29.2	4.8
2008-12	53.6	5.7	28.7	4.7
2009-13	54.9	5.6	30.2	4.7
2010-14	55.1	5.8	31.4	5.1
2011-15	55.6	6.9	32.8	5.7
2012-16	56.0	4.9	31.7	4.0
2013-17	55.2	5.0	31.2	4.0
2014-18	56.1	4.9	30.1	4.2
2015-19	58.9	5.8	28.7	4.3
2016-20	58.4	6.6	28.5	5.5
2017-21	58.2	5.9	28.1	5.1
2018-22	58.6	6.5	27.0	5.9
2019-23	58.6	6.6	25.3	5.5
2020-24	58.4	7.4	24.3	5.7

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Dover is above the state

The gap with Delaware is larger than the survey's margin. The gaps with Kent County and the nation are not (source).

Renters paying 30% or more of income on rent, 2020-24

The line shows the likely range. Dover's is wide because the survey samples fewer homes there.

Source: table B25070.

See the numbers as a table

Place	Share	Give or take	Renter households
Dover	58.4	7.4	8,025
Kent County	52.5	4.1	18,546
Delaware	49.6	2.0	102,006
United States	51.1	0.3	41,908,786

Since 2015-19, rent has not pulled ahead of renter income

Rent rose 29.5% and renter income 39.0% before inflation, while prices rose 22.7% (rent), (income), (prices). Over the longer run since 2006-10, rent is ahead, but that gap is within the margin.

Growth since 2006-10, with 2010 set to 100

The scale starts at 80. Income can rise because people earn more or because different people now rent. The data can't separate the two.

Sources: table B25064, table B25119, Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer prices.

See the numbers as a table

Survey years	Median rent	Give or take	Median renter income	Give or take	Yearly rent as % of income
2006-10	891	29	32,672	2,991	32.7
2007-11	926	43	33,421	4,704	33.2
2008-12	955	50	32,648	2,966	35.1
2009-13	917	36	30,026	3,806	36.6
2010-14	929	30	30,063	3,123	37.1
2011-15	949	25	30,380	4,236	37.5
2012-16	982	28	31,199	3,114	37.8
2013-17	994	35	31,742	3,541	37.6
2014-18	1,028	32	31,012	2,957	39.8
2015-19	1,038	38	31,742	2,592	39.2
2016-20	1,066	36	32,541	3,309	39.3
2017-21	1,092	46	35,261	2,778	37.2
2018-22	1,165	52	37,831	3,140	37.0
2019-23	1,252	60	41,950	3,555	35.8
2020-24	1,344	50	44,129	4,037	36.5

Lower-income renters carry most of it

About 3 in 4 renters under 80% of area income pay more than 30%. Above area income, few do (HUD CHAS).

Dover renters paying more than 30%, by household income, 2018-22

Area income is HUD's median family income for the Dover metro area, adjusted for household size. HUD rounds its counts.

Source: HUD CHAS 2018-22, Table 8, Dover city.

See the numbers as a table

Income, share of area income	Paying more than 30%	Households	Share	Give or take
Up to 30%	1,155	1,515	76.2	12.0
30% to 50%	1,280	1,735	73.8	13.8
50% to 80%	1,345	1,720	78.2	8.4
80% to 100%	250	750	33.3	12.7
Over 100%	190	1,990	9.5	7.0

Permits for larger buildings stopped for five years, then came back

Dover reported none for buildings of 5 or more homes from 2019 to 2023, then 252 homes in 2024 and 2025 (source). In separate data, vacant homes were 10.2% in 2015-19 and 6.2% in 2020-24 (source).

Homes permitted in Dover each year

A permit is not a finished home, and the data doesn't say which homes are for rent.

Source: Census Building Permits Survey, Dover.

See the numbers as a table

Year	In buildings of 5 or more	Other	Total
2,014	72	44	116
2,015	182	65	247
2,016	102	126	228
2,017	296	152	448
2,018	42	164	206
2,019	0	48	48
2,020	0	48	48
2,021	0	81	81
2,022	0	116	116
2,023	0	81	81
2,024	108	110	218
2,025	144	95	239

Owners pay less of their income, and home values jumped

29.0% of owners pay 30% or more on housing, give or take 5.4 points (source). The median home value rose 47.7% since 2015-19, while owner income rose 16.4%, both before inflation (value), (income).

$258,900median home value, up from $175,300, as estimated by owners

Two county figures

In Kent County, HUD's fair market rent for a two-bedroom is $1,629 a month (source). The Legal Services Corporation tracker counts 2,229 eviction filings in the county in 2025, down from 3,310 in 2019 (source). These cover all of Kent County, and a filing is not a completed eviction.

How we did this

Main source: the Census American Community Survey, 5-year estimates for Dover city, saved on 2026-11-01 with their web addresses (rent burden), (rent), (income), (home value), (owner costs), (tenure), (occupancy). The latest covers 2020-24, so it does not show this year's rents.
Give or take: these are survey estimates, and the Census publishes margins at 90% confidence. We combined margins using Census formulas, and call a change or gap real only when it is larger than its combined margin.
Comparisons: we tested only survey periods that do not overlap: 2006-10, 2015-19 and 2020-24. The chart lines show every year for shape only. The rise from 48.4% to 58.4% passes this test, by 10.0 points against a margin of 9.0. The change since 2015-19 does not.
Paying 30% or more uses gross rent, which includes utilities, and the 30% line is a common rule of thumb. We left out households with no computed figure, as the Census does.
Yearly rent as % of income divides one median by another, so it is a rough guide. It moved 2.7 points since 2015-19 against a margin of 5.0.
Prices: the national Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, averaged across each year's months. Census dollars are in each period's final year, so we compare with that year. Changes on this page are not adjusted for inflation. Prices are national, not local.
HUD data: CHAS 2018-22 is the newest HUD file we found. It covers an earlier period than the newest Census data. Fair market rents are for federal fiscal year 2027 and the Dover, DE MSA, which matches Kent County. HUD blocks scripted downloads, so we read those files in a browser and saved only the rows we used.
Permits: counts of homes in new buildings that Dover reported to the Census for all twelve months of each year.
Eviction filings: from the Legal Services Corporation's court data tracker. Moratoriums covered parts of 2020 and 2021. We did not use court records that name people or addresses.
AI and review: this report is AI-assisted. An AI model wrote the text and code from a computed data file, and a person reviews it before it is published. Every number on the page is checked by script against that file, and the scripts and saved raw data are kept with this report.

What this data can't tell you

Why any of this changed. We make no claim about causes.
What rent costs if you move today. These figures include long-time tenants and subsidized homes, not just new leases.
Who is struggling. Paying 30% or more is not the same as hardship, and some households, such as students, may have low reported income but other support.
Evictions inside city limits. We found no public count for the city alone.
Housing conditions. We found no public city data on code enforcement or rental inspections.