More than half of New Jerseyans think housing is too expensive, poll shows

Most New Jerseyans think housing in their state is too expensive. But opinions on what to do about it vary widely among Garden State residents.

According to a new poll by Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics, just over half of New Jerseyans say their housing costs aren’t affordable. A breakdown shows 33% of those polled said their housing is “not very” affordable, while 18% said it's “not at all” affordable. Fifty-six percent said it is only getting more difficult to afford housing in New Jersey.

Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, said the pollsters saw a theme throughout the responses. New Jerseyans feel their wages are stagnant and not keeping up with the cost of homes in the state.

“ Three-quarters of respondents blame the lack of housing affordability on incomes not keeping pace with housing cost increases and the housing price increases themselves,” Koning said.

The poll also revealed how burdened many New Jerseyans are by housing-related spending. Results show just 27% reported spending less than one-third of their total monthly household income on rent or mortgage payments, while 38% say they spend one-third to half of their income on their housing payment and 25% spend more than half. Policy experts consider anyone spending more than 30% of their monthly income on rent to be “cost burdened.”

The poll was conducted last month. The results are based on a survey of more than 1,000 adults from the Garden State.

The Rutgers poll comes weeks before next month's primary election, in which New Jersey voters will choose Republican and Democratic nominees for this fall’s gubernatorial election. Recent election polling shows that the economy and housing affordability are voters’ top two issues.

State lawmakers are also looking to pass key legislation before the current session ends in January. Outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy has said he’d like to see a number of bills tied to housing and affordability reach his desk before he leaves office at the end of 2025.

New Jersey will also officially kick off its next 10-year round of state-mandated affordable housing production this summer. State officials aim to build more than 80,000 new low-priced homes and repair another 65,000 existing affordable apartments. On average, towns around the state are required to build 150 new affordable homes, though some municipalities have been assigned much more. Local municipalities' plans for where and how to build new affordable homes are due by the end of June.

“Issues like cost of living, affordability and especially property taxes are kind of perennial concerns among New Jerseyans and come up time and time again” in polling, Koning said.

But responses across key demographics like political affiliation, race and ethnicity show disagreements on how to address the affordability problem.

“ Everybody says that housing is unaffordable and increasingly so, but they have differing opinions of how it should be addressed and what the solution is,” she said.

For example, 45% of those polled said they support efforts by the state government to encourage the building of more apartments. However, significantly more Black (61%) and Hispanic (58%) respondents said they supported more building than white respondents (35%).

On the issue of whether the government should increase rental assistance for low-income residents, the Rutgers poll saw stark partisan political divide, with 68% of Democrats in favor and just 28% of Republicans supporting such measures.

Other possible solutions didn’t get much support. Only 28% of respondents overall said they were in favor of ending the use of credit checks for renters, and only 23% said they were in favor of raising the eviction filing fee for landlords.

Some measures attracted more consensus.

A vast majority of respondents (69%) support offering first-generation homebuyers down payment assistance. Additionally, 61% of New Jerseyans support adopting statewide rent control, and 60% favored a surcharge on the sale of luxury homes over $2 million.

“I think when you remove the politics from a lot of this, people very much understand that affordable housing and housing instability … are critically important and are necessary investments,” said Matthew Hersh, policy director for the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, a nonprofit that partnered with Rutgers to conduct the poll.