Yonkers Is a City of Renters

Most Americans own their homes. Most Yonkers households don’t. Of the city’s roughly 81,600 occupied homes, 43,908 are rented and 37,737 are owner-occupied, according to the Census Bureau. That puts Yonkers’ homeownership rate at 46.2%, well below New York State (54.3%) and the U.S. (65.2%).

Yonkers Has Fewer Homeowners Than the State or Nation

Share of occupied homes lived in by their owner, 2020–2024

Rents are above the state median

Yonkers renters pay a median of $1,784 a month in gross rent, which includes utilities. That’s about $160 more than the New York State median and about $370 more than the national median.

Median Monthly Rent

Median gross rent (rent plus utilities), 2020–2024

These Census figures cover every renter household, including people who have lived in the same apartment for years and those in rent-stabilized or subsidized units. Asking rents for apartments listed today are often higher.

A city of apartment buildings

Yonkers’ renter majority reflects how the city is built. Nearly 4 in 10 homes are in buildings with 20 or more units, more than the share of single-family homes.

Most Yonkers Homes Are in Multi-Unit Buildings

Share of housing units by number of units in the building

Rent in 10701 is up nearly 60% since 2011

ZIP code 10701, which covers downtown and much of southwest Yonkers, is the city’s most populous ZIP code. Its median rent rose from $1,108 in the 2011 survey to $1,760 in the latest one, an increase of 59% before adjusting for inflation. Rents climbed fastest after 2019.

Median Rent in ZIP Code 10701

Median gross rent; each point is a 5-year Census survey, labeled by its final year

Rent burden

Many Yonkers renters were stretched thin even before rents rose sharply. An NYU Furman Center analysis written during the pandemic found that 37% of Yonkers renter households were paying more than half their income on rent before the pandemic, the highest share among the five mid-sized New York cities it studied.