Coachella Valley Region Economic Development Strategy

Tables 5-6, and Figures 9-10, on the following pages provide housing- related data from the ACS. Some of the data highlights include the following:

• The overall occupied housing rate for Riverside County is 88.6%, which is slightly lower than all of the other surrounding benchmark counties except Imperial County. The occupied housing rates for subregions range from 73.1% to 95.8%, but are relatively similar for all of the subregions, with the exception being the Coachella Valley and Blythe Area (73.1%), which is notably lower than any of the other subregions (due to the large inventories of vacation/ second homes which are occupied only part of the year). • Riverside County has the highest share of owner-occupied housing units (68.9%), and the lowest share of renter-occupied housing units (31.1%) in comparison to all the other benchmark counties. The subregions with the highest shares of owner-occupied housing units are the Pass Area (78.8%), Southwest (74.3%), and Hemet/San Jacinto (69.0%) subregions. • Monthly housing costs – measured as a percentage of household income have continued to increase in Riverside County. Figure 9 shows that for the highest housing costs as a percentage of household income (50% or more), Riverside County has declined from 14.59% to 14.06% from 2019 to 2023, but remains higher than both the state of California and the nation. In terms of the subregions, most of the subregions have declined, except for the Hemet/ San Jacinto subregion which has had the highest increase from 14.95% to 15.98% from 2019 to 2023.

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