Housing Snapshot

Existing Housing Stock

Table 5.1 presents an overview of the total number of housing units in Fayette County and the surrounding counties as reported in the United States Census’ 2019 ACS. Vacant units include both those for sale or rent as well as “Other Vacant”, which include houses not considered available, either due to condition or status. The Census reports 5,832 “Other Vacant” units in Fayette County in 2019, reducing the total available housing stock to less than 136,000 total units in the county.

Housing Unit Type Regional Comparison

As seen in Table 5.4, single-unit detached homes comprise the majority of housing units in Fayette County, but its share is notably lower than surrounding counties.

60% of housing units in Lexington are 1-unit, detached Lexington is seeing a transition from a primarily single-family market to a mixed market of single family and multi-family units. While the increase in multi-family housing is significant, the category is dominated by higher-density developments with 5 or more units per structure, with a much smaller range of two to four-unit structures.

Housing Occupancy and Cost

Fayette County Median Monthly:

Rent $869

Owner Costs w/ Mortgage $1,345

While a majority of Fayette County’s units are owner-occupied, the ownership rate is the lowest in the region, which correlates to the higher rate of larger multi-family apartment developments and the large contingent of student and young working adults living in Lexington.

Figure 5.10 shows the percentage of households who pay more than 35 percent of income to cover housing costs. This metric represents a maximum threshold for a household’s ability to affordably pay for housing.

Affordable Housing

Approximately 18,000 households in Fayette County are severely cost burdened, meaning that they pay greater than 50% of their income from housing.

Roughly 15,000 low-income households need housing assistance in Lexington today. 9,000 low-income households currently receive assistance or are otherwise accommodated within the private market.

This leaves approximately 6,000 households most of whom cannot find decent housing on the open market.

Market Based Housing Affordability

The 2017 Fayette County Housing Demand Study14 set the maximum affordability threshold for low-to-moderate income households at 80 percent of the area median household income. That equates to a home price of $185,000. This is approximately 20 percent below the median sales price for all homes recently sold in Fayette County ($230,000).

LBAR Real Estate Activity January 2022

The total real estate sales volume across the 30-county region that makes up LBAR, hit a new monthly high of over $257 million.

With demand still accelerating in the region, median prices climbed to new highs. For the first time on record, the median home price in January exceeded the $200,000 threshold, closing at $225,000, up 15% over last year when the median was $195,000. Single-family home prices increased 14% to $228,000 while townhouse/condo prices rose 21%, reaching $168,750.

The supply of housing inventory rose to 1.7 months in January, a 13% increase over last year when it was 1.5 months, and up 21% from December. The January supply was the highest since May 2020 when supply stood at 2.1 months.16,17