The single-family home market for new construction has trended towards affluence, and so has the rental market.

The last couple months, we’ve been reporting with regularity on how our nation’s issues with inequality have manifested themselves in new construction, especially new single-family home sales and development.

It turns out, though, that the new construction rental landscape lends itself equally (if not more capably) to that narrative, and our local market here in Houston is a remarkable case study.

According to new research by the NYU Furman Center, just 5 percent of new construction rental units in Houston are affordable to lower-income residents, compared with 58 percent for middle-income and 91 percent for upper-income residents; obviously, that’s a shockingly low rate of affordability for Houston’s neediest households.