National Ranking: Best Cities To Stretch Your Dollar

Integrating our rental data along with income data from the 2016 American Community Survey, we’ve made a comprehensive list of the top cities in the U.S. to stretch your dollar. We did this by combining our median one bedroom rent data with median city-level income data to obtain percentage of income spent on rent and coupled that with median price per square foot.

Notably, 1 California city made the top 10 list while 2 Florida cities were crowned in the top markets. All of the top 10 cities had apartments priced under $1.60 per square foot and had renters spend about 31% or less of their income on rent. Check out the rankings below.

1. Raleigh, NC reigned as the best city to stretch your dollar as apartments in this market were priced at a median of $1.22 per square foot and renters put about 31% of their incomes toward rent.

2. Phoenix, AZ was the 2nd best city, though it had an even lower rate of income spent on rent than Raleigh, at 23%. However, the $1.39 per square foot in Phoenix pulled the city down in the list to rank just after Raleigh.

3. Las Vegas, NV apartments were priced at $1.42 per square foot and renters spent about 23% of their income on rent, making it the 3rd best city.

4. Fresno, CA, as the only California city on our top 10 list, actually had the same price per square foot as Las Vegas, at $1.42, but was weighed down by the higher proportion of income spent on rent, at 26%.

5. Milwaukee, WI actually had the lowest percentage of income spent on rent in the top 10 markets, at 21%, but the price per square foot was about a $1.45, making the city 5th overall.

6. Salt Lake City, UT, similar to Milwaukee, had a median of $1.45 per square foot but had a higher rate of 27% of income spent on rent, which pushed it down to rank as 6th.

7. Tampa, FL was the first Florida city to make this list. Though it had the highest percentage of income spent on rent in the top 10 cities, at 31%, the $1.51 price per square foot brought it up to rank as 7th.

8. Richmond, VA ranked as the 8th best city with a median of $1.54 per square foot and had renters spending about 22% of their income on rent.

9. St. Petersburg, FL, as the second Florida city on our top 10 list, actually had a lower percentage of income spent on rent than Tampa, at 28%, but was pulled down in the rankings by the higher price per square foot, at $1.53.

10. Irving, TX rounded off our top 10 cities with $1.59 per square foot and 23% of income spent on rent.

Unsurprisingly, the bottom 10 cities looked very similar to our top 10 most expensive list in our monthly National Rent Report. These worst cities for stretching your dollar were weighed down by high percentages of income spent on rent, with San Francisco at 40%, and high prices per square foot. All of these cities had medians of $3.24 or more per square foot, which is more than double the same data from the best 10 cities.

Methodology

To determine the best cities to stretch your dollar, we analyzed data from the top 50 U.S. cities on the following key metrics:

•     Median square footage data from Zumper.com
•     Median one bedroom rent data from Zumper.com
•     Median income data from 2016 American Community Survey

After combining one bedroom rent data with income data to get the overall percentage of income spent on rent for each city, an index was created that weighed the median price per square foot at 80% and percent of income spent on rent at 20%. The final ranking was determined by adding up each city’s weighted scores to see who scored highest overall.

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Full Data

Ranking	City	Price per sq foot	% of income spent on rent
1	Raleigh, NC	$1.22	30.98%
2	Phoenix, AZ	$1.39	23.40%
3	Las Vegas, NV	$1.42	22.69%
4	Fresno, CA	$1.42	26.11%
5	Milwaukee, WI	$1.45	21.01%
6	Salt Lake City, UT	$1.45	27.05%
7	Tampa, FL	$1.51	31.27%
8	Richmond, VA	$1.54	22.12%
9	St Petersburg, FL	$1.53	27.60%
10	Irving, TX	$1.59	23.27%
11	Houston, TX	$1.58	30.86%
12	Fort Worth, TX	$1.61	24.93%
13	Durham, NC	$1.64	25.53%
14	Pittsburgh, PA	$1.67	17.98%
15	Newark, NJ	$1.66	25.83%
16	Henderson, NV	$1.69	21.99%
17	Madison, WI	$1.67	35.10%
18	Baltimore, MD	$1.70	26.08%
19	Plano, TX	$1.72	24.66%
20	Philadelphia, PA	$1.97	43.25%
21	Charlotte, NC	$2.05	29.49%
22	Dallas, TX	$2.05	32.16%
23	Aurora, CO	$2.06	29.78%
24	Sacramento, CA	$2.20	24.82%
25	Austin, TX	$2.21	24.83%
26	Nashville, TN	$2.22	27.80%
27	Orlando, FL	$2.26	25.26%
28	Portland, OR	$2.30	37.75%
29	Atlanta, GA	$2.50	37.79%
30	Minneapolis, MN	$2.56	28.92%
31	Scottsdale, AZ	$2.67	19.41%
32	Providence, RI	$2.69	26.24%
33	New Orleans, LA	$2.89	15.22%
34	San Diego, CA	$2.98	38.77%
35	Long Beach, CA	$3.00	31.22%
36	Chicago, IL	$3.07	27.32%
37	Denver, CO	$3.08	26.72%
38	Fort Lauderdale, FL	$3.08	30.37%
39	Anaheim, CA	$3.10	32.93%
40	Santa Ana, CA	$3.13	38.01%
41	Seattle, WA	$3.24	36.25%
42	Urban Honolulu, HI	$3.31	28.14%
43	Miami, FL	$3.43	27.64%
44	Oakland, CA	$3.43	38.56%
45	Los Angeles, CA	$3.62	32.27%
46	San Jose, CA	$3.68	36.93%
47	Washington, DC	$3.76	24.57%
48	Boston, MA	$3.83	35.01%
49	New York, NY	$4.62	34.14%
50	San Francisco, CA	$5.36	40.06%