Prospective home buyers in the United States are facing some of the least favorable market conditions in decades. Most new homes in the U.S. sold for over $430,000 in the third quarter of 2023, and the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate recently hit a 23 year high. Now, according to a recent study conducted by real estate brokerage company Redfin, it takes an annual household income of at least $115,000 to comfortably afford a median priced home in the United States – and most American households earn less than $75,000 a year.
Prohibitive homeownership costs have made renting the only option for a growing number of Americans. And in many U.S. cities, renting remains affordable for a much broader range of income levels.
Using data for 384 metro areas from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 50 cities with the lowest rents. Cities are ranked by monthly median gross rental price in 2022. All supplemental data in this story, including rental unit size, housing units occupied by renters, median income, rent-to-income ratios, and population are also from the 2022 ACS.
Among the metro areas on this list, median rent prices range from $858 per month to about $670. For context, the median monthly rental price nationwide stands at $1,300.
Of the 50 metro areas on this list, half are located in the South, and 17 are in the Midwest – regions that tend to have below average living costs. Meanwhile, only three of these metro areas are in the West, and five are in the Northeast.
The cities on this list tend to have lower-than-average incomes, with a typical household earning anywhere from about $44,300 to $74,000 a year, according to the 2022 ACS. Still, renting remains relatively affordable, as in the majority of these places, median rental prices account for 30% or less of the typical income, while nationwide, renters spend an average of 31% of their income on housing.