Housing is typically the biggest line item in a monthly budget, and since 2019, that line item has grown faster than incomes. Renters today would need to save 5% of their income for 8.7 years to amass a 10% down payment for a typical home, up from 7.4 years in 2019.
By lowering rent costs as much as possible, renters may be able to carve out extra room in the budget to save and invest, including for a down payment for those looking to become homeowners.
An apartment for less than $1,000? See the Midwest & South
Zillow researched where apartments could be easily found for less than $1,000. Turns out, they’re fairly few, far between, and concentrated in smaller metros in the Midwest and South. Among the 100 largest U.S. metros, 13 have more than one third of apartment listings priced below $1,000.
Wichita, Kansas has the highest share of apartment listings with monthly rent under $1,000 at 54%, followed by McAllen, Texas; the only other top-100 metros with more than half of apartments renting for less than a grand. Little Rock, Arkansas (49%); Toledo, Ohio (46%); and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (42%) round out the top-five.
At the bottom of the list are Boston, Miami, Washington D.C., North Port, Florida, Charleston, South Carolina and Cape Coral, Florida — all with 1.7% or fewer listings costing less than $1,000.
Finding the most affordable apartments
When you look at the share of apartments on the market that are affordable — where rent costs less than 30% of median household income — job centers with higher incomes rise through the ranks.
Ogden, Utah ranks highest in this metric; 97.3% of apartments there are affordable (less than $2,760) for the fairly high median household income of $110,412. Ogden is followed by Raleigh at 96.2% and Colorado Springs, Colorado (94.6%). Next on the list are Des Moines, Iowa (94.3%); and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (93.6%) which feature a combination of relatively high incomes and relatively low apartment rents.
Metros with the smallest share of affordable apartments are predictable suspects: Miami, where just 30.9% are affordable, followed by New York (34.1%), Los Angeles (45.1%), Boston (50.7%) and nearby Springfield (57.6%).
Rent a room for massive savings (and a tale or two)
Renting a room in an apartment or larger home is a great way to save big money on living expenses, and they’re easy to explore on Zillow Rentals. Renting a room can also bring highly desirable locations into your budget.
Offering a room to rent in a house you own is a big draw for recent homebuyers, too. Among recent home buyers surveyed by Zillow, nearly a third (32%) said the opportunity to rent out the entire house was very or extremely important to them. The ability to ‘house hack,’ or rent out a portion of the house they are living in, was important to 28% of buyers.
It’s easy to find a room for rent for less than a grand in an overwhelming majority of large metros. The median list rent for a room is $1,000 or less in 86 of the 100 largest U.S. metros — even the pricey Seattle metro falls in that group.
It’s no secret living in California is expensive. The desirable metros there are notoriously unaffordable. Housing providers are meeting renters where they are at (and offsetting the high cost of homeownership) by offering a greater share of rooms for rent than most other, less-expensive markets.
When looking at where rooms for rent comprise the largest segment of the rental market, California metros fill eight of the top-14 spots, among the 100 largest metropolitan areas.
Here’s a look at median rent across rental types:
