Do you love big city livin’, but you’re tired of spending 65% of your monthly salary on a 45-year-old studio apartment with a bathroom that feels like it was transplanted from an RV? (Yeah, we’re talking about NYC.) BusinessWeek lists the results of a recent survey of rental prices in cities with populations larger than one million. The best deal is (drum roll): Oklahoma City, with an average rent of $520 a month!
Of course, there are often good reasons why the prices are lower in these cities—we won’t trash Oklahoma City, but having grown up a few hundred miles south of there, we know without a doubt we’d never move back. The most important problem, actually, is that it might be next to impossible to get a comparable salary in your industry there. But there’s always a trade-off, and at least you can have a bedroom that’s not also a living/dining room.
A more attractive choice (to this writer, at least) might be Phoenix, Arizona, which is the fifth largest city in the U.S. but has an average rent of $773. By contrast, New York City’s is $2,825, and San Francisco’s is $1,861.
Florida, Arizona, California, and Nevada, which were tremendously popular during the housing boom, are now facing the most severe downturns. But the housing slump has also hurt rentals in some of these markets because of real estate-related job losses and an oversupply of rental units.In the Phoenix metro area, which ranked 20th on the list of metros with the lowest rents, traditional apartment landlords are competing for business with investors who are trying to fill the vacant condos they haven’t been able to flip.
“Big Cities, Low Rents” [BusinessWeek]
Slideshow: “Biggest Cities, Lowest Rents 2008″ [BusinessWeek]
(Photo: Getty)
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I’m always interested in moving back to Ft. Worth/Arlington, one of the best places I’ve ever been . All the people are cool, not much in the way of ego, and the area is great. I’d be back there now if it wasn’t for my friends I’ve been close with since high school and a few family members I couldn’t live without.
Can’t say the same for the Philly area. It’s overpriced for what you’re getting (aside from being close to NYC, Atlantic City, and DC) and there’s too many arrogant jerks everywhere. Outside of having grown roots, I would never choose to live here.
I don’t know when you moved away from the region, but since the late 90′s OKC has actually gotten very nice. In the 80′s and early 90′s it was seriously suffering from the downturn in the oil & gas industry (it’s cyclical), but with the city diversified, the energy sector doing well (to say the least) and major urban improvements, it is now a very nice place. I would say the only real downside to living in one of those fancy, new downtown apartments and condos is that you have to drive into the suburban area to buy a loaf of bread.
Why anyone would want to live in Oklahoma city is beyond me. Sure you have cheap rent, but what’s the difference between netting $1200 a month and paying $500 for rent vs. netting $3500 a month and paying $1500 in rent?
Hooray! We’re planning to move to San Antonio soon, mostly to get out of the cancerous part of Texas that we’re in now.
Right now though, we’re in a two bedroom house for $550 a month with a great landlord. Sight-distance from a wonderful park and river, in the area with probably the least crime-rate in the county. Even so, I don’t have to worry about the surrounding culture as some have mentioned if we move somewhere else – shopping centers, which serve about 5 small towns, are still redneck, trashy havens (a Walmart in a few towns over was understaffed and couldn’t hire new people because most applicants couldn’t pass a drug test…)
About that list all I can say is, you get what you pay for.
Chicago should be on the list. You don’t have to look too hard to find a dirt-cheap place, and most times utilities are included.
PENGIE SAYS: “but all the comforts of the city.. . .I live in Norman, so I’m a tad biased,”
ME SAYS: Being more less from Oklahoma City (don’t live there now) and having spent six years in Norman, I assure you that Oklahoma City has more going on. If you took away the dozens of Norman’s spots bars (pseudo Irish pubs that serve Bud and mozzarella sticks to redneck college-aged cap-head frat boys watching OU football) you be left with the all-ages venue run by the Starlight Mints that sells organic muffins and the Deli (or as we used to call it: The Smelly). Oh and Pepe Delgado’s new tequila bar. OKC is not nearly the best city to live in America, but by sheer size it’s got more going on than Norman. That’s why when I visit OKC my Norman friend drive to the city not vice versa.
Also: Norman is 26 miles down an interstate from OKC. It takes longer than 20 minutes to run that gauntlet (which is what it feels like you’re doing: running a gauntlet.
MAJOR GENERAL IS RIGHT: Norman is actually more expensive because of the student housing and community of well-paid professors buying up houses. And then you have to deal with college-aged morons and their immature loudness.
MICKEYMOO SEZ: “So if I move to Oklahoma City I can buy a $400+ Coach handbag every week!”
ME SAYS: Not really. What this list doesn’t tell you is why OKC is cheaper – the job market sucks. Unless you’re in healthcare services and work for the OU Health Sciences Center the job market is pretty bad. $550 a month is a lot if you can’t earn over $30,000 a year before FICA and health insurance deductions.
92BUICK: You are right. I was raised in OKC and have lived in various places, including NYC and aboard. I don’t miss OKC. And it deserved to be slammed because of it’s f-ed up politics and the fact that Oklahoma has been a welfare state since the 80s. (Taking form the federal gov’t more than it pays in.)
WRING SEX “i want to move to OKC if only to walk by Flaming Lips Alley every day of my life.”
I SAY: No way, dude. Isn’t that in bricktown? Bricktown is some fake-ass development. It’s ugly and stupid. And Wayne Coyne lives in a funky old house in a black/hispanic ghetto of OKC, which I think is kinda cool. His house is nowhere near the street named after his band and noboy that goes to bricktown woul be caught aline in the neighborhood where Wayne Coyne lives. (I hate the Flaming Lips, I love Wayne Coyne.)
SHABNAYNAY: One good thing about OKC is those awesome airplane bungalow homes that are dirt-cheap. And I suppose my previous comments are offensive. I ssume you live in the tiny progressive hipster bubble of OKC. Those people seem to really live ina bubble and ignore the vast wasteland of bullshit around them. That said: to live inside that bubble (Red Cup, Paseo, Andrew Rice fundraising events, the IAO, Tuesday nights at the Hi-Lo, etc.) it can be quite nice.
Yay, more renting posts, please! I’m planning on moving out on my own in March (self-imposed deadline) and haven’t the slightest clue about how much % of one’s salary should be budgeted towards rent. When I hear people commenting saying they spend $1400/mo on rent my reply is “How do you have money left over for things like… eating?” Its good to hear Chicago isn’t the most expensive, though I’m not sure what could be said about the ‘burbs where I am. Naperville anyone? Ick.
I miss the days when New Orleans would be on that list. My pre storm $600 2BR, 10 mins from the French Quarter (on a bike) now rents for $1200.
I’d just like to point out that Phoenix sucks. It’s not a city at all; it’s a gigantic suburb. And a third-world suburb at that, with the hyper-rich walled off in their enclosures in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley and the poor living in their slums. Whatever middle-class people there are live way out of town and are pretty much stuck with hour long commutes (if you’re lucky!)
The arts scene, for the fifth largest metropolitan area in the country, is abysmal. The only restaurants in town seem to be chains of the PF Chang’s or Macaroni Grill variety (although the Mexican food is great, as you’d expect).
Everyone loves to talk about how great the weather is, and I’ll admit that it’s pretty cool to be wearing shorts in February. Those four or five months in summer, on the other hand, are truly unbearable, especially when the monsoon hits. I’m not talking upper Midwest unbearable, where the heat and humidity last for a few weeks before you get a break…this is day-after-day for months on end unbearable which grinds you down with no relief.
Oh, did I mention that Phoenix is pretty much the methamphetamine capitol of the country?
I spent four years there going to ASU and couldn’t wait to get out of there. I’ll gladly shovel snow in Denver and live in a real city, thank-you very much!
@pylon83:
Though the taxation rate in Chicago is quite high, and you do have to figure in the costs of not only time in public transportation but also if you catch a cab it does add up.
@deadlizard: “you get what you pay for”
To be honest, not everyone wants to live in LA, NYC, etc. and there are some very, very nice places to live on this list. Places that actually have cool people and can provide you with a much better life than you would get if the bulk of your income was going towards renting and living expenses.
@olegna: Hey – nice Andrew Rice reference. He needs all the help he can get.
Well that was a great place to move but i need more cheaper that i can afford to pay that fits to my salary. Oklahoma City Generator Service