Consumerist
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)
Comments
Yeah, but the problem is that you actually have to live in Oklahoma City.
In the interest of people (like myself) who hate Slideshow Lists:
BTW: (Cheapest [$519] to most expensive [$773])
#'s 13 and 18... what you save in rent, you'll make up for in heating. Winter in Upstate NY is CHILL-LY.
@Mercurypdx - I'm from Central/WNY, it's a great place to live. You get more snow than serious cold. Compare to Chicago this week... 6° high tomorrow!
and speaking of Chicago... the rent here is actually not bad, I mean compared to NYC and SF. We have a very spacious 2 bdrm with a full backyard, in a very nice neighborhood (albeit a bit far from downtown) for only $800.
It's a little ironic that the picture attached to an article on great places to rent is of a building (in Co-Op City, Bronx, NY) that is entirely owner-occupied - there are no renters there.
On the other hand, Co-Op City is one of the last housing bargains in the 5 boroughs. My parents bought their apartment there in 1970 ($2,000, cash) and are still paying less than $1,000 in monthly maintenance (including utilities!) on their 2-bedroom apartment.
@hmk: 6°F? We're getting -2°F in MN! And I get to work outside... lucky me.
And just to keep vaguely on-topic, average rents in the Twin Cities seem to be around $900-1000.
you can still enjoy nyc w/o the high rents of manhattan. i have a long-time friend in the bay ridge section of brooklyn that pays about $900/mo. for a really nice 2-bdr that has a train & car service at the end of the block. 30-45 min. into rockefeller center via the d (or m...i forget now). only problem is on-street parking (& nobody in brooklyn knows how to park w/o rubbing bumpers). another friend on the promenade...a little more expensive, but there's more within walking distance. brooklyn heights has a bad rep though.
another friend rents a whole house out near massapequa real cheap. only problem is the hour-plus train-ride into the city.
Boston is pretty high...
Unless you're married, make a high salary -- you're pretty much stuck with 2-4 roommates... paying about $400-600 a month. ...for a place that hasn't been updated in 20 years. Not to mention you'll probably have to pay for oil. Yuck.
"The Best Big Cities For Renters?" Amazing! That's the same list from "Top 20 Worst Shitholes To Live In!"
@hmk:
Where you @, Saugenash or Edgewater, etc?
I am hunting for a place in the city still, and that seems like exactly what I am looking for.
also, i don't think I would have any interest in living in 80% of those cities.
also, a lot fo these cities seem to have high crime rates
what the eff? where is Philly?
i rented a studio apartment there for $430 in 2005 (heat included!), and rented a 1200 sq foot 3 bedroom house for $900. and you can still find many lovely studios in the heart of center city for $650-750. all this and nyc is two hours and $12 away.
i'd take that over living somewhere out in bumbfuck long island. plus Philly is amazing!
/end plug
I think a slightly-more-helpful list would be "cities CLOSE to big cities that are great for renters." Instead of cramming yourself into Oklahoma City, you could instead live in Norman--twenty minutes away with a smaller population but all the comforts of the city... not the mention the fact that it's a college town, meaning there's a huge amount of apartments available for rent at student-friendly prices. Plus the housing market is really great right now. :)
I live in Norman, so I'm a tad biased, but I think you'll hear the same from those who live in the metro area of the other cities on this list.
I moved to Phoenix expecting the absolute worst... and I get it for about four months.
After that though, I absolutely love it here. Phoenix is very underrated, though if you're under 30 it is the social incest capitol of the southwest.
Florida, where it used to be easy to get a 3 bedroom house to rent for $500, is now up at 2-4 times that much. Far better than NYC given that, but wages are not all so great compared to other states.
@ShadowFalls:
Cost of living in FL is still a good bit better than the northeast however. And a good part of the west.
Too bad it's rising so fast.
Weird, Santa Clara's not on there. $1000 a month for a tiny-ass studio must not be a great deal. Shocking.
The numbers for SF are a little off
"San Franciscans continue to endure the region's highest average rent: $2,285, up 14.5 percent from the end of 2006"
[www.sfgate.com]
So if I move to Oklahoma City I can buy a $400+ Coach handbag every week!
@pengie: Student friendly, since when? Norman is as high or higher than OKC for most apartments.
Now houses, that's the way to go. I have a friend renting a 2 br house in Norman for about $700. He has asked about moving here to Ventura Co. It's not worth it, even with the $6000 a year cost of living difference
I don't get the purpose of these lists. They always neglect to include the important factors mentioned by Chris.. comparable jobs and salaries. And other factors such as food, entertainment, leisure activities, and culture.
750 gets you a three room apartment here, though the rooms are certainly small, and shittily built. Most people I know have two or more roommates to make ends meet, there's just a stunning amount of extremely shitty, extremely cheap apartments here. Quality, that ramps up rapidly right now, at least until our housing bubble really pops.
Of course, it's also worth noting Phoenix sucks. You won't spend much on rent, but there's nothing to do with the money you save.
FUCKKKK Phoenix.
I can't wait to get out of this place. It is a sprawling boring mess. I wouldn't even call it a city, as it has absolutely no culture.
My rent is about $750 a month. I'm close to school and work, but the apartment is sort of shitty for what I'm paying. Like Zogburn said, there is an abundance of awful apartments in Phoenix. If you want quality you'll be paying more than 1k/month for it.
@ShadowFalls: you're not kidding. my sister was working 3 jobs (& her b/f was working 2) just getting by in the tampa area. she moved to greensboro & is doing much better on a single salary.
they really don't give a shit about education down there - teacher salaries are a fraction of what they pay in the northeast & the classrooms are twice as large.
Personally, I dont like living in a large apartment. In fact my small apartment is too big for my needs.
Too much area to clean, furnish, heat,cool etc. etc.. It can be a pain.
I wouldnt mind living in a tiny apartment as long as the walls are soundproof & the area and building is a safe one.
I'll second the Winston-Salem ranking. I have friends who moved there after graduate school and I was flabbergasted at the rents. Granted, this was 10 years ago, but at that time one person with a white-collar job could easily afford a three-bedroom apartment with a patio, fireplace, etc.
If it hasn't already been said, let's consider median pertaining rent. Half the units below, half above, so quality isn't in the equation. That median range home inevitably falls squarely in the seedy category.
@dj_skilz - we're up in Old Irving Park. very safe neighborhood, but not a whole long going on. lots of very large, beautiful homes that sell for a mil or so. *but* there are rentals scattered throughout and the rent is cheap. just a short walk to the blue line - takes about 20-30 minutes to get to the loop.
my other favorite neighborhood is northcenter/lincoln square. rent is not as cheap, but there is a lot of stuff to do & very close to the brown line. a friend lives there and has a nice 1 bdrm, heat included, for $850.
@Pengie: in what universe is Norman 20 minutes from OKC? Try 40. Evangelize all you want, but be honest. There's no way to live in Norman and work in OKC. The traffic is a Godawful nightmare.
"Best" is certainly a relative term.
I grew up in Oklahoma City.
I choose to live in New York City.
And I enjoy it here more than 5X as much per month.
Twenty cities that I would never consider to live in and I have lived in Boston, Chicago, NYC, San Francisco and Los Angeles. I'll pay the high rent and not be bored out of my mind.
In the middle of nowhere (Sioux Falls, SD) apartment rents are at least $650, that will get you something in the seedy side of town that hasn't been maintained or updated since the 70's. $850 to $1000 will get you a decent apartment or a run down townhouse in the crappy side of town. If you want a semi decent townhouse or duplex your dropping a grand a month or more. Unless you work in some specialized high paying profession and luck into a job in that field the only employment is call center work paying about $10 an hour. We don't have a state income tax but they tax the crap out of everything else. Professional wages are also drastically less here.
At least a larger city you can make more in wages, pay about the same for housing and have something to do. As soon as the housing market recovers were outta here. Ironically the powers that be can't figure out why everyone is leaving.
So I guess they didn't take in to account the average wages and job market? I moved somewhere I thought would be cheaper, only to find out my pay went down just as much. Oh, and I ended up in bumfuck without public transportation and only a few decent entertainment options.
@HRHKingFriday: Salaries dont vary that much from place to place, at least not as much as people seem to think. Maybe for Lawyers/Doctors who work at the more prestigious outfits, but your average teacher/postalworker/salesperson does much better in a smaller city. I know I make (or made, when I was still working for someone else) about 20% less then if I would have in NY/DC by living in a more suburban area, but I was paying $800/mnth for a very nice 3 BR. I also know I can buy a 4 bedroom house on a half acre in Allentown or Nashville for half of what I spent on my current place, so that 25% pay hit would more then pay for itself.
@LatherRinseRepeat:
In my industry (business intelligence) at least, the salary difference is never as great as people like to make it out to be when bashing areas that aren't the coasts. I recently did a nationwide job search before taking my new job. I ended up taking a job for $150k in a mid-sized midwestern city, versus $180 in Boston and $210k in NYC. Even with the reduced salary, our standard of living is significantly higher than it would be in those other cities.
i want to move to OKC if only to walk by Flaming Lips Alley every day of my life.
Cost of rent isn't a good benchmark number. You need something like cost of average salary/rent as a benchmark. Of course, what's true on a small scale(downtown vs. suburbs) is also true nationwide, so you could consider Iowa and Indiana to be the suburbs of the nation.
OKC is great. I lived there from 2000-2004. It gets a bad rap, but there's plenty to do, and the people couldn't be nicer. Rock-bottom cost of living, and I do think that that outweighs any drop in salary. I'd move back in a heartbeat if I weren't in school.
While there, we had a gorgeous 4000 SF house in a nice, historic section of town, 2-15 minutes from anything we could want, two blocks from a load of breathtaking, million-dollar homes (best neighborhood ever for dogwalking), and it cost us a whopping $120K. I don't care where else I live, that house will always be my favorite.
So I definitely buy into the list. Granted, if you have to have the amenities of NYC, you mightn't be totally happy in one of these cities, but what percentage of the population feels so strongly about always having such a crazy range of things to do? Most people would be plenty happy in a place like St. Louis, which is on my short list of places to settle down.
Salary.com has a good cost of living vs. salary calculator.
I highly recommend #7, though rents are quickly rising as others figure out how great living in the middle of Ohio can actually be (no, seriously). In our pedestrian-friendly, amenity-rich area, average rents have risen at least $100 - $200/mo in the past two years. We actually moved here from coastal NC because the cost of living was lower AND salaries were higher. No beach, but ah well.
Don't hate, NYC snobs!
Chicago isn't really that bad. I live in the loop, in a pretty nice (albeit fairly small) 1BR apartment. The rent is ~$1500/month, but we don't have cars. My wife and I moved here from Kansas City, and our rent was ~$600. But, by the time we added in car payments, insurance, and gas, it's about a wash with what we pay here. A lot of people don't factor that kind of thing in. Same thing in NY. If you don't have a car to pay for, insure, maintain, and gas up, high rents don't seem all that bad. Plus, most high-rise apartments include a lot of your utilities in the rent. All I pay is electric and a small fee for an upgraded cable TV package.
Wow my $450 a month for my duplex looks tame. 2bd 1 bath 1000 sqft MOL. Heck I even live in a relatively affluent neighborhood 2blks north of high end Crown Heights here in OKC. My wife and I just started looking to buy a house. We are looking at picking up a 1400 sqft new construction brick home in west OKC for under $140k.
@shanaynay: I can drive from Norman to central OKC in twenty minutes, provided it's not during the rush hour. If you're trying to get there for an 8 am job, hell yes it's going to take you 40 minutes, but outside of that and rush hour it's seriously not that far. I don't speed, either. *shrugs*
@Major-General: I actually just purchased a house, so I was going off of what I was told by a few college students re: rent. I'd have to agree, buying is the way to go, but I guess my friends aren't as aware of the prices as I thought.
@Amry: You accidentally put a comma in that last sentence. Oh, it wasn't an accident? Damn.
(I actually do love OKC; and it's true - there is actually a lot to do there. But I just love NYC so much more!)
@JustRunTheDamnBallBillick.: "Maybe for Lawyers/Doctors who work at the more prestigious outfits, but your average teacher/postalworker/salesperson does much better in a smaller city."
We're lawyers, our salaries (well, my husband's) fell by about 1/3 when we moved to a secondary city. But our housing costs fell by 2/3, so it was very absorbable.
The only problem for us and other lawyers we know moving to secondary cities is that student loans don't adjust for salary adjustments!
From that list, I'm particularly fond of St. Louis and Indianapolis. (Indy has a seriously kick-ass jazz scene.)
When I lived on the outskirts of Sacramento, I had a huge one-bedroom apartment in a complex with an outdoor pool. I also had a covered parking spot.
$650. And I didn't really have to even look. Every place had a FOR RENT sign out front.
Sacramento's not a bad place to live. It's hot in the summer though.
I miss Buffalo. I'm leaving LA and going home.
I'm a native New Yorker who ran out to the Phoenix metro area about 2 years ago chasing cheap rents (and a relationship, but that's another story).
I can't wait to go back home. Phoenix is nothing more than a collection of shithole suburbs trying desperately to be something else. I don't regret coming out here, as an early twenty-something it was much easier to establish myself out here, but no way could I live here long term. That's the thing these lists never take into account. Yes, the rent is cheaper and the cost of living may be lower, but money isn't everything. Can you live in a place where public transportation is a fucking joke, and drivers are so damn stupid they can't handle rain or pedestrians? Can you live in a place where the only culture is in whatever cheap Chinese crap spilled on the floor at the local Wally World? Can you live in a place with strip malls instead of neighborhoods?
Call me a latte liberal snob, but that extra money I'm saving on living expenses is going right into my escape fund, and funding my education so I can afford to live in the place I truly love.
@mac-phisto:
I also lives in tampa - for 9 years. If you don't 'know' someone, are in sales or stripping - you're lucky if you make $10.00/hr.
Although, I rented a 3/1.5 bath townhouse for $600 month.