Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles.
One app.

Start reading

Get all your news in one place.

100’s of premium titles. One news app.

Start reading

The Street

Samanda Dorger

The Apartment Space You Get for $1,500 in These 33 Cities

MO Ore (Geopolitical Entity) Pew Research RentCafe

While the internet is full of blogs and videos of how to live in a tiny space, it’s not easy. And since the pandemic, many people are looking for a little more room. But how much room can you get on a renter’s budget?

Renters made up about 36% of the nation’s 122.8 million households in 2019, the last year for which the Census Bureau has data, according to Pew Research.

The demographics of renters are not the same as owners. Young people, racial and ethnic minorities, and those with lower incomes are more likely to rent, according to Pew. More than a third of renters are under age 35.

Rent makes up a big chunk of many tenants’ expenses. Of the nearly 44.1 million renter households in 2019, more than 45% were paying 30% or more of their gross household income on rent, Pew Research says. (More than 30% is considered burdensome.)

For a tenant making the 2019 median renter household income of $42,500, shelling out $1,500 a month in rent totals $18,000 a year, or more than 42.3% of their income. After taxes and rent, there’s not much left over—maybe $1,300-$1,400 a month. Rents have gone up about 15% since 2001, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, while renter income has increased only 3.4%.

So, in which cities can you get the most space for your rental dollars?

To find out how much apartment you get for $1,500 around the U.S., RentCafe, a national apartment search site, analyzed apartment rent prices and apartment sizes in the 100 largest U.S. cities. The space was calculated using price-per-square-foot derived from the average rents and average size of apartments by city, in multifamily properties of 50 or more units, using Yardi Matrix data.

Their analysis found that in Manhattan, $1,500 nets you 262 square feet—that's a little bigger than the average dorm room or one-car garage. A hotel room is around 325 square feet. That 262 square feet is about 16 x 16.5.

Think it's small? Imagine it with all your stuff in it.

Here are 10 cities where that $1,500 gets you less than 500 square feet, 10 cities where you can get 500-1,000 sq. ft., and finally 13 U.S. cities where you can rent more than 1,000 sq. ft. for $1,500 a month.