It’s possible to get a $1,500-a-month apartment with over 1,000 square feet in the US, but you may have to load up the moving truck for the South or Midwest.
That’s what a new RentCafe analysis of US cities using data from Yardi Matrix showed. The analysis ranked 100 US cities with populations over 225,000 by which ones offered the most apartment space for a monthly rent of $1,500 based on average square feet.
“Renters looking for a spacious apartment on a budget in a big city should immediately head to the South,” a post on the results written by Alexandra Both, a senior writer and research analyst at RentCafe, said.
“That’s because more than half of the top 20 large cities offering the most apartment space for a monthly rent of $1,500 are in the Southeast and Southwest,” Both wrote. “The remaining are all in the Midwest — an area renowned for its balanced mix of affordability, jobs and spacious living.”
Finding a relatively large apartment to rent without paying a lot each month might be attractive to people who work remotely.
“Space has always been an important component in the apartment search process, but in recent years it gained even more weight,” Both told Business Insider in a written statement. “One reason for this is related to work-from-home or hybrid work arrangements, which usually require a dedicated space for a desk or a standalone workspace in our homes.”
Both told BI that the top four cities among those analyzed with a population over 225,000 each “offer around 1,300 square feet for $1,500 per month, which is close to the average size of a single-family home for rent.” Both pointed out how Wichita, Kansas, the top city on the list, also ranked highly for its increase in average apartment space in the past decade in RentCafe’s 2024 apartment size report. Two of the top four cities in the $1,500 budget analysis were in Oklahoma.
“These cities appeal to renters looking to strike a balance between rent costs and generous floor plans, helping them meet their affordability and quality of life goals,” Both said about the top four.
Four big Texas cities had averages of over 1,000 square feet. That includes El Paso at 1,147 square feet and Lubbock at 1,220 square feet. Still, there were Texas locations with averages under 1,000 square feet, like Dallas at 815 square feet.
Meanwhile, most of the large cities in California and Florida had low averages, reflecting their more expensive housing markets. The same was true for Queens, New York; Newark, New Jersey; and other Northeast locations.
Additionally, RentCafe looked at smaller cities and found Columbus, Georgia, had the largest average among cities with less than 225,000 people but in the 200 largest cities in the US. The average for $1,500 a month in this city was 1,432 square feet. “Notably, Texas has four locations among the top 20 small cities offering the most apartment space for $1,500,” the blog post said.
“The apartment space you can rent for a monthly budget of $1,500 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,” the blog post with the new results said.
How large is your apartment, and how much rent do you pay? Reach out to this reporter at mhoff@businessinsider.com.
