Job hunting is a more tedious process than ever, and if you're living in an expensive city your rent may be increasingly unmanageable the longer you're unemployed. Relocation is one way to cast a wider net on available jobs and it's possible you'll score a job in a city that's less expensive than your current address. A tough job market is all about compromise, so ruling out a move probably isn't the smartest decision.
BusinessWeek claims that we're in a renters market and teamed up with real estate data firm Reis to determine the 25 most affordable large metro areas. They made their ordered selections by evaluating rents as a portion of local income. Here are the top ten cities on their list of the most affordable big cities for renters.
- Oklahoma City
- Indianapolis
- Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, South Carolina
- Houston-Baytown-Sugar Land, Texas
- Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Oregon / Washington
- Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, Connecticut
- Salt Lake City
- San Antonio
- St. Louis
- Richmond, Virginia
Balenciaga
Comme des Garcons
BDL by Ben de Lisi
This kind of makes me sad that I'm moving from the Houston area soon for school. Prices for apts. are pretty awesome here.
Salt Lake City is actually REALLY affordable all the way around...I stayed there for 2 months and came back with a whole new wardrobe!
1Careful moving to Hartford, its not always the safest town.
2Prices to live and rent here in San Diego, CA are pretty horrible.
3AKA Emilicious, that's what I thought about St. Louis. It may be affordable, but then you'd be living in St. Louis.
4Having grown up there, I much prefer Seattle even if it is harder to find an affordable apartment.
Oh my goodness, thank you, Savvy! If one more person told me about how "Rents in Portland are so hiiiiiiiiiiiigh!" with their whiny voice, I was going to scream. I'm a recent transplant, living in a trendy neighborhood, in an apartment that's about 750 sq feet, 100 bigger than my 625 sq foot apartment back at school, which was in a mediocre neighborhood in Arizona. I'm paying more than $100 less per month! For serial, people here have no perspective on how cheap renting is here.
5Oh my goodness, thank you, Savvy! If one more person told me about how "Rents in Portland are so hiiiiiiiiiiiigh!" with their whiny voice, I was going to scream. I'm a recent transplant, living in a trendy neighborhood, in an apartment that's about 750 sq feet, 100 bigger than my 625 sq foot apartment back at school, which was in a mediocre neighborhood in Arizona. I'm paying more than $100 less per month! For serial, people here have no perspective on how cheap renting is here.
6Augh, the dreaded double post!
7Portland is pretty cheap. Anne B, I also live in Seattle and I found a pertty affordable apartment on Queen Anne. I love it. And I'm saving money. A large portion of my friends live in SF and can barely survive - my BFF has racked up $30k in credit card debt because she can't buy anything (groceries) w/o plastic, all of her income goes to rent.
8*pretty
9I just did a quiz on facebook about cities that match your personality and where you should live based on that and it told me Seattle which is near Portland which also has to be near Forks! LOL. Maybe I should go
10Yeah, Portland is crazy cheap. I think it will be the next place I move. I love SF but... I pay $1100 (with a roommate!) and for that, I coulda had a swank pad in Chicago. Then again, we don't have winter here, so I consider my high rent a "sunshine tax."
11Bella, if you like your sunshine, don't move to Portland!
Care, Portland is like, 5 hours from Forks. My little sister is coming to visit me in a few months and has insisted I take her there....
12My friend's brother lives in Portland, and from what I've heard it seems to be such a cool place. (They have a "Where's Waldo?" day, for Bono's sake!)
13We were planning on going there during our road trip in the fall, but it now looks like we won't go farther than Utah.
$1100 with a roomie???!! Holy. I pay $950 for s shoe box alone here in Beantown.
14It's unfortunate that all the cities here are cities I'm not really interested in living in. All the cities I like are crazy expensive.
15Hi to everybody. I have lived with my husband for 5 years in Boise, Idaho and we are planning to move to the Houston\ Sugar Land area, Looking for a bigger city, warmer weather and affordable housing.
16Can someone tell me more about safety (crime rate) and renting in this area?
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