TOP 10 Most Affordable Rental Markets (Rent/Income, 2025)
Rent-to-income: the cleanest lens on housing affordability
When people talk about housing affordability, they often focus on headline rent levels. But the more telling number is how much of a typical household’s paycheque disappears into rent each month. The rent-to-income ratio – annual gross rent divided by annual household income – lets us compare very different markets on the same scale. A city where households spend 35% of their income on rent feels completely different from one where the median burden is closer to 16%, even if the dollar amount of rent is similar.
Public agencies and researchers use rules of thumb to decide when housing becomes a problem. In many English-speaking countries and in OECD work on affordable housing, the classic benchmark is the 30% threshold: housing is considered affordable if households spend no more than about 30% of gross income on housing costs. Above that level, households are counted as “cost-burdened”, and above 50% as “severely cost-burdened”.
Recent U.S. Census data show how tight things have become: in 2023, almost half of renter households (around 49–50%) spent more than 30% of their income on housing costs, and the median renter was devoting about 31% of income to rent and utilities. For millions of households, rent is crowding out other basics like food, transport and healthcare.
Europe uses a slightly different but related indicator. Eurostat and the OECD track a housing cost overburden rate, defined as the share of people living in households where net housing costs exceed 40% of disposable income. In some EU countries, especially for low-income tenants, this overburden rate reaches well above 50%. In other words, the rent-to-income problem is global, not uniquely American.
From rule-of-thumb to practical benchmark
Thinking in rent-to-income terms helps translate abstract percentages into real-world stress levels:
- Under ~20% of income: housing is generally comfortable for middle-income households. There is usually room in the budget for savings, emergencies and long-term goals.
- 20–30% of income: still considered manageable for many households, but the cushion is thinner. Unexpected costs or job loss can quickly create pressure.
- 30–40% of income: classic cost-burden territory. Households routinely have to trade off rent against other essentials.
- 40%+ of income: severe overburden, especially for low-income renters. Small shocks – a rent increase, a medical bill – can push budgets into crisis.
Against that backdrop, a rent-to-income ratio in the mid-teens stands out as exceptionally low. It implies that typical renters are using roughly half the share of income that would normally trigger concern. That is exactly what makes 2025’s most affordable rental markets interesting: despite a difficult national housing picture, a handful of cities still deliver rent burdens around 15–18%.
Why 2025 is a turning point for rent burden
Over the last few years, rapid rent increases pushed cost burdens to record levels in many countries. Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies reports a record number of U.S. renters paying more than 30% of their income on housing, and an unusually high share paying more than 50%. At the same time, interest-rate hikes have made homeownership less accessible, keeping more households in the rental sector for longer. Even as headline rent growth begins to cool, the legacy of those increases is a rental market where affordability is fragile.
That is why the new 2025 ranking of Top 10 most affordable rental markets, based on fresh research from WalletHub and summarised by several outlets, is so striking. In these cities, median rent consumes less than 18% of median household income, far below the 30% rule of thumb and far below the burdens seen in high-cost coastal markets. The next section looks at the data behind that ranking.
How the 2025 “most affordable” ranking was built
WalletHub’s 2025 study on rental affordability compares 182 U.S. cities, including the 150 largest and at least two cities in each state. For each city, analysts calculate:
- Median annual gross rent (what typical renters actually pay, including contract rent and utilities).
- Median annual household income for the same area.
- A rent-to-income ratio: median annual rent expressed as a percentage of median annual household income – our core indicator in this article.
The resulting percentage answers a simple question: “If you earn a typical income in this city and pay a typical rent, what share of your income goes to the landlord?” Cities where that share is low are ranked as more affordable; cities where the share is high are ranked as less affordable. The Top 10 list below focuses on places where rent claims under 18% of median household income – a remarkably low burden in the current environment.
Top 10 most affordable rental markets in 2025 (rent as % of income)
| Rank | City (State) | Median gross rent as % of median household income |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bismarck, North Dakota | 15.34% |
| 2 | Sioux Falls, South Dakota | 15.95% |
| 3 | Cheyenne, Wyoming | 16.09% |
| 4 | Cedar Rapids, Iowa | 16.36% |
| 5 | Fargo, North Dakota | 16.65% |
| 6 | Charleston, West Virginia | 16.70% |
| 7 | Casper, Wyoming | 16.72% |
| 8 | Overland Park, Kansas | 16.81% |
| 9 | Juneau, Alaska | 17.45% |
| 10 | Anchorage, Alaska | 17.76% |
For comparison, many large coastal cities now see median renters spending roughly 30–35% of income on housing. In the markets above, the ratio is closer to the mid-teens. That gap represents thousands of dollars per year that can instead be used for savings, debt repayment or building a down-payment for a future home purchase.
Bismarck, ND: an affordability outlier
Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, tops the 2025 ranking. Median gross rent here consumes only about 15.34% of median household income. Bismarck’s economy combines public-sector employment, healthcare, energy and business services. Wages in these sectors are strong enough that, even with solid demand for housing, rent has not run away from incomes. As one analyst quoted in coverage of the WalletHub study put it, renters in Bismarck have “a clear financial edge – more room in the budget for emergencies and long-term goals, instead of watching paychecks vanish on rent.”
Sioux Falls & Fargo: diversified Midwestern growth
Sioux Falls in South Dakota and Fargo in North Dakota illustrate how diversified Midwestern economies can keep rent burdens low. Both cities have grown into regional hubs for finance, insurance, healthcare, logistics and back-office services. They attract population and investment, but generally have fewer geographic constraints on new construction than coastal metros. The result is rent-to-income ratios of about 16% – far more comfortable than the national average.
For a household earning, for example, USD 80,000 per year, a 16% rent burden translates into roughly USD 12,800 in annual gross rent. In a coastal city with a 32% burden, the same household could be spending over USD 25,000 a year on rent, with much less left to buffer against shocks.
Cheyenne & Casper: small markets, strategic sectors
Cheyenne and Casper in Wyoming are smaller markets, but they benefit from strategic sectors – transport corridors, government, energy and services. Neither is a “cheap” city in every respect: construction and transport costs can be high. But median wages in key industries are strong enough that typical rent remains a little above 16% of income. Many households here face the trade-offs of small-market life, yet rent itself is not the central source of financial stress.
Cedar Rapids & Overland Park: suburban strength
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Overland Park, Kansas, show how mid-sized cities tied to larger metro regions can deliver favourable rent dynamics. Cedar Rapids combines manufacturing and agribusiness with professional services. Overland Park sits in the Kansas City metro and hosts a concentration of corporate headquarters and white-collar jobs. In both cases, incomes are high relative to local rent levels, helping keep the rent-to-income ratio around 16–17%.
Charleston & the Alaskan cities: different paths to low rent burden
Charleston, West Virginia, is a state capital in a region often associated with lower incomes and economic transition. Even so, its mix of public-sector roles and services pulls the median rent burden down to roughly 16.7%. For many households, broader economic challenges remain, but rent itself is not consuming half the paycheque.
At the opposite end of the map, Juneau and Anchorage in Alaska round out the Top 10. Both operate in high-cost environments – remote location, strong weather-related construction demands, substantial transport and energy costs. Yet median household incomes in Alaska’s key cities are also high, supported by public-sector employment, resource industries and transfer programmes. That pushes their rent-to-income ratios into the high-teens, still well below the 30% threshold that defines cost burden.
Visualising rent burden: Top 10 vs. the 30% threshold
The bar chart below compares each Top 10 city’s rent-to-income ratio with the commonly used 30% affordability rule. All values represent median gross rent as a percentage of median household income.
The distance between the blue bars and the 30% line is the core story. In all ten cities, typical renters are spending roughly half the income share that would normally trigger concern about cost burden. That does not mean every renter in these markets is comfortable – lower-income households can still face severe pressure and may spend 40–60% of income on housing. But at the median, these markets remain outliers in a national context where rent routinely eats up a third of household income.
What this means for individual renters
- More room for resilience: When rent takes 16–18% of income instead of 30–35%, households have more capacity to build an emergency fund, pay down debt and save for retirement or homeownership.
- Lower sensitivity to shocks: A rent increase, job change or new expense is less likely to push budgets into crisis when the starting burden is in the mid-teens rather than around one-third of income.
- Better long-term mobility: Lower rent burden over many years compounds into higher net worth. Even modest monthly savings can accumulate into meaningful assets over a decade.
- But income still matters: A low rent-to-income ratio at the city level does not erase challenges for households with unstable or below-median earnings. Affordability is always relative to a specific household’s budget.
Implications for housing policy
For policymakers, the Top 10 list highlights that affordability is not an accident. These cities combine at least three ingredients: reasonably strong incomes, housing markets where new supply can come online, and demand that is significant but not overwhelming. By contrast, in high-cost cities, rapid demand growth, restrictive zoning and limited new construction have allowed rent to outrun wages.
National data underline how fragile the situation is. Between 2019 and 2023, the share of U.S. renters facing cost burdens increased in most states, and the number of severely cost-burdened renters (spending more than half of income on housing) remains near record highs. Internationally, OECD and Eurostat data show that a large share of low-income renters in many countries spend over 40% of disposable income on housing costs. Against that backdrop, the Top 10 cities here are best seen as examples to learn from – not evidence that the broader affordability crisis is solved.
How to use rent-to-income ratios in practice
- Calculate your own ratio: divide your gross monthly rent (including utilities) by gross monthly income. If the result is above 30%, you are in classic cost-burden territory.
- Compare cities on an income-adjusted basis: when evaluating a move, do not just compare advertised rents. Consider how typical incomes in your field line up with local rent-to-income ratios.
- Track the trend, not only the level: a city that is affordable today can become less so if rents grow faster than wages. Watching how the ratio changes over time is as important as the latest snapshot.
- Layer in non-housing costs: transport, childcare and healthcare can offset the financial gain from a lower rent burden. Affordability is multi-dimensional.
Clickable primary sources and further reading
- WalletHub – Cities With the Most Affordable Rent (2025 study)
- Clark.com – Report: The 10 Most Affordable U.S. Cities for Renters (2025 summary of WalletHub data)
- U.S. Census Bureau – Nearly Half of Renter Households Are Cost-Burdened (2023 data)
- Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies – America’s Rental Housing 2024
- OECD – Affordable Housing Database (housing costs over income indicators)
- Eurostat – Housing Cost Overburden Rate (definition & methodology)
- Harvard JCHS – Renters’ Affordability Challenges Worsened Last Year
- NLIHC – Summary of JCHS Findings on Cost-Burdened Renters
