Best US cities for renters in 2025: new report
Fly south, apartment hunters.
A new report ranking the renter friendliness of 150 U.S. cities based on the cost of living, the local economy and the overall quality of life completely ignores the Big Apple and environs.
Instead, a slew of southern metro regions swept the annual RentCafe rankings — leaving crowded Northeast and West Coast locales in the dust.
“Cost of living, which is heavily weighted, really improved for southern cities,” said Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix, which provides data to RentCafe.
The South not only dominated the report’s leading ten slots, but took up an impressive three-quarters of the top 50, as well.
Metros in Texas, Florida and Georgia occupied the podium, with McKinney, Texas, reigning supreme.
Ressler told The Post that while public transportation offered a rankings boost for well-connected northern cities, their southern counterparts pulled ahead thanks to strong post-pandemic recovery and increased work-from-home offerings.
McKinney, a booming Dallas suburb, offers renters “big-city perks in a small-town setting,” according to the report — including a lower-than-average cost of living, a strong job market and ample green space.
Nearly 35% of McKinney’s rental inventory was built in the last five years, and 83% of units are considered “high-end.”
Beachy Sarasota, FL and bustling Atlanta earned second and third place, respectively.
The RentCafe rankings were filtered by three main metrics: Cost of living and housing, the local economy and quality of life. While some cities offered excellent job growth, others excelled thanks to ample green space or short commute times.
Sorting for these considerations reveals a vastly different geography of hot spots.
While Myrtle Beach took first place for cost of living and housing, Miami won out for its thriving local economy.
Metropolitan Washington, D.C. ranked number one for quality of life for an impressive second year in a row.
Top US 10 cities for renters in 2025
- McKinney, TX
- Sarasota, FL
- Atlanta, GA
- Austin, TX
- Huntsville, AL
- Wilmington, NC
- Charleston, SC
- Round Rock, TX
- Raleigh, NC
- Orlando, FL
Despite a poor overall showing, shoebox apartments in popular East Coast cities remain a hot commodity. Renters still faithfully flock to places like Philadelphia and Boston to enjoy rich cultural and social lives, despite steeper costs.
To little surprise, an increasingly-costly Manhattan ranked last in housing and cost of living — the most heavily weighted metric in RentCafe’s rental report.
Brooklyn and Queens also floundered near the bottom of the list.
The greatest city in the world, however, did rank fifth for quality of life and seventh for economic benefits.
Take that, Myrtle Beach!