The decision whether to rent or buy significantly depends on where you live.
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A Zumper analysis looked at the financial benefit of renting versus buying in major cities.
Migration trends have recently made some unexpected cities more renter-friendly.
In a few expensive cities, the rents outpace mortgage payments, making buying a better option.
Should you buy or should you rent? The old advice that the best time to buy a home is the best time for you still holds true — but where you’re buying plays an important role, too.
Real estate site Zumper analyzed the cost of owning a home and the cost of renting across 83 of the largest US cities and calculated a price-to-rent ratio to determine where the housing market favors buyers versus renters.
Not surprisingly, cities where the housing market is constantly in the news for being unaffordable, like San Francisco, make more sense to rent in. However, Zumper market expert Crystal Chen said rents sometimes outpace mortgages in expensive cities like New York City.
“Expensive and buy-favorable aren’t necessarily the same thing,” Chen told Business Insider. “Even though New York has a high sticker price for homes, it’s still more relatively buy-favorable. The rents are just so much higher.”
Some cities have become unaffordable for buyers due to recent migration trends. Boise, Idaho, which became a refuge for movers escaping coastal cities during the pandemic, has a widening gap between the price of renting and buying.
“The home prices got really high because it was a pandemic hotspot,” Chen said. “A lot of people moved there to buy and that drove the prices up. Renting is significantly cheaper there.”
If you’re in a position to buy a home, and maybe feeling pressure to do so, see if that’s the right call in your city — or move somewhere where it is.
Below, 10 cities where it’s better to buy a home, and 10 cities where it’s better to rent, according to Zumper.
