The Most Renter-Friendly Cities in 2024

Renting, for many people, is stressful. It can be expensive, not to mention time consuming, to find the right place — especially in a competitive market. Plus, it requires renters to put their trust in their landlord. Will they provide maintenance in a timely fashion? Will they be communicative, and help with pests or substances like mold? 

Of course, renting is easier in some cities than others. We wanted to figure out where exactly those cities are, based on a few factors like ease of renting, affordability, tenant protection laws, and quality of life.

We analyzed 98 major cities in the country, calculating a Renter Friendliness Score that factored in vacancy rates, demand, new residential construction, and tenant protection laws. We also considered desirability, based on public transit and entertainment, and economic opportunity for renters in each city, analyzing the median income–to– median rent ratio, unemployment rates, and rental property price trends. As explained in our methodology, all of this came together in a final score for each market, with the higher scores being the most renter-friendly.

Below, we've highlighted the top 10 cities on our list. You can find the full-ranked list of all 98 metro areas we looked athere. You can find the 10 least renter-friendly cities here.

Raleigh, NC is our most renter-friendly city of 2024. The capital of North Carolina came out on top based on its high economic score, as well as a few renter-friendly factors like its amount of new residential construction and healthy vacancy rate.

New construction was a key metric ApartmentAdvisor used to calculate renter-friendliness; out of all 100 cities that we looked at, Raleigh had the second highest number of permits for new privately owned housing units per capita in the metro area (trailing Austin, TX by a small margin). So, even though Raleigh was one of the fastest growing cities in the US in recent years, the metro area has done its best to keep up with demand for its housing market. This is a stark difference from more compact cities with less room to build (and more legislation that makes it harder to build) like Boston, MA or New York, NY in the Northeast. And while it’s more expensive than other southern cities, Raleigh has actually seen rent decrease YoY since hitting a pandemic peak in August ’22.

North Carolina is, however, considered a more property owner–friendly state in terms of legislation. Landlords are required to provide habitable apartments in working order in NC — but there is no law dictating how much notice they need to give their tenants prior to entering the unit, nor are there rent control laws. In general, coastal states tend to have more thorough tenant laws in place while southern states tend to have lower rent prices, more construction, and more ample inventory.

Similar to Raleigh, Huntsville, AL earns its renter-friendly mark due to its high number of new residential construction permits and healthy vacancy rate, despite the state’s tendency to enact fewer tenant protection laws. At $863 a month, Huntsville also has one of the lowest median rents for a one-bedroom apartment on our list; when taking the median income of the city into account, that leaves its estimated income-to-rent ratio at just 19. For reference, a general rule of thumb for renters is to spend no more than 30% of one’s gross annual income on housing. This, combined with the fact that Huntsville’s rent price has also plummeted by 19% year over year, garners Huntsville the highest Economic Score on our list.

If you’re looking to live in a state with strict rent control laws, consider California. In California cities like Oakland, landlords have strict requirements on how much they can raise rent from year to year — making it one of the best cities for renters. That, plus a healthy vacancy rate and a high average number of days on market for apartment listings, led Oakland to get our highest Renting Quality Score. What brought it to No. 3 on our overall list, however, was its lower Economic Score. In Oakland, someone earning the median income ($79,304) and paying the median rent price for a one-bedroom ($1,941) would be paying around 29% of their annual gross income on rent.

If you take a look at the Economic Score, you’ll start to understand why Cedar Rapids, IA can be a great home for renters. With a median rent price of $849 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, it’s one of the most affordable places to rent on our list — and the prices down year over year on top of that. Compare that with a median income of $52,081, and the estimated rent burden is only 19.6%. It’s also easier to find a place in the Cedar Rapids rental market than it is elsewhere: The average time on market for listings is about 28 days, one of the longest on our list, and the rental vacancy rate is above 10%.

Portland, OR is a very desirable place for renters. Like California, Oregon has many tenant protection laws in place, including rent control. The habitability laws are also extensive, requiring a landlord to provide plumbing, running water, heat, lights, a clean building, working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and locks on all entrances — at no extra maintenance costs to the tenant. Not to mention, it’s a place that’s very walk-, bike-, and transit-accessible with a high density of entertainment options. The downsides, which are consistent across most coastal cities, are a lower vacancy rate, higher prices, and much less new residential construction.

As we’ve been seeing in our National Rent Reports, rent in the highly popular Southeastern US has been dropping. While the South has been seeing some of the most population growth in the country, it has been able to keep up with demand due to ample construction. In fact, out of every city on our list, Jacksonville, FLcame in fourth for its relative number of permits granted for new privately owned housing units per capita. Construction helps keep rent prices down — Jacksonville has seen an 9% decrease YoY — and the housing stock new, which is attractive for renters. However, it’s worth noting that Florida has many landlord-friendly policies in place, such as a quicker eviction process, a lack of rent control, and no limits on how much to charge for a security deposit.

The Nashville metro area is one of the fastest growing in the country this year. According to The Tennessean, the metro area increased by around 86 people a day throughout last year. Based on our study, it’s clear why people are attracted to the Music City. There’s a high concentration of entertainment options, and the Economic Score is nothing to balk at, either. And luckily, the metro area is granting a sizeable number of permits for new housing to keep up with this increased demand. In 2023, there were 23,558 permits granted for new privately owned housing units. Compare that with, say, a slightly larger city like Cleveland, OH, where there were only 3,491 permits granted in the same timeframe. Median rent prices are still a little high relative to income (someone earning the median salary of $55,978 would be spending about 32% of it on rent), but prices are going down in Nashville, bringing some relief to renters.

Pittsburgh is Pennsylvania’s main “Second City” — and with that, comes many benefits for renters that a capital like Philadelphia may be missing. For one, rent is considerably cheaper (a one-bedroom apartment in Pittsburgh will cost you $1,141, while the same sized apartment would cost $1,437 in Philadelphia based on the median prices). On a similar note, the estimated rent burden is also more reasonable in Pittsburgh: There, a renter earning the median salary would only spend about 23% of it on rent, while in Philly, they’d be spending about 31% of their earnings. Pennsylvania also falls in the middle when it comes to tenant rights laws. For example, there is a limit on the amount a landlord can charge for a security deposit (two months’ rent), but it’s higher than in many other states. The habitability laws also require all utilities to be in working order (heat, running water, sanitation) and dictate that a residence is inhospitable if there is a rodent infestation (so, your landlord needs to help if you find a mouse in your apartment.) Tenants in Pennsylvania are also free to create tenant unions for their buildings and cannot be retaliated against for their participation in a tenants’ organization.

The Midwest has been a hot region for renters as of late — and out of all the Midwestern cities on our list, Sioux Falls, ND (the fastest-growing city in the region) came out on top for renter friendliness. The median income-to-rent ratio ($52,051 to $885) is healthy at around 20%, thanks to ample construction of new housing and the job opportunities presented by its strong agriculture, manufacturing, and health and life sciences industries. In addition to relatively low rent rates, housing is still typically readily available in the city despite its growth; the average time on market for an apartment listing is 28 days.

As noted in our June National Rent Report, it’s a good time to be a renter in Texas. Rent has been on the steady decline across all Texas cities that we track since mid-2022, including Fort Worth. Following Austin, Fort Worth has the second highest median income in Texas at $53,000 and the third lowest unemployment rate at 3.9% (it’s 2.6% in Austin and 3.8% in Dallas). It also shouldn’t be too tricky to find an available rental unit in Fort Worth, as the vacancy rate is hovering around 9% (a healthy vacancy rate is between 6 and 8%). One thing to keep in mind, though: Texas does have some lax landlord-tenant laws. There is no strict requirement for how a security deposit must be held and the application process is less regulated than in other markets.

We also found which cities are the least renter friendly. While some cities that appear on this list rank very highly as far as tenant protection laws (Massachusetts and New York both have very robust landlord-tenant laws), other factors, like competitiveness, lack of new construction, rent hikes, and rent burden ratios, brought them down in the overall score.

Below is the full-ranked list of all 98 cities we analyzed. 

For this report, we analyzed 98 major cities in the U.S. for which all required data was available.

The metrics used to create the “Renting Quality Score” were the rental vacancy rate, average time on market for apartment listings, new privately-owned housing construction permits, and the amount of landlord-tenant laws at the state level. We calculated this score using a weighted average of each of these metrics (25%).

The metrics used to create the “Economic Score” were the unemployment rate, a Rent Burden Index, and the median rent growth YoY in a city. We calculated this score using a weighted average of the unemployment rate of a city (30%), the Rent Burden Index (30%), and the median rent growth (40%).

The “Rent Burden Index” is meant to estimate the rent burden for a hypothetical individual renting a one-bedroom apartment in the city. It was calculated by comparing individual median earnings of full-time workers and median one-bedroom monthly rent prices in each city.

The metrics used to create the “Desirability Score” were the Walk Score, Bike Score, Transit Score, and the densities per capita of: active life, arts and entertainment venues, nightlife, restaurants, and shopping locations, all weighted equally. 

The vacancy rates, new privately-owned housing construction permits, unemployment rates, and individual median earnings of full-time workers data came from the U.S. Census Bureau. Time on market, median monthly one-bedroom rent price data, and rent growth data came from ApartmentAdvisor. The mobility data came from Walkscore. The desirability data came from Yelp. We used a min/max data normalization approach when computing scores.

To compute the Renter Friendliness Score, we combined the Renting Quality Score (75%), the Economic Score (20%), and the Desirability Score (5%), with the higher Renter Friendliness Scores being granted to the more renter-friendly cities. 

For more information about this study, please contact pr@apartmentadvisor.com.