Ever Wonder What Kind Of Apartment You Can Get For $1,500? Here's A Breakdown Of How Far Your Money Goes In 20 Major Cities
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Millions of people across the U.S. are struggling with high rent, expensive gas, and unaffordable groceries. Although people are financially struggling in various parts of the country, there's no doubt that some cities are worse than others.
What you have to pay for cost of living in New York City is certainly going to be different than what you have to shell out in Mobile, Alabama, but how vast is the difference, really? An apartment website called RentCafe ran an analysis of what you would get in various cities across the U.S. You might be surprised at how far $1,500 can get you.
These Are the Cities That Give You the Least Bang for Your Buck
Not surprisingly, $1,500 doesn't take you very far in New York City, San Francisco, and Brooklyn. In Manhattan, you wouldn't even get 300 square feet of space for that much money, which isn't even a real apartment. Technically that would be considered a micro-unit. In Brooklyn or Queens, you get between 300 to 400 square feet of living space for $1,500. Still not much at all.
You won't be able to rent much of anything in San Francisco for $1,500. The analysis estimates that you would get roughly 345 square feet of space, and it's safe to say that there are few to no to apartments in the Bay Area that fit that criteria.
For $1,500, you only get 454 square feet in Los Angeles, 540 square feet in Chicago, 475 square feet in Seattle, and 753 in Austin. You get slightly more space in Indianapolis (1,273 square feet), San Antonio (1,061 square feet), and Phoenix (804 square feet), but it's really not that much of a difference.
Here's a clear breakdown of what you get for $1,500 in the largest 20 cities of the US.
Los Angeles, CA: 454 square feet
Chicago, IL: 540 square feet
Brooklyn, NY: 357 square feet
Houston, TX: 1,059 square feet
Queens, NY: 399 square feet
Phoenix, AZ: 804 square feet
New York, NY: 262 square feet
Philadelphia, PA: 679 square feet
San Antonio, TX: 1,061 square feet
San Diego, CA: 493 square feet
Dallas, TX: 881 square feet
San Jose, CA: 483 square feet
Austin, TX: 753 square feet
Jacksonville, FL: 1,006 square feet
Columbus, OH: 1,230 square feet
San Francisco, CA: 345 square feet
Fort Worth, TX: 988 square feet
Indianapolis, IN: 1,273 square feet
Charlotte, NC: 915 square feet
Seattle, WA: 475 square feet
These Are the Cities That Give You The Most Bang For Your Buck
If you want more than 1,300 square feet for $1,500 a month, you'll have to go to El Paso, TX, Lincoln, NE, Fort Wayne, IN, and Tulsa, OK. But the city that gets you the most space is Wichita, KS, where you get a whopping 1,596 square feet. That's more than five times as much space as you would get in Manhattan.
It's no wonder that so many people from coastal cities are fleeing these areas en masse in order to settle in tamer states like Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. In fact, cities in Illinois and Oklahoma are offering cash incentives for people to relocate there and start a life. Tulsa is offering people $10,000 in cash to put down roots. Lewisburg, West Virginia is offering $12,000 if you move there with a full-time remote job.
As coastal cities such as San Francisco and New York become more unlivable by the minute, we can't help but wonder what will happen to these overpopulated cities in the next decade.
