Whether renting or buying, Houston beats many major metros in affordability

Despite  rising rents and  home prices in the Houston area, the market is still relatively more affordable than many other major metropolitan areas.

Two recent reports analyzed the markets where average rents are less than $1,000 and how much space buyers can get for $1 million in major cities.

CoStar Group’s  analysis found that Houston’s average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $913, just less than Dallas ($914) and Austin ($948), but significantly more than San Antonio ($758). The report notes that in many popular locations, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., even studio apartments average more than $1,000 per month.

“There are still many rental properties available in top U.S. markets that have an average monthly rent of $1,000 or less,” Dick Burke, president of Apartments.com, told CoStar. “Despite the fact that we’re experiencing one of the lowest apartment vacancy rates in more than a decade, apartment seekers who remain flexible by looking at a variety of neighborhoods, apartment sizes and living arrangements often end up securing the best deals.”

Meanwhile,  Business Insider found that $1 million will buy you more space in Houston than in 31 other cities.

Business Insider analyzed data from real estate brokerage Movoto.com and real estate marketplace Zillow.com and found that $1 million will buy 10,753 square feet in Houston.

That’s significantly better than Austin, where it only buys 5,128 square feet, and Dallas, where it buys 7,042 square feet, and slightly better than San Antonio, where it buys 10,526 square feet. However, Arlington and Fort Worth are the most affordable Texas markets in the analysis, at 12,346 and 11,765 square feet, respectively.

Out of the 39 markets in the analysis, Detroit is the most affordable (83,333 square feet), and San Francisco is the least (1,502 square feet). 

As seen in the HBJ 3/25/14