Top of the heap
Austin suburb rocks it as No. 1 city for renters in the U.S.
The Austin suburb of Round Rock rocks the country when it comes to the best cities for renters.
The RentCafe website places Round Rock at No. 1 in its new ranking of the top U.S. cities for renters in 2022. Elsewhere in the region, Austin appears at No. 10 and San Marcos at No. 41.
To come up with the ranking, RentCafe analyzed 17 factors, including measurements related to cost of living, quality of rental housing, economic strength, and quality of life. The rental platform reviewed data for hundreds of cities before arriving at 115 contenders.
Round Rock comes in at No. 10 for economic strength, No. 12 for quality of life, and No. 13 for cost of living.
RentCafe notes that Round Rock, the biggest city in Williamson County, “benefits from great year-round weather and a suburban feel — much sought-after in recent years — as well as many parks and great outdoor areas.”
In addition, Round Rock checks in with a high share of high-end apartments, according to RentCafe.
A dozen of the cities in the study’s top 50 are in Texas:
- Round Rock, No. 1
- Conroe, No. 3
- Austin, No. 10
- Plano, No. 13
- San Antonio, No. 18
- Houston, No. 19
- Fort Worth, No. 20
- Lubbock, No. 21
- Amarillo, No. 23
- Odessa, No. 39
- San Marcos, No. 41
- Dallas, No. 49
“Small cities tend to offer the best life for renters, representing half of our top 50 — despite the fact that some people might expect larger cities to suit renters’ needs the best. In fact, many of these smaller cities are suburbs of large metros and are often clustered in the Southern and Southeastern United States,” RentCafe explains. “What they all have in common is a healthy pace of new apartment construction and a great selection of amenity-rich properties.”