NO SPACE TO WASTE

This is how big Austin apartments get for $1,500 a month

Austin renters can find apartments that span 714 square feet for $1,500 a month.

Photo courtesy of Riata Austin

We all know what renters dream about when they’re not thinking about the logistics of owning a home: low rent prices with the perfect amount of space. In a city like Austin, that’s getting harder and harder to come by.

In fact, for renters who have a budget of $1,500 a month, the average apartment size they can get in Austin spans about 714 square feet. That’s according to a new study by apartment rental marketplace RentCafe. The study looked at data from their sister site, Yardi Matrix, to determine the average size and price per square foot for a $1,500 monthly budget in 200 of the largest American cities.

Austin is at the bottom of the list in the overall analysis of Texas cities with the smallest space for the price. In Killeen, which is only 70 miles north, renters can find apartments that span a whopping 1,095 square feet. San Antonio renters can similarly find apartments that are nearly 300 square feet larger for the same budget.

If you head to the Houston area, Pasadena residents get an average of 1,180 square feet of space for $1,500 a month, whereas renters searching for apartments in Houston proper will only get about 997 square feet.

Renters looking to live in Fort Worth or Dallas will notice a nearly 100 square foot difference between apartments, at 909 and 805 square feet, respectively. Residents can get the most bang for their buck in the suburbs with an average apartment size well into the 900-square-foot range. Mesquite residents, by far, get the most space, at 999 square feet, whereas renters in Garland and Arlington get an average of 937 and 928 square feet for the same budget.

Elsewhere in Texas, apartments in the Rio Grande Valley have the best price per square foot in the state. McAllen residents get the most space out of any other Texas city with an average apartment size of 1,471 square feet. Renters in Brownsville, which is 60 miles east on the border, can get a similarly sized apartment that’s 1,307 square feet for the same $1,500 a month budget.

Here’s how much space you can rent for $1,500 a month in other Texas cities:

Amarillo – 1,318 square feet
El Paso – 1,222 square feet
Lubbock – 1,218 square feet
Corpus Christi – 1,126 square feet
Grand Prairie – 873 square feet
Denton – 868 square feet
Irving – 848 square feet
McKinney – 809 square feet
Plano – 766 square feet
Frisco – 740 square feet

The full report can be found on rentcafe.com.

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No Cap

Austin was a top destination for Gen Zers on the move for 2023

Photo by Neel Pramanik on Unsplash

Who wouldn't want to live in a Gen Z hotspot like Austin?

As Gen Z enters adulthood, many are flocking to the nation's biggest cultural hubs like New York City, Los Angeles, and now Austin, which had the one of the top 20 highest inflows of Gen Zers in 2023.

Austin's reputation as a Gen Z hot spot was unveiled in a recent report by American home improvement brand This Old House, which analyzed migration trends across multiple generations using 2023 U.S. Census Bureau data.

Austin saw an influx of 10,363 Gen Z residents last year to become the generation's No. 20 most popular city.

The city first gained traction as an up-and-coming destination for Gen Zers last year, when the "experience-hungry generation" was on the hunt for an affordable place to live with vast opportunities for entertainment, education, or employment.

Real estate marketplace Zillow seems to agree with this trend on a statewide scale; in February it declared Texas the No. 1 destination for Gen Zers on the move in 2024.

However, as Gen Z Austinites may have learned, it might take a big bite out of their paychecks to live in such a highly sought-after city. A March RentCafe housing cost analysis predicted Gen Z adults living in Austin are likely to spend more than $160,000 on rent by the time they are 30 years old.

While Austin saw big gains in its Gen Z population last year, many other big cities saw a mass exodus. Plano, for example — which gained 1,295 Gen Z residents in 2022 — lost 4,028 Gen Zers in 2023, the report discovered.

"The biggest Gen-Z exodus was in El Paso, with a drop of 5,607 — a sharp turn from 2022 when the city saw an increase," the report said. "Other cities, including Plano, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; McKinney, Texas; and Wichita, Kansas, are seeing similar declines."

The report also revealed that Austin is also one of the top destinations for millennials and Gen X, whereas both New York City and Los Angeles lost more residents among those two generations in comparison.

Austin had a net gain of 2,478 millennials in 2023, but saw net losses in its Gen X (3,240), baby boomer (1,178), and silent generation (1,390) populations.

"Gen X, baby boomers, and the Silent Generation are also moving away from major cities, particularly New York City and Washington, D.C.," the report said. "They’re heading to some of the same cities as Gen Z, including Houston and Jacksonville, Florida."

The top 10 cities that gained the most Gen Z residents in 2023 are:

No. 1 – New York City, New York
No. 2 – Los Angeles, California
No. 3 – Houston, Texas
No. 4 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
No. 5 – Chicago, Illinois
No. 6 – San Diego, California
No. 7 – Seattle, Washington
No. 8 – Charlotte, North Carolina
No. 9 – Dallas, Texas
No. 10 – Minneapolis, Minnesota

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