Austin renters are spending less of their paychecks on housing than anyone else living alone in a major U.S. metro, while San Antonio holds onto the title of cheapest average rent among Texas's big three. A new breakdown, published in 2026 and based on 2024 income and 2025 asking-rent data, shows just how differently the math works out for people renting one-bedroom apartments in Austin, San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth.
Austin landed at No. 1 on a list of the 10 most affordable metros in the country for living alone, according to a report from Apartments.com released in mid-October. The company found that Austin renters spend just 23.1% of income on a one-bedroom apartment, the smallest share of any major metro in the nation. San Antonio came in at No. 6 on the same list, and Dallas-Fort Worth ranked No. 7, as later reported by MySA.
The Numbers Behind the Rankings
Apartments.com built its rankings by comparing one-bedroom asking rents against median renter-household incomes in the 50 largest U.S. metros, using what CultureMap San Antonio described as a 30% common budgeting guideline. The income figures came from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, while the one-bedroom asking rents were pulled from CoStar Group's 2025 reports, per the same account.
San Antonio's typical one-bedroom asking rent came in at $1,082 a month, the lowest average rent among the three Texas metros in the report, with a median annual renter-household income of just over $51,000. San Antonio renters spend 25.4% of monthly income on rent, the sixth-lowest share among the 50 largest metros nationwide, per the same report. Austin's one-bedroom asking rent was $1,348 a month, against a median renter-household income of just over $70,000.
Where Dallas-Fort Worth and Oklahoma City Fit In
Dallas-Fort Worth renters pay the same $1,348 average monthly rent as Austin but spend a larger share of income, 25.6%, against a median renter-household income of $63,172, the CultureMap report notes. Nationally, San Antonio ranked No. 2 most affordable by average monthly rent, trailing only Oklahoma City, where renters pay an average of $931 a month, according to the figures cited in the MySA report.
Apartments.com's analysis also found that Austin, San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth all rank among the top 10 most affordable metros nationally for renters living alone — a notable showing for three of Texas's largest cities in a single national study.
San Antonio Rents Keep Sliding
Separate tracking suggests San Antonio's rents are still falling. The median rent in San Antonio fell 0.5% in October and is down 3.5% over the past 12 months, according to Apartment List. That decline tracks with an earlier report from the San Antonio Business Journal, which cited CoStar data showing apartment rents down 3.3% annually as San Antonio surpassed other major metros in vacancy, with new construction outpacing demand.
By comparison, the national median rent stood at $1,384 in October, up just 0.1% from a year earlier, and rents fell 0.3% month over month nationally — the second straight monthly decline, the same Apartment List data shows. Apartment List's own estimates for San Antonio put the median rent at $953 for a one-bedroom and $1,173 for a two-bedroom, with an overall median across all bedroom sizes of $1,115, figures that use a different methodology than the asking-rent numbers in the affordability rankings.
Apartment List's estimates for Austin, drawn from its own rent index, put the city's overall median at $1,326 across all apartment sizes, with one-bedrooms at $1,174 and two-bedrooms at $1,429. Earlier in the year, Austin one-bedroom rents were reported at $1,420, down 5.3% year over year, with two-bedrooms at $1,860, according to CultureMap San Antonio.
