The cost of owning continues to outpace renting across nearly all U.S. markets, with new homeowners paying a median of 64% more per month than comparable tenants, according to a new report from Apartment List.
That gap has widened sharply in recent years, increasing by more than 20 percentage points from 2021 to 2024, when historically low mortgage rates temporarily narrowed the spread between owning and renting. Since then, higher interest rates, elevated home prices, rising insurance premiums and increased energy costs have pushed the monthly cost of ownership significantly higher, even as rent growth has begun to cool from recent peaks.
While renting still leaves many cost-burdened — with more than half of tenant households spending over 30% of income on housing — it has increasingly become the less expensive alternative across much of the country.
At the national level, new homeowners in 2024 faced median monthly housing costs of $2,679, compared to $1,630 for new renters, highlighting a persistent affordability gap that has expanded since the post-pandemic rate shock period.
That divergence is not limited to a handful of coastal markets. Instead, it is playing out across a wide range of metros. In the 10 metros with the largest ownership premiums, new homeowners are paying more than double the monthly cost of comparable renters in several cases.
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, California, leads the nation with a 133% premium, followed by Provo-Orem, Utah (+125%), San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (+122%) and Wichita, Kansas (+122%). San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward (+120%) and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue (+111%) also rank among the highest-cost markets in the report.
Notably, the spread is not confined to traditionally high-cost coastal hubs. Inland and historically more affordable metros — including Omaha-Council Bluffs (+107%), Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land (+107%), El Paso (+108%) and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission (+113%) — also exhibit ownership premiums that are more than double.
While the largest ownership premiums exceed 120% in select U.S. metros, even the most affordable regions in the data set show a consistent gap between renting and buying. In the lowest-premium metros, new homeowners still pay meaningfully more per month than renters, though the spread is notably narrower.
Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, Pa.-N.J., posted the smallest gap at 33%, followed by Augusta-Richmond County, GA.-S.C. and Harrisburg-Carlisle, PA. (both +37%), as well as Winston-Salem, N.C. (+37%). Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin, Tenn. (+39%) and several Florida markets, including North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton (+41%), Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach (+42%) and Cape Coral-Fort Myers (+49%) — round out the lower end of the distribution.
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