When looking for a new home, people often debate whether to rent or own a home.
In a recently released rental report, Realtor.com found that for the average renter in the 50 biggest cities in the U.S., the cost of renting a home was almost $800 less than one to buy in December 2022.
Austin, Texas, was ranked No. 1 on the real estate website. 1 city where it was less expensive to rent compared to buying a home. In December, the median monthly rent came in at $1,659 in Austin, while the median monthly buy cost was $3,672, according to Realtor.com.
The cities of Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Boston and San Francisco were cheaper to rent in than to buy, according to Realtor.com.
Here is how the median monthly rent compares to the median monthly buy cost in those places, according to the report:
Some metro areas where renting was comparatively more affordable, including San Jose, California, Los Angeles and Phoenix, among others, were found by Realtor.com.
The median prices for studio, one-bed and two-bed homes and a 7% mortgage rate were used in the real estate website's calculation for the monthly cost of buying a home in the cities.
For a 30 year fixed-rate mortgage, the national average went down 0.02% from the previous week to 6.13%, according to Freddie Mac. Thursday's average was still 2.58% higher than the same time in 2022, when it was 3.55%.
In five cities identified by Realtor.com, buying was less expensive than renting.
In December, Memphis had the widest difference between its median monthly rent and buy costs. The median monthly cost of buying a starter home there was $847, more than $400 less than the median $1,258 cost of rent, according to Realtor.com.
The other four cities were both median monthly rent versus median monthly buy costs reportedly :
In 2021, twenty of the 50 largest metros were cheaper for renting over, according to Realtor.com.