Buying a home is cheaper than renting one in these cities

December 18, 2019 - 2 min read

Georgia buyers are in luck

Buying a home may be cheaper than you think. In fact, according to a new report, in some cities, buying a home takes almost half as much money as it does to rent.

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Where buying a home is cheaper than renting

According to a new analysis from Realtor.com, it takes just 18 percent of your monthly income to buy a home in Clayton, Georgia. But to rent one? It takes a whopping 32 percent.

Other cities in Georgia are equally as affordable for homeowners. In Richmond, homebuyers need to spend just 17 percent of their income a month, while renters spend 28 percent. In Muscogee, the difference is 19 percent vs. 28 percent.

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Homebuyers in parts of Maryland (Baltimore City), New Jersey (Cumberland), Indiana (Vigo), Virginia (Hampton City), Michigan (Wayne), and Pennsylvania (Fayette and Schuylkill) also have the upper hand over renters.

In about 16 percent of counties nationwide, the cost of buying a home is cheaper than the monthly cost of renting.

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Where renting wins out

Renting is still more favorable in high-cost housing markets like New York City and California’s Bay Area.

In New York, it takes 115 percent of a resident’s income to buy a home vs. just 30 percent to rent. The situation is improving, though. Last year, it took 28 percent of a person’s income to rent. Home prices in the city have also decreased 6 percent over the year.

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According to Sabrina Speianu, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com, this shift is happening across the country.

“After years of escalating home prices making the cost to purchase a home more expensive than renting in many of the nation’s largest counties, a shift in conditions has made purchasing a home this year more affordable than last year,” Speianu said. “Three in four large counties have seen the gap between the cost of renting vs. buying a home shrink in the past year.”

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Aly J. Yale
Authored By: Aly J. Yale
The Mortgage Reports contributor
Aly J. Yale is a mortgage and real estate writer based in Houston who has contributed to Forbes and worked for organizations such as The Dallas Morning News, PBS, NBC, and Radio Disney.