Drew Dixon
Monthly rental prices are starting to come down. But coastal areas remain disproportionately expensive, with Miami being the costliest market in the country in terms of the share of income needed to cover rent.
That’s according to analysts with Realtor.com, a real estate monitoring firm. The site’s April Rental Report had good news for some major U.S. metros, but not Miami.
“Miami was ranked as the least affordable of the top 50 metros,” according to the report. “The median rent in April was $2,345 — meaning, a typical household would have to spend roughly 38% of their monthly paycheck on housing.”
Realtor.com researches say rent is considered “affordable” if the monthly cost doesn’t exceed 30% of a resident’s income. When it comes to the Miami market, rents are about $500 higher than what they need to be in order to fall within that affordability range.
“This improvement is needed, but rents are still pretty unaffordable in Miami,” said Realtor.com economist Jiayi Xu.
Though Miami residents are burning through the biggest share of their income to cover rent among major metros, Miami doesn’t feature the highest median rental price in terms of raw numbers.
Boston’s monthly median rental was $2,960, but residents only need to spend 32.6% of their income to cover the cost. New York City’s April median rent price was $2,936, eating up 37.1% of a monthly income. Los Angeles was third, Boston fourth and San Diego fifth.
“April 2025 marks the 21st month of year-over-year rent decline in a row for 0-2 bedroom properties observed since trend data began in 2020. Asking rents dipped by $29, or a drop of 1.7%, year over year. The median asking rent in the 50 largest metros registered at $1,699, up $5 from (March) and down $60 from its August 2022 peak,” the report said.
It’s the second time in recent months that Miami led the country in troubling rental trends. In March, RentCafe found the South Florida metropolis to be the most competitive rental market in the country.
The most affordable rental markets in the U.S. in April included Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in first, followed by Austin, Texas, Columbus, Ohio, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Minneapolis.
