Redfin released a report at the end of 2024 investigating how much square footage you can rent around the country on a $2,000 budget. While nationally a $2,000 monthly budget gets you 70 more square feet compared to the 2022 rental peak, Californians are still seeing the worst payoff. Out of the five metro areas with the worst rent-to-square-footage, four of them are in California.
In Los Angeles, $2,000 monthly rent will get you about 591 square feet of apartment space, which is just over half of the national estimate of 1,103 square feet. This is still a better figure than San Jose’s 537 square feet on the same budget, but both estimates are around 1,000 square feet shy of top-ranked Memphis, where that $2K will rent you an estimated 1,570 square feet.
The five U.S. metro areas where $2,000 rents the least amount of space are San Jose, CA with 537 sq. ft; San Francisco, CA with 565 sq. ft; New York, NY with 581 sq. ft; Los Angeles, CA with 591 sq. ft; and San Diego, CA with 602 sq. ft.
As for the top five metro areas where $2,000 will get you the most space, they are Memphis, TN with 1,570 sq. ft; Birmingham, AL with 1, 523 sq. ft; Louisville, KY with 1,479 sq. ft; St. Louis, MO with 1,388 sq. ft; and Houston, TX with 1,380 sq. ft.
Redfin’s study revealed that on a national level, a $2,000-a-month budget will still get you farther than it did in 2022 at the pandemic rental peak. A recent apartment construction boom has stabilized rents below that peak, so the $2K figure earns you an additional estimated 70 square feet compared to 2022 — enough for a small office, as Redfin asserts.
The study also revealed that larger apartments will generally get you more value for money. That is, smaller apartments have a higher price-per-square-footage compared to larger apartments.
Redfin gathered median asking rent data from listings on Redfin.com and Rent.com, covering 45 of the 50 largest U.S. metro areas. The figures reflect newly listed apartments in buildings with five or more units and are based on a rolling three-month average, meaning each month’s median rent includes data from the previous three months. You can learn more directly in the Redfin report here.