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About Kooky and Shaka →A household earning US$100,000 a year can rent a four-bedroom house in Memphis and a one-bedroom apartment in San Jose, according to an analysis Zillow published on Wednesday 7 October 2026. The release, issued from Seattle, takes one fixed rent budget and follows it through the 50 largest metropolitan areas of the United States.
The budget is US$2,500 a month. That is what the common guideline of spending 30 per cent of gross income on rent gives for a six-figure household: US$30,000 a year, divided by twelve. Zillow then looked at what its own listings offered at that price, metro by metro: how large the homes were, how many bedrooms they had, and whether they were houses or apartments.
The answer changes more with the map than with the money. In Memphis the typical home within the budget measures 2,119 square feet. In San Jose it measures 650. The first is more than three times the size of the second, for the same monthly cheque.
Zillow, analysis published 7 October 2026. Budget at 30% of gross income; listing shares from listings on Zillow in August 2026.
One budget, measured against the typical renter
Zillow's starting point is a comparison between two households. The typical renter household in the United States, the release says, earns US$58,000 a year. On the same 30 per cent guideline, that leaves about US$1,450 a month for rent. The six-figure household has US$1,050 a month more to spend.
Against those two budgets sit two national rent figures, and Zillow gives both. The typical market rent, measured by the Zillow Observed Rent Index, is US$1,932 a month. The median listed rent for 2026, taken from listings between January and August, is US$1,750. The release explains the gap by the mix of what comes to market: smaller units are listed more often, which pulls the listed median down.
Related readVictoria bans rental application fees from Tuesday 13 OctoberBoth figures sit above the typical renter's US$1,450 and below the six-figure household's US$2,500. That is the heart of the analysis. A household on US$100,000 can afford 77 per cent of the rental listings on Zillow nationally, which the release describes as more than double the share within reach of the typical renter.
The extra budget buys a different kind of home as well as more of them. Zillow says the six-figure earner gets nearly 20 per cent more living space than a renter on the median income, and has 63 per cent more single-family homes within budget. Of the rentals affordable at US$2,500, 30 per cent are single-family homes, 18 per cent are condos and 52 per cent are apartments. Nationally, the typical home at this budget measures 1,152 square feet and has two bedrooms, and 27 per cent of the homes on offer have one bedroom or fewer.
Where the budget rents a house
Oklahoma City has the lowest median listed rent of the 50 metros, at US$1,250, exactly half the budget. There, 77 per cent of the rentals within reach of a six-figure household are single-family homes, the median size is 2,000 square feet and the median home has three bedrooms. Only 3 per cent have one bedroom or fewer.
Memphis is the one metro in the table where the median home at this budget has four bedrooms. Its median listed rent is US$1,285 and 73 per cent of the homes within budget are single-family houses.
Three more metros clear 1,800 square feet: Raleigh at 1,885, San Antonio at 1,874 and Houston at 1,848. Las Vegas comes just under, at 1,796 square feet, with 67 per cent of its affordable rentals being houses. Jacksonville, at 63 per cent, and Houston, at 62 per cent, complete the group of five metros where more than six in ten of the homes within budget are single-family.
Related readHow Victoria regulates renting: 90 days' notice, bonds and valid reasonsZillow, 7 October 2026. Listings priced at US$2,333 to US$2,500 a month; a selection of the 50 metros in the release.
The pattern holds across the table. Counting the rows of Zillow's table, the median home within budget has three bedrooms in 26 of the 50 metros. The list runs from Dallas, Atlanta and Phoenix to Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville and Birmingham. In several of them the small apartment almost disappears from what a six-figure household is shown: one bedroom or fewer accounts for 1 per cent of the homes within budget in Indianapolis and 2 per cent in Orlando, Virginia Beach, Jacksonville, Louisville and Birmingham.
Where it rents one bedroom
In six metros the median home within the same budget has a single bedroom: San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston and New York. Four of the six are in California.
San Jose is the extreme case. Its median listed rent, US$3,539, is the highest in the table and sits US$1,039 above the budget. Zillow says only 13 per cent of listings are affordable at US$2,500 in what it calls the most expensive market, without naming it; San Jose has the highest listed rent in its table. The typical unit within reach there has 650 square feet and one bedroom; 95 per cent of the homes at that price are apartments or condos, and 77 per cent have one bedroom or fewer.
The other five are close behind. The median size is 726 square feet in San Diego, 729 in San Francisco, 750 in Los Angeles, 758 in Boston and 801 in New York. Houses are rare at this price: single-family homes make up 3 per cent of what a six-figure household can afford in Boston, 5 per cent in each of the four Californian metros and 6 per cent in New York. Boston's share of homes with one bedroom or fewer, 64 per cent, is second only to San Jose's.
Related readWestern Australia's renting rules: rent rises, pets, bonds and noticeSeven metros have a median listed rent above the US$2,500 budget: the six above and Miami, at US$2,600. Miami shows that the two measures do not move in step. Its listed median is over budget, yet the typical home a six-figure household can rent there has two bedrooms and 1,000 square feet, because the table describes the homes priced at the top of the budget, not the homes priced at the metro's median.
The middle of the table
Between the two ends sit 17 metros where the median home has two bedrooms. Some are expensive cities where the budget still buys a little more than a one-bedroom: Washington, with 900 square feet and 49 per cent of homes at one bedroom or fewer; Seattle, also 900 square feet; Chicago, at 950.
| Metro | Median listed rent | Median bedrooms | Single-family share |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Jose | $3,539 | 1 | 5% |
| New York | $3,175 | 1 | 6% |
| Boston | $3,000 | 1 | 3% |
| Miami | $2,600 | 2 | 15% |
| Chicago | $2,095 | 2 | 12% |
| Denver | $1,775 | 2 | 21% |
| Dallas | $1,531 | 3 | 43% |
| Las Vegas | $1,595 | 3 | 67% |
| Memphis | $1,285 | 4 | 73% |
| Oklahoma City | $1,250 | 3 | 77% |
Zillow, 7 October 2026. Bedrooms and single-family share describe listings priced at US$2,333 to US$2,500 a month. United States: $1,750, 2 bedrooms, 30%.
The table also shows how far two cities in the same state can sit from each other. In Tennessee, the median home within budget has four bedrooms and 2,119 square feet in Memphis, and two bedrooms and 1,321 square feet in Nashville. In New York State, the budget rents 801 square feet and one bedroom in the New York metro, and 1,320 square feet and three bedrooms in Buffalo. In California, inland Riverside and Sacramento reach two bedrooms, at 973 and 1,101 square feet, while the four coastal metros stay at one.
Florida's four metros climb in steps: 1,000 square feet in Miami, 1,299 in Tampa, 1,474 in Orlando and 1,674 in Jacksonville. Texas is more even. All four of its metros in the table give three bedrooms, from 1,462 square feet in Austin and 1,490 in Dallas to 1,848 in Houston and 1,874 in San Antonio.
Related readAustralia's capital city house rents stall at A$700 a weekZillow's explanation: supply
The release does not put the gaps down to incomes or to taste. It puts them down to how much housing each market has built. Treh Manhertz, senior economic research scientist at Zillow, describes the variation as a supply story, and says in the release: "In markets that have built enough housing to meet demand, six figures rents real comfort and choice."
Zillow points to the Sun Belt, where it says a construction boom has added inventory and moderated rent growth, and contrasts it with markets where little has been built and where even a high income leaves fewer choices. That is the company's reading of its own listings. The release gives no construction figures for the 50 metros, and it gives no year-over-year changes, so the table is a picture of 2026 and says nothing on whether the gap between the two ends is widening or narrowing.
For renters in the expensive metros, the release offers one more number. Searching in lower-cost neighbourhoods within the same metro, Zillow says, can yield about 250 more square feet for the same budget. In San Jose terms that would be the difference between 650 square feet and roughly 900, which is the median size in Washington and Seattle. The release does not say which neighbourhoods, and what a search turns up depends on the week and the listing.
How the figures were built
Three different measures are at work in the release, each with its own period, and they answer different questions.
The table describes homes at the top of the budget, not every home a six-figure household could rent
Zillow's metro columns use listings priced from US$2,333 to US$2,500 a month. On the 30% guideline, that band matches gross incomes from about US$93,300 to US$100,000. Cheaper homes, which the same household could also afford, are outside it.
The first measure is the typical market rent, US$1,932, from the Zillow Observed Rent Index. The second is the median listed rent, which uses listings from January to August 2026 and gives US$1,750 nationally and the metro figures in the table. The third is the accessibility share, the 77 per cent nationally and 13 per cent in the most expensive market, which uses the listings on Zillow in August 2026.
Related readDubai rent increases, Ejari and eviction notices: how the rules workAll of it comes from one company's listings, ordered by market size for the 50 largest metros. The 30 per cent guideline is applied to gross income, before tax. And the two sets of rent figures are not interchangeable: a metro's median listed rent in this release is not the same statistic as its index value in Zillow's monthly reports.
How it sits beside the September rent reports
The analysis arrived one day after Zillow's monthly market report for September, published on 6 October, and the two share a number. The typical rent of US$1,932 is the September figure from that report, which put it 2.7 per cent above its level of a year earlier. The same report found a concession on 39.6 per cent of rental listings and rents in San Francisco up 11.8 per cent in a year.
Other firms measure the national rent differently and arrive at lower figures. Apartment List's national report, dated 29 September, put the national median rent at US$1,388 in September, down 0.1 per cent on the month, the first monthly fall since January, with vacancy at 7.0 per cent. Against that figure the US$2,500 budget looks wider still, though the two firms' numbers are built from different listings and cannot be laid side by side.
What the new release adds is not another rent level but a translation. A monthly index says what rent costs; this table says what a given income gets. For a leasing agent or a property manager it also describes the six-figure applicant in each market: in Oklahoma City or Memphis, a household choosing between houses; in San Jose or Boston, one choosing between one-bedroom apartments. For the typical renter household, on US$58,000, the release's own figures say that fewer than half as many listings are within reach.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
