halbergman/Getty Images
The average Arizona renter is intimately familiar with the vast range of rental properties available in the Valley. And while it may be stretching it to call some options cheap, there are cities with much pricier options than others.
While rents appear to have leveled off in Arizona and nationwide, wage gains have still failed to keep pace with rent increases, leaving many renters and families with limited options. Rental-based data company Rentometer analyzed median rents for three-bedroom single-family homes across the country — including in the Grand Canyon State — to identify the most and least expensive cities for renting in each state. Rentometer looked only at towns and cities with at least 25,000 residents.
In Arizona, wouldn’t you know, Scottsdale has the most expensive rent.
According to the study, the median rent for a three-bedroom, single-family home in Scottsdale is $3,500 a month.
Scottsdale has consistently had a reputation for being expensive, which has only heightened as it’s become a hub for millionaires and well-off snowbirds. The large, tony Phoenix suburb is home to more than 121,000 households, with an average household income of nearly $105,000, according to the U.S. Census. Still, the average household only has two people, 57% of whom are married couples.
A Zillow search of the study’s parameters showed more than 150 three-bedroom homes in Scottsdale that cost up to $3,500 a month. The properties were concentrated in south Scottsdale along State Route 101, south of McDonald Drive and near Old Town Scottsdale. More than 65% of the nearly 140,000 housing units in Scottsdale are occupied by their owners, according to the Census.
Scottsdale’s rent pales in comparison to some other cities identified in Rentometer’s study, though. California’s Santa Monica and Florida’s Coral Gables had the most expensive rents for their states, with a three-bedroom home coming in at $7,500 and $5,995 a month, respectively. Boulder, Colorado, and Lake Oswego, Oregon, had median rents similar to Scottsdale’s at $3,672 and $3,299 a month, respectively.
Rentometer’s study also identified the least expensive city to rent a three-bedroom home in order to “highlight how wide the affordability gap has become,” according to the site. While some states saw the most expensive and cheapest rental cities just miles away from each other, that wasn’t the case in Arizona. Rentometer identified Sierra Vista as the cheapest qualifying city in Arizona, with a three-bedroom home going for only $1,595 a month.
Sierra Vista is in southeast Arizona, less than an hour from the U.S.-Mexico border. It has a much smaller population than Scottsdale, with just more than 46,000 residents, per the Census. It’s home to nearly 19,000 households, which earn an average of $70,291 per year.
If you want cheap rent, that’s the place to go. But if you value being near a metropolitan area, it might not be the place for you — Sierra Vista is an hour and a half from Tucson and nearly three hours from the Phoenix area.
