243 Apartments under $800 for rent in Houston, TX
September 2019 Houston Rent Report
Welcome to the September 2019 Houston Rent Report. Houston rents declined over the past month. In this report, we'll evaluate trends in the Houston rental market, including comparisons to cities throughout the metro, state, and nation.
September 2019 Houston Rent Report
Welcome to the September 2019 Houston Rent Report. Houston rents declined over the past month. In this report, we'll evaluate trends in the Houston rental market, including comparisons to cities throughout the metro, state, and nation.
Houston rents declined slightly over the past month
Houston rents have declined 0.2% over the past month, but have increased marginally by 0.6% in comparison to the same time last year. Currently, median rents in Houston stand at $844 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,032 for a two-bedroom. This is the second straight month that the city has seen rent decreases after an increase in June. Houston's year-over-year rent growth lags the state average of 1.6%, as well as the national average of 1.5%.
Rents rising across the Houston Metro
Throughout the past year, rent increases have been occurring not just in the city of Houston, but across the entire metro. Of the largest 10 cities that we have data for in the Houston metro, 8 of them have seen prices rise. Here's a look at how rents compare across some of the largest cities in the metro.
- Sugar Land has seen rents fall by 0.4% over the past year, the biggest drop in the metro. It's also the most expensive city in the Houston metro with a two-bedroom median of $1,575.
- Conroe has seen the fastest rent growth in the metro, with a year-over-year increase of 3.0%. The median two-bedroom there costs $1,105, while one-bedrooms go for $903.
- Pasadena has the least expensive rents in the Houston metro, with a two-bedroom median of $1,011; rents grew 0.2% over the past month and 1.0% over the past year.
Houston rents more affordable than many comparable cities nationwide
As rents have increased marginally in Houston, a few similar cities nationwide have also seen rents grow modestly. Houston is still more affordable than most other large cities across the country.
- Rents increased slightly in other cities across the state, with Texas as a whole logging rent growth of 1.6% over the past year. For example, rents have grown by 3.2% in Austin, 2.3% in San Antonio, and 2.0% in Dallas.
- Houston's median two-bedroom rent of $1,032 is below the national average of $1,191. Nationwide, rents have grown by 1.5% over the past year compared to the 0.6% increase in Houston.
- While Houston's rents rose marginally over the past year, many cities nationwide also saw increases, including Phoenix (+3.7%), New York (+1.7%), and DC (+1.5%).
- Renters will find more reasonable prices in Houston than most similar cities. For example, San Francisco has a median 2BR rent of $3,133, which is more than three times the price in Houston.
For more information check out our national report. You can also access our full data for cities and counties across the U.S. at this link.
Methodology - Recent Updates:
Data from private listing sites, including our own, tends to skew toward luxury apartments, which introduces sample bias when estimates are calculated directly from these listings. To address these limitations, we’ve recently made major updates to our methodology, which we believe have greatly improved the accuracy and reliability of our estimates.
Read more about our new methodology below, or see a more detailed post here.
Methodology:
Apartment List is committed to making our rent estimates the best and most accurate available. To do this, we start with reliable median rent statistics from the Census Bureau, then extrapolate them forward to the current month using a growth rate calculated from our listing data. In doing so, we use a same-unit analysis similar to Case-Shiller’s approach, comparing only units that are available across both time periods to provide an accurate picture of rent growth in cities across the country.
Our approach corrects for the sample bias inherent in other private sources, producing results that are much closer to statistics published by the Census Bureau and HUD. Our methodology also allows us to construct a picture of rent growth over an extended period of time, with estimates that are updated each month.
Read more about our methodology here.
About Rent Reports:
Apartment List publishes monthly reports on rental trends for hundreds of cities across the U.S. We intend these reports to be a source of reliable information that help renters and policymakers make sound decisions, and we invest significant time and effort in gathering and analyzing rent data. Our work is covered regularly by journalists across the country.
We are continuously working to improve our methodology and data, with the goal of providing renters with the information that they need to make the best decisions.