198 Apartments under $800 for rent in Houston, TX
July 2020 Houston Rent Report
Welcome to the July 2020 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.
July 2020 Houston Rent Report
Welcome to the July 2020 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 significantly over the past month
Houston rents have declined 0.4% over the past month, and are down moderately by 0.9% in comparison to the same time last year. Currently, median rents in Houston stand at $838 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,025 for a two-bedroom. This is the third straight month that the city has seen rent decreases after an increase in March. Houston's year-over-year rent growth lags the state average of -0.1%, as well as the national average of 0.2%.
Rents falling across the Houston Metro
Rent prices have been decreasing not just in Houston over the past year, but across the entire metro. Of the largest 10 cities in the Houston metro for which we have data, 9 of them have seen prices drop. Here's a look at how rents compare across some of the largest cities in the metro.
- Pasadena has the least expensive rents in the Houston metro, with a two-bedroom median of $1,020; the city has also experienced the fastest rent growth in the metro, with a year-over-year increase of 1.3%.
- Sugar Land has the most expensive rents in the Houston metro, with a two-bedroom median of $1,534; however, the city has also seen rents fall by 1.4% over the past year, the biggest drop in the metro.
Houston rents more affordable than many similar cities nationwide
As rents have fallen moderately in Houston, many other large cities nationwide have seen prices increase, in some cases substantially. Houston is also more affordable than most comparable cities across the country.
- Although rents across cities in Texas have varied, the state's growth as a whole has held steady over the past year. For example, rents have grown by 0.2% in Dallas whereas rents have fallen 0.1% in Austin.
- Houston's median two-bedroom rent of $1,025 is below the national average of $1,192. Nationwide, rents have held steady over the past year.
- While rents in Houston fell moderately over the past year, many cities nationwide saw increases, including Phoenix (+1.9%), Las Vegas (+0.6%), and Memphis (+0.5%).
- Renters will find more reasonable prices in Houston than most other large cities. For example, San Francisco has a median 2BR rent of $3,035, which is nearly 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.