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Richardson is most recognizable as the home of the “Telecom Corridor,” a vast business center where more than 5,000 companies including many of the world’s biggest technology giants are headquartered. The Corridor employs more than 80,000 people and is a big reason Richardson appears on so many of those “Best Places to Live in Texas” lists. How’s that for a “shtick?”
The city now sports a decent mix of dive bars, live music joints, hookah cafes, pub houses and other after-hours gathering spots. We don’t want to give you the impression that Richardson is Partytown, Texas, though, because it isn’t. Our advice for night owls: Dallas, with all its charms and hotspots, is just 12 miles away, so lean heavily on the big “D” for your after-hours kicks.
The Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail does service the city and hits up the Corridor, but it’s more convenient for outsiders coming into the city than commuters looking to travel around Richardson itself. Just be sure to give yourself plenty of extra time for your daily commute until you get a feel for how long your journey takes.
New units have sprung up in recent years around the Corridor, while plenty of other neighborhoods, from Buckingham along the southern edge all the way up to the Plano Road area, offer a fair share of apartments, condos, and houses for rent as well.
Most of Richardson’s residential properties were built prior to the 1980s. Other apartments are brand-new or recently renovated, though, so don’t feel like you have to settle for a dated crash pad if you’d rather live in an ultramodern luxury unit. Just be sure to visit a place in advance to see you find its amenities and appearance agreeable or not.
Nope, just a thumb and a toe!
Kidding. Like much of North Texas, Richardson is remarkably affordable. Apartments might go for as much as a couple grand or as low as $500, depending on size and amenities, but a rule of thumb in Richardson is that if you’ve got a grand to spend on rent each month, you’ll have no problem finding an attractive 1-2BR apartment with decent amenities.
Just be prepared. You’ll need a list of previous residences and proof of income to get approved for a lease, as well as a decent credit history (most landlords run background checks on prospective tenants). Or, you'll need a co-signer to piggyback their name onto your lease.
Leases range from 6 months to 1 year or even 2 years, and a few properties also offer short-term, corporate, and month-to-month leases. Chances are, when you sign your lease you’ll have to buck up a good-faith deposit, which is typically refundable if you take good care of your new humble abode.
Make sure you give your apartment a good inspection before settling in and make note (better yet, take pictures) of any blemish you notice. Most property managers in Richardson are almost always willing to fix any imperfections in your apartment (even the most minor ones) regardless of how long you’ve lived there, but it’s always easiest to get their attention before you’ve even unpacked.
Finally, don’t mess with Texas (why? because bumper stickers all over the state say so!) And on that note, you’re ready to begin the hunt for the perfect apartment. Welcome to Richardson and happy hunting!
Welcome to the March 2021 Richardson Rent Report. Richardson rents increased over the past month. In this report, we'll evaluate trends in the Richardson rental market, including comparisons to cities throughout the metro, state, and nation.
Welcome to the March 2021 Richardson Rent Report. Richardson rents increased over the past month. In this report, we'll evaluate trends in the Richardson rental market, including comparisons to cities throughout the metro, state, and nation.
Richardson rents have increased 1.9% over the past month, but are down moderately by 1.1% in comparison to the same time last year. Currently, median rents in Richardson stand at $1,272 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,493 for a two-bedroom. This is the second straight month that the city has seen rent increases after a decline in December of last year. Richardson's year-over-year rent growth leads the state average of -1.4%, but trails the national average of -0.8%.
While rent prices have decreased in Richardson over the past year, the rest of the metro is seeing the opposite trend. Rents have risen in 6 of the largest 10 cities in the Dallas metro for which we have data. Here's a look at how rents compare across some of the largest cities in the metro.
As rents have fallen moderately in Richardson, a few large cities nationwide have seen prices increase, in some cases substantially. Compared to most large cities across the country, Richardson is less affordable for renters.
For more information check out our national report. You can also access our full data for cities and counties across the U.S.
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 about the methodology on our blog.
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.
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.