This Map Reveals Which Cities Give You the “The Most Apartment” For $1500 a Month

Have you been considering making a move? Or are you looking at your two-bedroom apartment and wondering just where you and your family could afford to pay the same amount of rent and get a lot more space? For families who are looking size-up, sometimes getting more square footage is all about location, location, location.

Or maybe many families are just dealing with the fact that in early 2022, in some cities, rent costs increased as much as 40 percent. No matter what reason you’re looking at the rental market right now, not all cities are the same and if you’re looking to decrease rent or increase space, here’s something that will help.

RentCafe and Yardi Matrix teamed up to find out which of the 100 largest American cities offered the best-sized apartment for $1,500 per month in rent. To find this out, RentCafe and Yardi Matrix looked at the 100 largest cities in the U.S. by population, based on 2019 U.S. Census Bureau estimate data. From there, they searched for apartment spaces that can be rented for $1,500 a month, which was determined by looking at the price per square foot and the average size of apartments per city.

Those numbers were then crunched, sorted, and put into an easy-to-read map that shows which of the top 100 American cities offered the best-sized apartment for $1,500 rent (or $18,000 a year). There weren’t a whole lot of surprises in what the data found – but it’s certainly interesting.

It wasn’t a surprise to see that cities in the Midwest and south offered the best sizes to price range ratio. The coastal cities in the West and East had some apartments in the price range, but they were considerably smaller.

Here are the American cities that give you the most apartment space for $1,500 monthly rent:

1. Wichita, KS: Apartment Size for $1,500: 1,597 Sq. Ft.
2. Toledo, OH: Apartment Size for $1,500: 1,482 Sq. Ft.
3. Tulsa, OK: Apartment Size for $1,500: 1,447 Sq. Ft.
4. Fort Wayne, IN: Apartment Size for $1,500: 1,386 Sq. Ft.
5. Memphis, TN: Apartment Size for $1,500: 1,375 Sq. Ft.
6. Omaha, NE: Apartment Size for $1,500: 1,334 Sq. Ft.
7. Lubbock, TX: Apartment Size for $1,500: 1,316 Sq. Ft.
8. El Paso, TX: Apartment Size for $1,500: 1,305 Sq. Ft.
9. Lincoln, NE: Apartment Size for $1,500: 1,304 Sq. Ft.
10. Louisville, KY: Apartment Size for $1,500: 1,285 Sq. Ft.

These are the American cities that give you the least space for the $1,500 rent:

1. Manhattan, NY: Apartment Size for $1,500: 262 Sq. Ft.
2. Boston, MA: Apartment Size for $1,500: 340 Sq. Ft.
3. Brooklyn, NY: Apartment Size for $1,500: 357 Sq. Ft.
4. Queens, NY: Apartment Size for $1,500: 399 Sq. Ft.
5. Oakland, CA: Apartment Size for $1,500: 404 Sq. Ft.
6. Jersey City, NJ: Apartment Size for $1,500: 410 Sq. Ft.
7. Los Angeles, CA: Apartment Size for $1,500: 454 Sq. Ft.
8. Irvine, CA: Apartment Size for $1,500: 468 Sq. Ft.
9. Seattle, WA: Apartment Size for $1,500: 475 Sq. Ft.
10. San Jose, CA: Apartment Size for $1,500: 483 Sq. Ft.

So, if you’re looking to make a move – prioritizing getting the most space for your buck – the top ten cities where space is king might be a good place to start. Or if it doesn't matter, and you're dead-set on living in Irvine, you can just look at that 468 square foot number and wince.