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Is it cheaper to buy or rent in Allentown in 2026?<\/p>\n
If you’re deciding whether to buy or rent a home in Allentown<\/a> in 2026, you’re not alone. What used to be a simple answer has become more difficult as the economy continues to drift from historical norms.<\/p>\n Previously, it was common knowledge<\/a> that buying was the more affordable choice, with long-term benefits generally outweighing the initial costs. But that assumption has shifted. After the pandemic threw housing markets off kilter<\/a>, prices ballooned and mortgage rates<\/a> climbed, straining affordability nationwide. Now, the typical buyer needs to earn far more<\/a> than the typical renter to afford a median-priced home in many cities, leading the homeowner population to stall<\/a>.<\/p>\n So what does buying vs. renting look like in Allentown right now? To find out, Redfin Real Estate<\/a> looked at the income required to afford a typical home over a typical apartment\u2014called the “income premium.” For example, an income premium of 10% means a household needs to earn 10% more to buy than to rent, while a premium of -10% means renting is cheaper than buying.<\/p>\n Note: All data is a monthly average for the month of December 2025. Rental data comes from a partnership with Zillow; median income data comes from the U.S. Census.<\/p>\n Buying vs. renting: Allentown<\/p>\n Income premium to afford typical home over typical apartment: 38.3%Income needed to buy: $97,332Income needed to rent: $70,402Median sale price: $345,000Median rent price: $1,760Median household income: $91,006<\/p>\n Buying vs. renting: National<\/p>\n Income premium to afford typical home over typical apartment: 46.3%Income needed to buy: $111,252Income needed to rent: $76,020Median sale price: $426,747Median rent price: $1,901Median household income: $86,185<\/p>\n This story<\/a> was produced by Redfin Real Estate<\/a> and reviewed and distributed by Stacker<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is it cheaper to buy or rent in Allentown in 2026? If you’re deciding whether to buy or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,49217,61,2265,4736,2917,49218,12181,82,12451,1081,49215,49216,21399,1113,7368,21010],"class_list":["post-101006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-and-regional-economics","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-housing","tag-income","tag-owner-occupancy","tag-ownership","tag-property","tag-real-property-law","tag-real-estate","tag-renting","tag-residential-buildings","tag-rural","tag-thestacker","tag-urban","tag-zillow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}