The apartment search recently announced its findings of its 2026 analysis, “$1,500 rent budget: How much apartment space can you get in 200 U.S. cities?” Topping the list nationwide is McAllen, in the Rio Grande Valley, where renters can get more square footage than any of the other cities across the country that RentCafe analyzed. But other South Texas cities weren’t far behind, including Brownsville, Corpus Christi and San Antonio, where $1,500 a month can easily offer renters more than 1,000 square feet of space.
McAllen, in the Rio Grande Valley, offers renters the most bang for their buck, with a $1,500 monthly rent budget easily covering a unit with more than 1,300 square feet of space, according to RentCafe. That’s 6.5 times more space than what a renter with the same budget can expect to find in The Big Apple.
“In McAllen, TX, one of the lowest cost-of-living areas in the U.S., that amount stretches the furthest, to 1,378 square feet… In Manhattan, NY, that same budget barely gets you 210 square feet, roughly the size of a dorm room,” RentCafe research analyst Veronica Grecu wrote.
The Valley’s rental housing affordability is holding steady even as the region is seeing a major developmental boom, with numerous multi-billion-dollar companies opening — or planning to open — new facilities in the region’s industrial sectors, like the Port of Brownsville. For $1,500 and 1,300 square feet of space, McAllen renters can find apartments with three or even four bedrooms. Similarly spacious footprints can be found in other South Texas cities, including Brownsville, where $1,500 a month will get you about 1,213 square feet; Corpus Christi, with 1,115 square feet; and San Antonio, with up to 1,023 square feet.
San Antonio was also the only major city in the Lone Star State where $1,500 can get a renter an apartment with up to three bedrooms. As a whole, Texas had 23 cities on RentCafe’s list, second only to California.
“Renters in Houston (976 square feet) and Fort Worth (913 square feet) aren’t that far behind — yet the gap is enough to drop them a full bedroom tier, landing them in one- to two-bedroom apartment territory instead,” RentCafe said.
As for Austin — where rent prices have been in a downward slump for some time now — $1,500 still won’t get most renters as much space as South Texas. Coming in at No. 23 in Texas overall, Austin still nets renters only about 784 square feet of space for $1,500 per month.