{"id":370917,"date":"2026-07-13T09:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T09:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/370917\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T09:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T09:30:08","slug":"how-much-1500-rent-can-stretch-in-south-texas-vs-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/370917\/","title":{"rendered":"How much $1,500 rent can stretch in South Texas vs. Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this economy, everyone is looking for ways to stretch their dollars especially when it comes to paying rent and some Texas cities are more affordable\u00a0 to live in than others. A new report is revealing just how much more space you can get for your money in South Texas compared to the state&#8217;s capital city.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rentcafe.com\/blog\/rental-market\/market-snapshots\/rental-space-for-1500\/\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">RentCafe<\/a>, McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley leads the nation in square feet for $1,500 a month. Whereas that same amount of money in Austin will get you the least amount of square feet in all of Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In McAllen, $1,500 rent can get you 1,378 square feet of living space, which is enough for a three- or four-bedroom apartment, per\u00a0RentCafe. In Austin, on the other hand, $1,500 can only get you about\u00a0784 square feet, which is the size of a small one-bedroom or studio apartment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The average rent in\u00a0McAllen is just $993, and a typical apartment measures about 912 square feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&#8230;\u00a0McAllen renters get a lot more space for their money than most Americans do within that monthly budget,&#8221; the report says. &#8220;Still, that figure is down slightly from last year\u2019s 1,393 square feet \u2014 a sign that even the most affordable markets are starting to tighten.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Still, it&#8217;s not all bad in the capital city.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mysanantonio.com\/lifestyle\/article\/san-antonio-austin-rent-dropping-22272022.php\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">The average rent in Austin<\/a> is $1,415 per month, which is 15% lower than the national average ($1,661\/month), according to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.apartments.com\/rent-market-trends\/austin-tx\/\" data-link=\"native\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Apartments.com<\/a>. Other Texas cities where you can get more space for $1,500 were Lubbock (1,217 sq. ft.), El Paso (1,128), Corpus Christi (1,115) and Houston (976). San Antonio pops in at No. 9 for Texas with 1,023 square feet for $1,500.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At 1,023 square feet, San Antonio offers renters enough space for a two- to three-bedroom apartment\u2014 a tier most major Texas metros, including Houston and Fort Worth, don&#8217;t reach on the same budget, according to RentCafe. Some of Texas&#8217; biggest\u00a0cities like Houston, Arlington, Garland, Fort Worth, Irving,\u00a0Plano and Dallas also outranked Austin for getting more space for stretching a $1,500 budget the furthest. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this economy, everyone is looking for ways to stretch their dollars especially when it comes to paying&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,820],"class_list":["post-370917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-mysastaff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}