Major US Cities Where Roommate Pays Off the Most
A roommate can save you money, but your savings will depend on where you live. SmartAsset analyzed data from the 50 largest cities in the US to see how much a roommate will save you in those areas.
To get their numbers, they looked at rental data from myapartmentmap.com and used the average fair market rents for one and two bedroom apartments in each of the 50 cities they surveyed. They add:
To complete our study, we assumed that two neighbors living in a two-bedroom apartment would split the rent 50-50. We then subtracted the average rental cost of one of these roommates from the average rental cost of a person living in a studio apartment.
You can read more about their methodology in the full article, but overall, they found that West Coast tenants were trying to save the most with a roommate, while savings in the Southwest were meager.
Most of the data should come as no surprise – you will obviously be able to save the most where rent is most expensive. However, it is interesting to see exactly how much you save. And here are the numbers for the ten cities with the greatest savings:
- San Francisco, California: $ 1106
- New York, NY: $ 1,030
- San Jose, California: $ 841
- Boston, Massachusetts: $ 810
- Oakland, California: $ 733
- Washington DC: $ 590
- San Diego, California: $ 564
- Los Angeles, California: $ 558
- Long Beach, California: $ 554
- Portland, Oregon: $ 546
If you’re thinking of moving to any of the cities on their list, or trying to estimate how much you can save by adding a roommate, the data is worth checking out. The rest can be found at the link below.
What Saves You A Roommate In 50 US Cities – 2016 Edition | Smartasset