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Houston neighbor makes new list of 25 best cities for renters in 2025

Conroe is a really desirable place to live for renters.

Photo courtesy of Visit Houston

A new RentCafe report has found Conroe's ideal market for renters has earned it a top-25 spot among the best U.S. cities for renters in 2025. Houston also made a slight improvement from last year.

RentCafe's "Best Cities for Renters to Live in 2025" report annually compares 150 U.S. cities based on 20 factors examining their quality of life, local economy, and cost of living and housing opportunities. The report notes that cities were chosen if they had an "apartment stock" consisting of a minimum 10,000 units, and any cities with lower apartment stocks were excluded.

Conroe ranked 24th overall on the list in a seven-place hike from its 2024 ranking, while Houston only moved up one spot into No. 70 this year.

The Dallas suburb McKinney claimed the title as the No. 1 best city for renters after dethroning Charleston, South Carolina, which had held the top spot for the last two years. Charleston has since slumped into the No. 7 spot for 2025.

Rounding out the top five best U.S. cities for renters this year are Sarasota, Florida (No. 2), Atlanta, Georgia (No. 3), Austin, Texas (No. 4), and Huntsville, Alabama (No. 5).

Conroe received high praise for its affordability, as the city's cost of living is 10 percent lower than the national average, according to the report's findings. The far-flung suburb's housing and affordability earned it No. 7 in the report's ranking of all cities based on their housing and cost of living.

The spacious size of a typical apartment in Conroe – 937 square feet – is the third largest average apartment size in Texas. Only San Marcos and McKinney outrank Conroe in that category, with average apartment sizes spanning 988 and 948 square feet respectively.

Conroe's attractiveness also impressed in a separate MoveBuddha study ranking the most desirable suburbs to move to in 2025.

Despite having a shining reputation for its budget-friendliness, Conroe unfortunately loses out in the "local economy" and "quality of life" categories. RentCafe says the city's local economy is only the 69th best in the nation, and it has the 70th best quality of life out of all U.S. cities. The report gives no explanation behind these rankings.

Though Houston's cost of living is nearly six percent lower than the national average, the city still has a lot more work to do to improve its livability for renters. The average apartment size in Houston is 882 square feet, which is the ninth-smallest size in Texas on average.

Here's how Houston performed in the study's three main categories out of all 150 cities:

No. 53 – Housing and cost of living rank
No. 98 – Local economy rank
No. 99 – Quality of life rank

Elsewhere in Texas
Overall, it appears most Texas cities made slight improvements in the rankings since last year. Austin and its northern suburb Round Rock both remained in the top 10 this year, but the Texas Capital surpassed its neighbor to claim the No. 4 spot, leaving Round Rock behind as the 8th best city for renters.

"The South firmly establishes itself as the top region for renters in 2025, by claiming an impressive 41 of the 50 featured cities," the report said. "From major rental markets like Atlanta and Austin, TX, to rising stars such as McKinney, TX, and Round Rock, TX, the South’s strong presence in the top 10 highlights its increasing appeal to renters across the board."

Here's how other Texas cities stacked up among the top 100 in RentCafe's report:

No. 11 – Plano (up from No. 17 last year)
No. 27 – San Marcos (up from No. 55 last year)
No. 33 – Denton (up from No. 38 last year)
No. 38 – Fort Worth (up from No. 53 last year)
No. 44 – San Antonio (up from No. 65 last year)
No. 57 – Dallas (unchanged from 2024)
No. 58 – Lubbock (unchanged from 2024)
No. 63 – Midland (down from No. 52 last year)
No. 69 – Amarillo (up from No. 85 last year)
No. 88 – Waco (up from No. 91 last year)

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in demand

Houston leads the U.S. with the biggest surge in millionaire renters

IdeasLaboratory.com

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The number of millionaire renters and homeowners in the U.S. has surged over the last five years, and Houston has soared ahead of the rest of the country with the largest growth rate among these affluent renter households.

Houston leads the nation with the No. 1 increase in millionaire renters from 2020 to 2024, a new RentCafe study found. The number of these wealthy households increased from 18 to 232 over the last five years, representing an impressive 1,189 percent growth rate.

"The pandemic accelerated the shift as remote work pushed the wealthy to relocate to lower-tax metros like Houston, where millionaire renters grew 13-fold, versus 3.9-fold for owners," the report said. "Granted, 232 households is still a tiny fraction of the Houston metro’s roughly 2.7 million households, but the growth rate far outpaces any other major metro."

Nationwide, the number of millionaire renter households grew 229 percent from 2020 to 2024, far outpacing the 193 percent growth rate among millionaire homeowners.

Dallas was the only other Texas metro to crack the top 10. The number of millionaire renter households in North Texas has more than quintupled, from just 30 in 2020 to 165 in 2024. That represents a renter growth rate of 450 percent, which — surprisingly — is only the 8th highest nationwide.

But when it comes to the largest populations of millionaire renters, New York City and San Francisco still lead the way. New York claimed the No. 1 spot with nearly 7,300 millionaire renters living in the city in 2024. Houston ranked 12th on that list.

Elsewhere in Texas, Austin and Dallas ranked as the 16th and 17th, respectively, for the largest population of millionaire renters. There were 206 millionaire renters living in Austin in 2024, and 165 in Dallas.

This is who the typical millionaire renter is
The report also revealed a surprising statistic about the typical millionaire renter in the U.S. — a lot of them are millennials working in "white-collar, high-earning fields."

"Nearly half (49 percent) of millionaire renters are Millennials, and the number of affluent Millennial renter households surged 392 percent during the five-year period," the report said. "Gen X follows with 33 percent of millionaire Gen X households renting after increasing by 147 percent."

The report continued, "Although Gen Z still represents a small share of millionaire renters (just 2 percent of the total), no generation has expanded faster: Gen Z millionaire renter households leaped from fewer than a dozen to more than 400 — a tiny cohort today, but one that was virtually nonexistent five years ago."

The top three most common professions for millionaire renters are chief executives, software developers, and managers, the report additionally found. In Houston, the surge of wealthy newcomers are mostly executives, professional athletes, and entertainers.

"These roles tend to generate steady, substantial income without necessarily tying workers to one location, making renting a practical fit, rather than a financial necessity," the report said.

Hotspots for millionaire homeowners
In RentCafe's separate list comparing the top 10 most popular U.S. metros for millionaire homeowners, Houston ranked 12th nationally with 4,374 millioniare homeowners living in the metro as of 2024. These wealthy Houstonians are most likely working as chief executives, physicians, managers, and lawyers and judges.

Houston has already proven to be a hotspot for millennial homebuyers, and the latest RentCafe data says millennials make up 19 percent of all millionaire homeowners in the U.S. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers still maintain the largest shares of millionaire homeowners nationwide, at 45 and 33 percent, respectively.

Dallas (No. 10) and Austin (No. 20) also appeared among the hottest metros for millionaire homeowners.

Only one Texas city appeared among RentCafe's list of the 20 fastest-growing metros for millionaire homeowners: College Station ranked 13th nationwide with a growth rate of 1,329 percent. From 2020-2024, the number of millionaire homeowners residing in College Station grew from 14 to 200.

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