Price-to-rent ratio by state: The best states to buy a rental in 2026

You found a market you like, the numbers on the spreadsheet almost work, and now you're stuck on the question every rental investor eventually hits: is it actually cheaper to own here, or are you about to overpay for the privilege of collecting rent? The price-to-rent ratio settles that argument faster than any other single number. And once you stop looking at it as one national figure and start looking at it state by state, the map of where a rental actually pencils out gets a lot sharper.

We ran it for all 50 states, split into single-family homes and condos, using Redfin sale prices and Zillow rent data. Below is the full ranking, both property types, best value to worst. But the ranking is only half of it; the more useful part is knowing how to read the number, and where it quietly lies to you.

What the price-to-rent ratio actually measures

Take the median home price, divide it by a full year of median rent, and you have it. A $300,000 house renting for $2,000 a month, or $24,000 a year, lands at 12.5. Lower is better if you're the one buying: it means the price is cheap relative to what the property earns, which usually translates to stronger cash flow and a shorter runway to the place carrying itself.

There's a rough scale the whole industry leans on. Under about 15, buying tends to win. Between 15 and 20 you're in a gray zone where the answer depends on your taxes, your financing, and how long you plan to hold. Push past 20 and renting is usually the cheaper monthly option, which means a purchase there is really a bet on appreciation rather than rent. For context, the national ratio is sitting near 23 right now; that alone tells you how much of the country has drifted into "cheaper to rent" territory, and why the states that still clear the low teens stand out.

What we've done to further break down the difference is split each state into individual price-to-rent ratios for both single-family homes and condos, since different property types often behave drastically different on the market. What you'll see is that in many states, single-family homes make a lot more sense to buy than rent, while condos can often work the other way around.

We have full breakdowns of each state on all 50 of our state pages.

The best states to buy a single-family rental

The value clusters where you'd expect once you see it laid out: the Midwest and the older industrial Northeast. Modest home prices, rents that never collapsed, and a lot of housing stock that cash-flows on day one. Buy a single-family rental in the top tier of this list and the math tends to work on rent alone, before appreciation is even part of the conversation.

The bottom of the list is just as consistent, and honestly just as useful to study. Hawaii, the high-cost coastal states, and a chunk of the Mountain West sit at the expensive end, where home values have sprinted so far ahead of rents that buying to rent barely breaks even. That doesn't make them bad places to own; it makes them appreciation plays, which is a completely different risk profile than cash flow, and one that punishes you hard if prices stall. Here's every state, ranked from the best single-family value to the worst.

1. Illinois: $328,400 median, $2,414 rent, 11.3 price-to-rent
2. New York: $525,100 median, $3,498 rent, 12.5 price-to-rent
3. Maine: $413,433 median, $2,647 rent, 13.0 price-to-rent
4. Connecticut: $531,033 median, $3,400 rent, 13.0 price-to-rent
5. Vermont: $448,667 median, $2,848 rent, 13.1 price-to-rent
6. Louisiana: $264,633 median, $1,689 rent, 13.1 price-to-rent
7. Iowa: $256,900 median, $1,616 rent, 13.2 price-to-rent
8. Texas: $350,433 median, $2,168 rent, 13.5 price-to-rent
9. Mississippi: $271,667 median, $1,655 rent, 13.7 price-to-rent
10. Michigan: $288,167 median, $1,757 rent, 13.7 price-to-rent
11. Ohio: $281,700 median, $1,700 rent, 13.8 price-to-rent
12. Nebraska: $315,033 median, $1,885 rent, 13.9 price-to-rent
13. Minnesota: $378,633 median, $2,278 rent, 13.9 price-to-rent
14. Florida: $447,733 median, $2,681 rent, 13.9 price-to-rent
15. Pennsylvania: $343,333 median, $2,037 rent, 14.0 price-to-rent
16. North Dakota: $327,100 median, $1,938 rent, 14.1 price-to-rent
17. Kentucky: $284,433 median, $1,672 rent, 14.2 price-to-rent
18. Indiana: $282,233 median, $1,652 rent, 14.2 price-to-rent
19. Alaska: $433,233 median, $2,527 rent, 14.3 price-to-rent
20. Virginia: $511,367 median, $2,933 rent, 14.5 price-to-rent
21. Oklahoma: $262,800 median, $1,497 rent, 14.6 price-to-rent
22. Missouri: $295,100 median, $1,662 rent, 14.8 price-to-rent
23. Arkansas: $272,933 median, $1,538 rent, 14.8 price-to-rent
24. Rhode Island: $544,167 median, $3,046 rent, 14.9 price-to-rent
25. Alabama: $303,967 median, $1,627 rent, 15.6 price-to-rent
26. New Mexico: $383,367 median, $2,039 rent, 15.7 price-to-rent
27. West Virginia: $262,500 median, $1,382 rent, 15.8 price-to-rent
28. Massachusetts: $696,533 median, $3,645 rent, 15.9 price-to-rent
29. Wisconsin: $360,867 median, $1,877 rent, 16.0 price-to-rent
30. New Hampshire: $551,167 median, $2,872 rent, 16.0 price-to-rent
31. Delaware: $407,767 median, $2,121 rent, 16.0 price-to-rent
32. South Dakota: $342,867 median, $1,779 rent, 16.1 price-to-rent
33. Georgia: $397,133 median, $2,061 rent, 16.1 price-to-rent
34. North Carolina: $408,867 median, $1,974 rent, 17.3 price-to-rent
35. South Carolina: $414,667 median, $1,974 rent, 17.5 price-to-rent
36. Arizona: $468,600 median, $2,207 rent, 17.7 price-to-rent
37. Tennessee: $413,967 median, $1,930 rent, 17.9 price-to-rent
38. Nevada: $506,633 median, $2,357 rent, 17.9 price-to-rent
39. New Jersey: $575,333 median, $2,644 rent, 18.1 price-to-rent
40. Oregon: $533,767 median, $2,428 rent, 18.3 price-to-rent
41. Colorado: $646,433 median, $2,862 rent, 18.8 price-to-rent
42. Wyoming: $458,867 median, $2,027 rent, 18.9 price-to-rent
43. Kansas: $313,600 median, $1,381 rent, 18.9 price-to-rent
44. California: $914,267 median, $4,015 rent, 19.0 price-to-rent
45. Washington: $679,400 median, $2,950 rent, 19.2 price-to-rent
46. Montana: $531,433 median, $2,286 rent, 19.4 price-to-rent
47. Maryland: $555,833 median, $2,371 rent, 19.5 price-to-rent
48. Idaho: $491,700 median, $2,045 rent, 20.0 price-to-rent
49. Utah: $610,533 median, $2,425 rent, 21.0 price-to-rent
50. Hawaii: $972,833 median, $3,596 rent, 22.5 price-to-rent

Condos tell a different story

Here's what almost every ranking like this misses: single-family and condo price-to-rent don't move together, and treating them as one blended "housing" number hides the good stuff. Split them out and some states look meaningfully stronger on the condo side, because condo prices sit well below single-family prices while the rent gap between the two is narrower. If you're buying to rent and you're flexible on property type, condos are worth a serious look; that's where a few underrated markets surface.

Condos also produce the wildest outliers on the board, and they're worth understanding before you trust the number. In a few Mountain West states the "condo market" is really a resort market. The condos that actually change hands are ski-town luxury units, so the median gets dragged into the high twenties and thirties even though a normal condo isn't priced anywhere near that. It's a clean reminder that a median is only as honest as the inventory sitting behind it; when the sample is thin and top-heavy, the ratio stops describing a market a regular investor could actually buy into.

One note on coverage. Three states, West Virginia, South Dakota, and Wyoming, don't appear in the condo ranking at all. Their condo markets are too small to produce a median we'd stand behind, so we left them out rather than publish a ratio built on a couple dozen sales a month. The single-family numbers for those states are solid; the condo ones just aren't there in enough volume to mean anything.

1. Oklahoma: $144,933 median, $1,105 rent, 10.9 price-to-rent
2. Delaware: $220,233 median, $1,672 rent, 11.0 price-to-rent
3. Minnesota: $207,633 median, $1,483 rent, 11.7 price-to-rent
4. Connecticut: $328,833 median, $2,155 rent, 12.7 price-to-rent
5. Florida: $303,500 median, $1,979 rent, 12.8 price-to-rent
6. Illinois: $317,100 median, $2,046 rent, 12.9 price-to-rent
7. Maryland: $277,767 median, $1,713 rent, 13.5 price-to-rent
8. Nebraska: $210,733 median, $1,292 rent, 13.6 price-to-rent
9. Nevada: $259,500 median, $1,579 rent, 13.7 price-to-rent
10. Alaska: $273,300 median, $1,596 rent, 14.3 price-to-rent
11. Missouri: $219,167 median, $1,258 rent, 14.5 price-to-rent
12. Virginia: $358,000 median, $2,039 rent, 14.6 price-to-rent
13. Louisiana: $237,833 median, $1,319 rent, 15.0 price-to-rent
14. North Dakota: $206,167 median, $1,133 rent, 15.2 price-to-rent
15. Pennsylvania: $290,467 median, $1,580 rent, 15.3 price-to-rent
16. Arizona: $273,267 median, $1,462 rent, 15.6 price-to-rent
17. Texas: $262,333 median, $1,392 rent, 15.7 price-to-rent
18. Kentucky: $227,467 median, $1,196 rent, 15.8 price-to-rent
19. Georgia: $295,867 median, $1,534 rent, 16.1 price-to-rent
20. South Carolina: $292,933 median, $1,472 rent, 16.6 price-to-rent
21. Ohio: $245,067 median, $1,200 rent, 17.0 price-to-rent
22. Massachusetts: $585,767 median, $2,862 rent, 17.1 price-to-rent
23. Rhode Island: $429,200 median, $2,083 rent, 17.2 price-to-rent
24. Michigan: $279,200 median, $1,351 rent, 17.2 price-to-rent
25. Indiana: $243,433 median, $1,173 rent, 17.3 price-to-rent
26. Oregon: $335,133 median, $1,590 rent, 17.6 price-to-rent
27. Hawaii: $545,067 median, $2,538 rent, 17.9 price-to-rent
28. New Hampshire: $422,967 median, $1,954 rent, 18.0 price-to-rent
29. North Carolina: $315,667 median, $1,427 rent, 18.4 price-to-rent
30. Kansas: $225,167 median, $993 rent, 18.9 price-to-rent
31. Arkansas: $241,633 median, $1,063 rent, 18.9 price-to-rent
32. New York: $763,533 median, $3,305 rent, 19.3 price-to-rent
33. New Jersey: $487,967 median, $2,106 rent, 19.3 price-to-rent
34. Iowa: $235,867 median, $1,021 rent, 19.3 price-to-rent
35. Wisconsin: $298,333 median, $1,276 rent, 19.5 price-to-rent
36. Washington: $432,333 median, $1,829 rent, 19.7 price-to-rent
37. Tennessee: $336,333 median, $1,390 rent, 20.2 price-to-rent
38. Mississippi: $336,467 median, $1,362 rent, 20.6 price-to-rent
39. Maine: $459,933 median, $1,859 rent, 20.6 price-to-rent
40. Vermont: $453,633 median, $1,750 rent, 21.6 price-to-rent
41. California: $670,200 median, $2,558 rent, 21.8 price-to-rent
42. New Mexico: $344,700 median, $1,294 rent, 22.2 price-to-rent
43. Colorado: $469,400 median, $1,751 rent, 22.3 price-to-rent
44. Alabama: $392,733 median, $1,214 rent, 27.0 price-to-rent
45. Utah: $519,100 median, $1,513 rent, 28.6 price-to-rent
46. Montana: $548,700 median, $1,500 rent, 30.5 price-to-rent
47. Idaho: $560,533 median, $1,391 rent, 33.6 price-to-rent

Single-family or condo?

If the condo column looks friendlier in the state you're eyeing, it's worth asking why before you act on it. Condos win on price-to-rent in a lot of markets for a plain reason: the entry price is lower, so a given rent covers more of the purchase. That's genuinely useful, and for a first rental it can be the line between cash-flowing and quietly feeding the property every month.

But the ratio can't see the HOA. A condo carrying a $400-a-month association fee earns a very different real return than the headline number implies, and those fees have a habit of jumping after a special assessment nobody saw coming. A single-family house hands you the whole repair bill instead, sure; you also control the timing, and you're not one board vote away from paying to re-roof an entire complex.

Then there's who actually rents the place. Condos tend to pull shorter tenancies, and plenty of buildings cap how many units can be leased at once; walk into one of those rental caps and your whole plan can evaporate on closing day. Single-family rentals usually mean longer stays and no committee deciding whether you're even allowed to rent. So treat the condo ranking as a list of markets where the math leans in your favor, not as a verdict; the ratio tells you where to look, and the HOA docs tell you whether to buy.

What a low ratio doesn't promise you

A strong price-to-rent ratio is a green light to keep looking, not a guarantee you'll keep the cash flow. It measures one thing well: how cheap the purchase is relative to rent. It says nothing about whether that advantage survives contact with the actual cost of owning. Two states can post the same ratio and hand you very different returns once the carrying costs show up.

The line items that decide it:

• Property taxes, which swing wildly by state; a low-ratio state with punishing taxes can quietly claw the advantage back, before you count the rental property tax deductions that offset them
• Insurance, which has climbed fast in storm-exposed and wildfire-exposed markets and is now a real factor in the buy-or-skip decision, not a rounding error
• Landlord-tenant law, which sets how expensive a bad tenant or a slow eviction actually gets
• Vacancy and turnover, which land harder in small markets than a statewide median ever suggests

So use the ratio the way it's meant to be used. Run it first to draw your shortlist; it's the fastest filter there is for separating markets where the rent covers the mortgage from markets where you're subsidizing a tenant while you wait on appreciation. Then take that shortlist and pressure-test it on taxes, on landlord insurance, on the local eviction timeline. That second step is unglamorous and it's where the actual return hides.

How we built the rankings

Home prices come from Redfin's market data, median sale price by state, smoothed across the trailing quarter so a single thin month can't jerk a state up or down the list. Rents come from Zillow's observed rent index, with single-family and multifamily tracked separately and rolled up to the state level, so the single-family ratio compares houses to house rents and the condo ratio compares condos to apartment-style rents. We refresh all of it every month. That matters more than it sounds; a lot of the "best states" lists floating around are quoting data from two or three years ago, and price-to-rent has moved a great deal since then.

Each state in the tables links through to its own page, where the current median price, average rent, ratio, and national rank sit for both property types, updated on the same monthly cadence as this ranking.

Frequently asked questions

What's a good price-to-rent ratio for buying a rental?

Under about 15 generally favors buying and points to healthy cash flow. The 15-to-20 band is a judgment call that hinges on your tax bill, your interest rate, and your holding period. Once you're much above 20, you're mostly paying for appreciation potential rather than rent, and the property needs prices to keep climbing to make sense. Since the national average is hovering around 23, anything in the low-to-mid teens is genuinely landlord-friendly territory.

Is it cheaper to buy or rent right now?

It depends entirely on where you're standing. The national ratio near 23 means renting is often the cheaper monthly option across the country as a whole, but that average buries enormous variation. Across the Midwest and much of the South, buying still wins comfortably. On the coasts and throughout the Mountain West, renting is usually the cheaper path unless you're specifically counting on home values to keep rising.

How does the 2% rule fit in?

They're the same idea viewed from opposite ends. The 2% rule says a rental should pull in monthly rent worth at least 2% of the purchase price; the price-to-rent ratio runs that math in reverse, as annual rent against price. A property that actually hits 2% works out to a ratio around 4, which almost nothing in the country clears anymore. Most investors have quietly reset to a 1% target, which lands near a ratio of 8; even that is a stretch in a lot of markets today.

Which state has the best and worst price-to-rent ratio?

For single-family homes, the front of the pack is a Midwest and older-Northeast story; the exact leader shuffles a bit month to month, but the same regions keep showing up at the top. The most expensive states relative to rent are reliably Hawaii, the high-cost coastal metros, and the fast-appreciating Mountain West. The tables above carry the current order, and because we update them monthly, they'll stay accurate as the market moves rather than freezing on today's snapshot.

Start with the ratio to narrow the map, then do the boring diligence on taxes, insurance, and local law before you wire a deposit. Price-to-rent is only one lens, too; the best states for real estate investors can look different once property taxes, landlord laws, and price growth get equal weight. The states at the top of this list are simply where the math gives you the most room for error; in a business where the gap between a good year and a rough one is thin, that room is worth more than almost anything else on the spreadsheet.