Rent or buy? Interactive map shows which is cheaper in your California county
Rent may be high, but mortgages are even higher.
In most of the U.S right now, it’s cheaper to rent. The same is true for California.
How much more expensive is it to buy a home?
The median statewide gross rent was $1,870, according to U.S. Census American Community Survey 2022 estimates. The median mortgage payment was $2,673. That’s a difference of about 35%.
The rent and estimated average monthly cost for utilities and fuels are included in the gross rent calculation. The median mortgage payment includes the mortgage, real estate taxes, insurance (including fire, hazard and flood), utilities and fuels.
Not all California counties had Census data available.
Yuba County had the highest percent difference of nearly 73% between the median rent ($1,124) and mortgage ($2,411). Kings County had the smallest at nearly 11% difference between the $1,401 rent and $1,563 mortgage payment.
There was a nearly 29% difference between Sacramento County’s $1,667 median rent and $2,226 mortgage.
A May 2023 study from real estate company Redfin found there were only four metropolitan areas in the country where buying was more affordable than renting: Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Houston.
Part of the reason for the difference in costs: interest rates. Interest rates for mortgages have climbed near 8%, rising two percentage points this year and hitting a 23-year high in October, according to Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation created by Congress in 1970 as a private company that now operates under a congressional charter as shareholder-owned. The weekly average interest rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 7.76% as of Nov. 2. For a 15-year fixed rate mortgage, it was 7.03%.
The map below shows how California’s counties break down.
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This story was originally published November 2, 2023 at 12:43 PM with the headline "Rent or buy? Interactive map shows which is cheaper in your California county."
