Affordability
Can you afford the life you want?
Monthly Take-Home Pay
$5,333After taxes and deductionsRent is 37% of your take-home pay, which is within a healthy range below 40%.
- Affordability gauge
- Budget breakdown
- Rent slider
- Scenario selector
- Gauge animation
- Live updates
How Much Rent Can You Actually Afford?
Kira kararı için yaygın kural, aylık net gelirin %30'unu geçmemektir. 100.000 $ kazanan bekâr birinin aylık neti 6.598 $ olduğunda bu sınır 1.979 $'a denk gelir. New York ve San Francisco'da ortalama kira bu sınırı aşar; Houston, Phoenix ve Chicago'da rahatça altında kalır.
How much rent fits your income
The most widely used guideline in housing is that rent should not exceed 30 percent of income — a threshold that has been part of US housing policy since the 1980s and remains the standard used to define "cost-burdened" households. On a $100,000 salary in Texas, take-home pay is $6,598 a month, so 30 percent of that is $1,979. That is the budget line a single renter is working with, and it makes the differences between metros very concrete.
Average rent in Houston is $1,643 — comfortably inside the line, at 24.9 percent of monthly take-home pay. Dallas at $1,659 and Austin at $1,622 land in the same range. New York at $3,615 consumes 54.8 percent of the same salary, and San Francisco at $3,409 consumes 51.7 percent. Those are the numbers the table above calculates for ten metros, using the same tax engine and the same rent series.
What the 30 percent threshold means in practice
Crossing 30 percent does not make a rent unaffordable, but it reduces flexibility. Once housing takes more than a third of net income, the remaining categories — food, transport, healthcare and savings — have to absorb the difference, because none of them scale down automatically with rent. Above 40 percent, the budget becomes fragile to a single unexpected expense, which is why that level is generally treated as a warning rather than a target.
The rule is also a rough instrument. It was designed around household income, and a single person paying 35 percent of their own income has a different level of risk than a two-income household paying 35 percent of a joint income. It also says nothing about commute costs, which can add several hundred dollars a month and effectively shift the housing question to the transportation line.
Why metros diverge so much
Rent differences of this size come from supply and demand meeting a fixed geography. Metros with room to build housing, lower land costs and steady construction tend to keep rents in proportion to local wages. Metros constrained by coastlines, mountains or zoning restrictions see rents rise faster than wages, because the number of units cannot respond to demand. The Zillow rent index used here tracks the typical observed rent in a metro, which means it reflects what current tenants actually pay rather than what landlords are asking for new listings.
Adjusting the calculation to your situation
The panel above lets you change the salary and compare metros directly. Two adjustments are worth making before you use the result. First, use your actual take-home pay rather than gross salary — the numbers here are already net, and switching to gross would overstate what you can afford by roughly 20 percent. Second, include utilities, renters insurance and any required parking in the rent figure, since those are part of the housing line in the BLS spending data this model is built on.
Method
Monthly take-home pay comes from the 2026 tax engine using the salary and state you select. Rent figures are Zillow ZORI metro averages. The ratio is simply monthly rent divided by monthly take-home pay, and the status column marks whether the result sits below 30 percent (within the standard guideline), between 30 and 40 percent (stretched) or above 40 percent (a warning sign). No local assumptions are layered on top: what you see is the arithmetic.
Aylık net gelire göre kira uygunluğu (100.000 $ brüt, bekâr)
| Metro | Ortalama kira | Aylık net | Kiranın payı | Durum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York, NY | $3,615 | $6,186 | 58.4% | Uygun değil |
| Los Angeles, CA | $2,941 | $6,153 | 47.8% | Uygun değil |
| San Francisco, CA | $3,409 | $6,153 | 55.4% | Uygun değil |
| Seattle, WA | $2,278 | $6,598 | 34.5% | Sınırda |
| Miami, FL | $2,666 | $6,598 | 40.4% | Uygun değil |
| Houston, TX | $1,643 | $6,598 | 24.9% | Uygun |
| Dallas, TX | $1,659 | $6,598 | 25.1% | Uygun |
| Austin, TX | $1,622 | $6,598 | 24.6% | Uygun |
| Denver, CO | $1,922 | $6,232 | 30.8% | Sınırda |
| Phoenix, AZ | $1,722 | $6,390 | 26.9% | Uygun |
Frequently asked questions
Is 30 percent of income a strict rule for rent?
It is a widely used guideline rather than a rule. Above 30 percent, other budget categories have to absorb the difference because food, transport and healthcare do not shrink with rent; above 40 percent the budget becomes fragile to a single unexpected expense.
Should I compare rent to gross or net pay?
Net pay. Rent is paid from take-home pay, which is roughly 20 percent lower than gross once tax and FICA are deducted. Using gross salary overstates what you can afford by about a fifth.
Kaynaklar ve yöntem
- Kira: Zillow Research ZORI (metro ortalaması, 2026-08-31).
- Hesaplamalar 2026 AfterTaxLab vergi motoruyla yapıldı (federal dilimler, standart indirim 16.100 $, Sosyal Güvenlik %6,2 / tavan 184.500 $, Medicare %1,45).
Bu sayfadaki görsel panel ile aşağıdaki tablolar aynı veri kaynaklarını kullanır; hesaplamalar tarayıcıda gerçek zamanlı, tablolar ise yayın anındaki gerçek değerlerle üretilmiştir.