What living in Houston actually costs
Housing dominates the budget. Here are the sourced numbers, the tax structure, and the lines national indexes skip.
Baseline figures
| Measure | Value | Vintage |
|---|---|---|
| Median gross rent (metro) | $1,313 | 2023US Census ACS |
| Median owner-occupied home value (metro) | $253,400 | 2023US Census ACS |
| Median household income | $62,894 | 2023US Census ACS |
| Regional price parity, all items (US average = 100) | 98.6 | 2024US Bureau of Economic Analysis (Regional) |
Price parity below 100 means goods and services cost less here than the US average overall; housing weighs heavily inside that index.
Across our covered communities
Median gross rents across the covered communities run $1,320 (Midtown) to $1,939 (Sugar Land), with a middle around $1,777. Median owner-occupied home values stretch from $301,206 up to $1,164,400.
| Community | Median rent | Median owner-occupied home value |
|---|---|---|
| Cypress | $1,803 (2023)US Census ACS | $364,996 (2023)US Census ACS |
| Energy Corridor | $1,491 (2023)US Census ACS | $456,785 (2023)US Census ACS |
| Katy | $1,609 (2023)US Census ACS | $376,800 (2023)US Census ACS |
| Kingwood | $1,797 (2023)US Census ACS | $301,206 (2023)US Census ACS |
| Memorial | $1,796 (2023)US Census ACS | $1,164,400 (2023)US Census ACS |
| Midtown | $1,320 (2023)US Census ACS | $384,100 (2023)US Census ACS |
| Montrose | $1,761 (2023)US Census ACS | $599,500 (2023)US Census ACS |
| Pearland | $1,759 (2023)US Census ACS | $330,900 (2023)US Census ACS |
| River Oaks | $1,865 (2023)US Census ACS | $795,278 (2023)US Census ACS |
| Sugar Land | $1,939 (2023)US Census ACS | $406,600 (2023)US Census ACS |
| The Heights | $1,567 (2023)US Census ACS | $609,300 (2023)US Census ACS |
| The Woodlands | $1,792 (2023)US Census ACS | $479,400 (2023)US Census ACS |
The lines indexes miss
- Taxes: Texas charges no state individual income tax (TX Comptroller). Property tax is real but parcel-level: MUD and HOA layers differ street to street, so we publish no single community rate.
- Insurance: homeowners, flood, and auto premiums are quote-based, and a FEMA zone at one address can change the flood line entirely; the flood map guide covers the lookup.
- Utilities: a Gulf Coast summer makes electricity a real budget line; size it honestly for a larger home.
- Commute: fuel and tolls scale with your campus; the match tool estimates drive context per destination.
Compare against where you are
Origin guides compute deltas from BEA regional price parities and Census ACS:Seattle, New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas. Moving the other way? Those pages note the reverse direction too, since plenty of people leave Houston for those cities and deserve the same honesty.
Questions people ask next
Housing drives it. The metro median gross rent sits near $1,313 and the median owner-occupied home value near $253,400, both Census ACS. Texas levies no state individual income tax, which offsets part of the property-tax load for most relocating professionals.
Two structural reasons: Texas charges no individual income tax, and the region has kept housing supply elastic so prices never bid up like coastal metros. The tradeoffs show up instead in property-tax layering, summer utilities, and insurance.
Directionally yes on housing, but the honest comparison depends on your campus commute and an insurance quote. Our origin guides compute deltas from BEA regional price parities rather than hand-waving.