Ritzy Rentals

This Dallas neighborhood ranks among nation's priciest places to rent

Highland Park comes in at No. 11 in HomeUnion's 20 most expensive places to rent.

Photo courtesy of Joan Eleazer/Briggs Freeman Sothebys

Given that Highland Park is one of Dallas' priciest neighborhoods for buying a house, it should come as no big surprise that it also ranks as one of the most expensive places to rent in the country.

The Dallas neighborhood comes in at No. 11 on HomeUnion's 20 Most Expensive Places for Renters-by-Choice. According to the online real estate investment firm, Highland Park has a median household income of $108,973, and the average monthly rent is $4,268. Interestingly, renters make up 29 percent of the neighborhood's households.

“An increasing number of people are renters-by-choice, opting to live within walking distance or a short commute of their office building, workplace, university, community services, or nightlife, instead of the suburbs," said HomeUnion's director of research Steve Hovland in a release.

HomeUnion studied this rental trend by analyzing ZIP codes where more than 25 percent of the submarket’s real estate is rental stock and where households had a median income in the 75th percentile.

Houston's Rice Military neighborhood makes the list at No. 18, with 33 percent of its market consisting of renters. The median household income is $95,292, and the monthly rent is around $2,858.

Of course, New York's trendy TriBeCa neighborhood is the most expensive, with an average rent of $8,762 a month (yikes). Other places with steep rent include neighborhoods in start-up hot spots San Francisco, Oakland, and Seattle, as well as Atlanta and Nashville, which comes in last with a monthly rent of $2,534.

No Cap

Dallas was a top-10 destination for Gen Zers on the move for 2023

Photo by Lance Asper on Unsplash

Who wouldn't want to live in a Gen Z paradise like Dallas?

As Gen Z enters adulthood, many are flocking to the nation's biggest cultural hubs like New York City, Los Angeles — and now Dallas, which had the ninth-highest inflow of Gen Zers in 2023.

Dallas' new reputation as a Gen Z hotspot was unveiled in a recent report by American home improvement brand This Old House, which analyzed migration trends across multiple generations using 2023 U.S. Census Bureau data.

Dallas saw an influx of 13,770 Gen Z residents last year to become the generation's No. 9 most popular city. That's 4,223 more Gen Zers than the net migration rate from 2022, the report found.

Real estate marketplace Zillow seems to agree on a statewide scale, declaring Texas as the No. 1 destination for Gen Zers on the move in 2024.

However, as Gen Z Dallasites may have learned, it's going to take a big bite out of their paychecks to live in such a highly sought after city. A March RentCafe housing cost analysis predicted Gen Z adults living in Dallas are likely to spend over $149,000 on rent by the time they are 30 years old.

While Dallas saw big gains in its Gen Z population last year, many other big cities saw a mass exodus. Plano, for example — which gained 1,295 Gen Z residents in 2022 — lost 4,028 Gen Zers in 2023, the report discovered.

The biggest Gen-Z exodus was in El Paso, with a drop of 5,607 — "a sharp turn from 2022 when the city saw an increase," the report said. "Other cities, including Plano, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; McKinney, Texas; and Wichita, Kansas, are seeing similar declines."

"Gen X, baby boomers, and the Silent Generation are also moving away from major cities, particularly New York City and Washington, D.C.," the report said. "They’re heading to some of the same cities as Gen Z, including Houston and Jacksonville, Florida."

The top 10 cities that gained the most Gen Z residents in 2023 are:

No. 1 – New York City, New York
No. 2 – Los Angeles, California
No. 3 – Houston, Texas
No. 4 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
No. 5 – Chicago, Illinois
No. 6 – San Diego, California
No. 7 – Seattle, Washington
No. 8 – Charlotte, North Carolina
No. 9 – Dallas, Texas
No. 10 – Minneapolis, Minnesota

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