Welcome to Rental Hell: Miami Is One of the Least Affordable U.S. Cities for Singles

Life can be difficult for singles, from paying for rent and utilities all by one's lonesome to spending Valentine's Day watching lovers swoon over their partners, red roses in hand to having to open that tricky jar of pickles solo. According to RentHop, a website that helps people find apartments for rent, Miami is the second-least-affordable city in the United States for singles, making the burden heavier for those in the 305.

The singles index, which RentHop updates annually, uses the portion of a single renter's monthly income that must be allocated toward renting a studio apartment to determine the financial strain of housing.

Miami, where a median studio slots in at $2,050 per month, eating up 54 percent of one's annual income, comes in second only to New York City, where the median studio rents for $3,375 per month, accounting for 68 percent of a single person's earnings. Detroit ranks third on the list (low rent but also low income), followed by Boston and Los Angeles.

On the other end of the spectrum, Wichita, Kansas, where a median studio goes for $590, using only 18 percent of one's paycheck for rent, is the most affordable city for singles, followed by Columbus, Ohio, where the median studio rent of $878 accounts for 21 percent of one's income. Minneapolis is the third-most-affordable city for those flying solo. Seattle, then Colorado Springs, Colorado, come next.
Interestingly, Miami also ranks second among RentHop's index of least affordable cities for single women. It costs single female renters 73 percent of their income to live alone, 1.7 times more than their male counterparts, who spend 43 percent of their salaries on rent. El Paso, Texas, where rent for single women accounts for 43 percent of their income, which is 1.8 times more than the 19 percent single men pay for rent, leads the charge in this category.

The Miami statistics aren't shocking for anyone who has spent more than five minutes in Magic City. A new "workforce housing" complex in Miami Beach meant for the likes of teachers, hospitality workers, and nurses, is offering its 486-square-foot studios beginning at $2,385, something one social media user deemed "straight robbery." Another person wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that he pays $2,400 for a Beverly Hills apartment more than twice that size.

A November 2023 report by bill-pay company Doxo revealed that Miami's cost of living ranked among the highest in the nation, while researchers at Chapman University listed the area as the least affordable of 17 "severely unaffordable" housing markets in the U.S. in 2024.