25 Best Places in the US To Live on a Fixed Income

The average Social Security benefit for retired workers is $1,827 per month in 2023. That comes out to $21,924 in annual benefits for a single person, or $43,848 per year for a couple. For some people, that’s their only monthly income.

Living on a fixed income basically means you’re solely or almost entirely dependent on funds such as Social Security, pensions and inheritance, with little to no flexibility in the amount you’re paid each month. Unstable costs, such as a volatile housing market, can be especially challenging to deal with on a fixed income.

If you rely mostly — or solely — on a fixed income, click through to see the best places to live in your state.

Nestled along the Hudson River, Troy saw housing prices rise 7.16% from January 2022 to January 2023. Rent prices grew about the same to a median of $1,329 per month. But by New York standards. Troy is fairly affordable for those on a fixed income. The median home value of $235, 955 fell well below the national average of $328,111, and prices are slowing down, rising only 0.07% in the interval from October 2022 to January 2023.

Coraopolis is a western suburb of Pittsburgh, near the airport if you expect visits from out-of-state relatives and friends. Rent prices increased 3.46% year over year, but at $1,398, they’re still well below the national average of $1,970. Median home prices went up 5.41% in  the past year but less than 1% over the past quarter to $270,816.

Pictured: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

If you’re thinking of renting instead of buying a home, consider Marion, a suburb of Cedar Rapids. The median rent of $809 is the lowest of the 25 cities in the GOBankingRates study, although it did rise 6.78% over the past year. That’s almost identical to the increase in home prices, which rose to $253,157 in the past year but went up only about $300 in the past quarter.

Pictured: Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Rent prices in Saint Cloud went up by 9.20% over the past year, one of the highest increases in the study. However, the price grew to $1,219, which still is more than $700 a month less than the national average. The median home value went up just 0.01% over the last quarter to $224,822 in Saint Cloud, which is a little more than an hour northwest of the Twin Cities.

Wauwatosa sits on the shores of Lake Michigan, about 100 miles north of Chicago. It’s other distinction? With a median home value of $322,992, Wauwatosa is the most expensive place to buy a home in the GOBankingRates study. But the prices didn’t skyrocket over the past year, going up 5.96%. Rents didn’t go up quite as much, rising just over 5% a median of $1,538 per month. While it’s one of the higher rental prices in the study, it’s still $400 less than the national average.

Pictured: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

In the Oklahoma City suburb of Yukon, housing prices skyrocketed in the first three quarters of 2022, then barely moved a trickle in the final quarter. Median home values went up 10.03% from January 2022 to January 2023, making it the highest jump in the study, with the price settling at $242,829. Maybe the rush to buy accounted for an increase in rental costs of less than 2% to $1,507.

Pictured: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Iowa City is the second Iowa locale on the list, but it’s costlier than its suburb of Marion. The median home price in Iowa City is just under $300,000, making it the fourth most expensive place to buy a house in the study. The value went up 5.27% year over year, a half-percentage point higher than the increase in rent. A rental in Iowa City is $1,218 per month, well under the national average.

Real estate prices in Wheeling, which is about 30 miles northwest of Chicago, increased just 3.25% year over year to $268,919. Rent prices had more than triple of an increase, however, going up 10.99% to $1,766 per month – one of the two highest rents in the study.

Pictured: Buffalo Grove, Illinois

Stillwater’s median home value of $216,714 put in the bottom third of prices in the study. The year-over-year increase in housing prices was far less than then 8.66% increase in rental prices to $1,283.

Home values in Dover went up 9.32% year over year, with a median home value of $$292,334. The increase in rental prices over the same time span, however, was a scant 1.24% to an average of $1,507 per month.

Home prices in Pittsburgh were flat over the span from October to January, rising only 0.19% to $212,105. The year-over-year housing prices rose 5.35%, however, less than the 6.06% hike in rent prices to an average of $1,403 per month.

Lakewood, a suburb of Cleveland near Lake Erie, is an affordable option. Zillow puts the median home price at $262,198. That’s up only 2.75% year over year. The average rent is $1,262 a month, up 4.93% year over year.

New York’s state capital sits on the west side of the Hudson River, and you’ll pay more to live there than in Troy, on the east side. Albany’s home values went north by 4.52% over the past year to $261,619, but that is still about $40,000 less than the national median. Rents went up nearly 7% to $1,475 per month.

Cedar Rapids is the third Iowa city on the list – and it has the least expensive home prices of the Iowa locales. The median home value in Cedar Rapids went up 6.64% to $191,262, one of the six cities on the list with housing prices less than $200,000. The average rent also is affordable at $952, despite going up 5.25% year over year.

The three Iowa cities seemed like a lot for this study, but apparently Maryland is the best state to live on a fixed income. Parkville, a northeastern suburb of Baltimore, has median home values of just less than $250,000, which rose almost 4% over the past year. Rental prices grew 4.78% to $1,464 per month.

Huber Heights, on the western side of the state, is a good place for homeowners on a fixed income, with Zillow reporting median home prices of $167,425. That represents a 6.43% hike year over year, but costs were flat in the last quarter. Rental costs went up less – 4.80% — to $1,251 per month.

Pictured: Dayton, Ohio

If you thought living in Huber Heights offered affordability on a fixed income, look at Euclid in the Cleveland area. Home values in Euclid are the lowest in the GOBankingRates study at $129,550, which even includes a 5.87% increase year over year. Rents only went up 2.90%, but they are far from the cheapest on the list at a median of $1,229.

Pictured: Cleveland, Ohio

The median home value in Bossier City is just a few hundred dollars below $200,000, making it one of the best places to live on a fixed income. Still, housing prices jumped by 7.05% in the last year. The 2.15% increase in rent, to $1,287 per month, was minuscule by comparison.

In Manhattan, the location of Kansas State University, the median home value is $242,257, up 4.52% year over year. The average rent had a lesser increase, up 2.89% to $1,220.

Homebuyers on a fixed income can benefit from San Angelo’s relatively stable housing market: Home values increased only 2.14% year over year to $189,987. Rent rose 5.66% to an average of $1,302.

The median home value in West Springfield is $275,707. Although this is nearly $12,000 below the national median value, it’s much less than the median home price in the state of Massachusetts as a whole, which is $508,232, according to Zillow.Home values in the city increased about 10.81% year over year.

Pictured: Baltimore, Maryland

Home and rent prices are both well below the national median in Beaumont. The median home value in the city is $146,934 and rent is $1,331. The home values rose by just 1.94%, and rents went up 2.97% year over year.

Here comes the run on Maryland cities to close out the study, and all three share a common fact. Rent prices went down from January 2022 to 2023. In Middle River, rents fell 0.58% to $1,591. The median home price, however, rose 4.56% to $287,493.

Pictured: Baltimore, Maryland

Housing costs in Windsor Mill are about $50,000 below the U.S. median at $279,100. Home values showed nearly a 4.74% growth year over year, while rents fell by 0.77 to $1,505.

Pictured: Baltimore, Maryland

Randallstown, 20 miles from Baltimore, is a study in contrasts. While its housing prices are second highest in the study at $322,342 and went up 3.53 percent year over year, rental prices dropped 3.3% in the same time span. Median rents now are $1,427 – more than $500 below the national average.

Pictured: Baltimore, Maryland

Jami Farkas and Jordan Rosenfeld contributed to the reporting for this article. 

_{Methodology: To find the best places in the United States to live on a fixed income, GOBankingRates first looked at every city with Zillow home value data for January 2022, October 2022, and January 2023 available as well as the city’s rent for both January 2022 and 2023 as sourced from Zillow. With all these data points sourced GOBankingRates then pared the list to only include cities that met the following criteria: a home value of less than the national average of $328,111 and also a ranking as one of the 5,000 largest housing markets, according to Zillow}

_{For these qualified cities, GOBankingRates found: (1) the quarter-over-quarter percent change in home value; (2) the year-over-year percent change in home value; and (3) the year-over-year percent change in rent. Those cities with negative values for factors (1) or (2) were then eliminated. With the remaining cities, GOBankingRates scored and combined all three factors with the lowest score being best. These factors were chosen because changes in home values serve as a proxy for measuring the volatility of a housing market, with large increases posing a threat to those living on fixed incomes, while a negative change in value means money is being lost in depreciating house values. However, decreasing rental prices benefit a household on a fixed income.}

_{All data was collected on and up to date as of March 1, 2023.}

_{Photo Disclaimer: Please note photos are for representational purposes only and may represent the nearest large metropolitan area.} 

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