About the project

Clear housing data for relocation decisions

MoveCostCompare is an independent data site that helps people compare housing costs and household income across U.S. cities.

What we publish

Each city guide turns public Census data into a consistent set of relocation benchmarks: median gross rent, median home value, median household income, owner occupancy, rent-to-income and state rankings. State pages provide directories and ranking views across the cities currently covered.

Where the numbers come from

Our core figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. The ACS provides broad geographic coverage and a consistent methodology, making it useful for comparisons between communities.

MoveCostCompare is not affiliated with, endorsed by or operated by the U.S. Census Bureau or any government agency.

Editorial approach

We separate reported values from derived benchmarks. Reported values are labeled as Census estimates. Calculations such as income needed for a 30% rent target, rent-to-income and price-to-rent are explained on our methodology page. We avoid presenting the current 10-state dataset as a national ranking.

Updates and corrections

The site checks for newly available ACS releases during scheduled data refreshes. Because ACS 5-Year estimates combine multiple survey years, they are a stable comparison baseline rather than a real-time market feed.

If you find a labeling issue, broken page or calculation problem, email [email protected]. We review corrections against the source data before updating a page.