Data methodology

How the housing affordability benchmarks work

MoveCostCompare uses one documented formula set across every city so readers can compare places without mixing incompatible sources.

Primary source and coverage

The current release uses U.S. Census Bureau 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. The database includes 1,211 places with at least 20,000 residents across 10 states.

ACS 5-Year data combines survey responses collected over five years. It offers reliable geographic coverage but does not represent today's asking rent or a real-time home listing price.

Reported measures

Median gross rent
The ACS median contract rent plus estimated tenant-paid utilities for renter-occupied units paying cash rent.
Median home value
The ACS median respondent-estimated value for owner-occupied housing units.
Median household income
The ACS median household income in the past 12 months, reported in inflation-adjusted dollars for the dataset year.
Owner occupancy
Owner-occupied housing units divided by all occupied housing units.

Derived benchmarks

Rent-to-income benchmark
Median gross rent × 12 ÷ median household income. This compares two citywide medians and is not the Census renter cost-burden measure.
Income for a 30% rent target
Median gross rent × 12 ÷ 0.30, rounded to the nearest $100. The 30% threshold is a common planning convention, not a landlord rule or financial recommendation.
Home value-to-income
Median home value ÷ median household income.
Price-to-rent baseline
Median home value ÷ annual median gross rent. It excludes mortgage rates, taxes, insurance, maintenance and transaction costs.

Rankings and comparison scope

City pages compare each value with the median among the full current dataset. State rankings include only covered cities in that state. These results are never labeled as nationwide rankings because the current database covers 10 states rather than all U.S. states and territories.

Update and quality controls

The data pipeline checks for the newest available ACS 5-Year release, rejects mixed-year builds and stages database and site changes before publication. Automated validation checks titles, descriptions, canonical links, structured data and internal links.

Known limitations