Moving on Up

Here's what it costs to move into a bigger San Antonio apartment

Want more living space? It'll cost you a bit. Agave Apartments SA/Facebook

Feeling cramped in your San Antonio apartment? A new report from RentCafé details how much it'll cost you to move into a bigger Alamo City space.

The listing website looked at data from the 25 most populous cities in the U.S. to compare the average rent price and square footage of studios and one-bedroom apartments. On average, local renters dish out an additional $161 per month to move from a studio to one bedroom, the 14th most expensive of cities studied. In return, they add 207 square feet of space.

In Texas, the most bang for your buck is in Austin, where upgrading to a one-bedroom unit increases rent by $118 a month and adds 234 square feet of space. Moving on up in Fort Worth or Dallas costs $123 or $125, respectively; El Paso ($166) and Houston ($176) are pricier.

The jump in rent is a lot steeper when you move from one bedroom to two, locally and across the country. In San Antonio, renters cough up an additional $238 per month — the 12th highest — and gain 321 square feet of space.

Home At Last

Here's how many days Texans work to afford their monthly mortgage

It takes Texans eight workdays each month to unlock homeownership. Photo by Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash

For homebuyers, a mortgage payment is likely their biggest monthly expense. Fortunately, Texas sits below the national average for the number of workdays required per month to afford a monthly mortgage payment, according to a new analysis from Realtor.com.

In Texas, it takes eight workdays to come up with enough money for a typical mortgage payment, the analysis shows. The national average is 10 days.

Realtor.com’s estimate for Texas is based on the median list price for a home in February ($355,000) and assumes a 6.65 percent interest rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage with a 20 percent down payment. The analysis factors in property taxes and insurance premiums using a 1.7 percent annual rate. January wage data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics rounded out Realtor.com’s calculation of the eight-workday figure for Texas.

“The number of workdays required to afford a home today stems from a couple factors. First, home prices have risen faster than incomes, widening the gap between earnings and housing costs. Second, elevated mortgage rates have increased borrowing costs, further stretching monthly budgets,” says Charlie Lankston, executive editor of Austin-based Realtor.com. “As a result, prospective buyers must allocate more of their income, and consequently, more workdays each month, to afford mortgage payments.”

Mortgage payments are a concern for many homeowners. In a 2024 survey commissioned by personal finance website Bankrate, 13 percent of homeowners complained that their mortgage payment was too high. Nonetheless, 74 percent of first-time homebuyers indicated in a recent TD Bank survey that they were optimistic about today’s housing market.

Despite the optimism about the market overall, 64 percent of buyers surveyed by TD Bank were worried about their ability to afford a home due to current interest rates.

In the Realtor.com analysis, Texas fares much better than many other states. What follows are the four states where it takes the most workdays to afford a monthly mortgage payment: