11 Most Affordable Places To Rent in California

Generations of Americans have been lured west by the dream of California living — but living in California isn’t cheap. Notorious for high housing costs, high taxes and a high cost of living, the Golden State is one of the priciest places in America to drop anchor.

Unless you’re buying a home, you’ll have to rent a place when you get there. When you do, you should expect to spend hundreds of dollars more per month than the national average whether your pad has one bedroom or four. Even so, there are still a handful of places that — while not exactly cheap — are still manageable.

Using data from ApartmentList, GOBankingRates identified the California cities and towns where the average renter pays less than $2,006 per month, which is the average in the Golden State. That, however, wasn’t the only criteria. The rankings also considered each city’s cost of living, which was quantified with data from Sperling’s Best Place and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), as well as each town’s livability score, which was sourced from AreaVibes. The total score summarizes all factors — lower is better — and the list is ranked from least affordable to most.

Here are the top places to rent in California.

• 2022 average overall rent: $1,979
• Cost of living index: 173.3
• Annual expenditures: $106,291.82
• Livability: 54
• Total score: 2.74714

• 2022 average overall rent: $1,924
• Cost of living index: 235.2
• Annual expenditures: $144,257.57
• Livability: 67
• Total score: 2.67314

• 2022 average overall rent: $1,806
• Cost of living index: 174.4
• Annual expenditures: $106,966.50
• Livability: 53
• Total score: 2.52907

• 2022 average overall rent: $1,868
• Cost of living index: 148.6
• Annual expenditures: $91,142.32
• Livability: 54
• Total score: 2.28497

• 2022 average overall rent: $1,910
• Cost of living index: 193.6
• Annual expenditures: $118,742.62
• Livability: 70
• Total score: 2.02175

• 2022 average overall rent: $1,779
• Cost of living index: 123
• Annual expenditures: $75,440.82
• Livability: 59
• Total score: 1.58765

• 2022 average overall rent: $1,806
• Cost of living index: 118.2
• Annual expenditures: $72,496.79
• Livability: 62
• Total score: 1.41910

• 2022 average overall rent: $1,891
• Cost of living index: 120.1
• Annual expenditures: $73,662.13
• Livability: 72
• Total score: 1.05339

• 2022 average overall rent: $1,611
• Cost of living index: 123.5
• Annual expenditures: $75,747.49
• Livability: 66
• Total score: 0.94992

• 2022 average overall rent: $1,626
• Cost of living index: 123
• Annual expenditures: $75,440.82
• Livability: 67
• Total score: 0.91564

• 2022 average overall rent: $1,368
• Cost of living index: 102.6
• Annual expenditures: $62,928.68
• Livability: 58
• Total score: 0.73684

Methodology: GOBankingRates determined the most affordable places to rent in California by first isolating all the cities with rent that was below the state average of $2,006 as sourced from ApartmentList’s March 2022 data. With these cities isolated GOBankingRates found each qualifying city’s: (1) 2022 average overall rent as sourced from ApartmentList; (2) the overall cost of living in each city, sourced from Sperling’s Best Places and factored out using the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2020 Consumer Expenditure Survey; and (3) livability scores sourced from AreaVibes. All factors were scored and combined with the lowest score being the best. Factor (2) was weighted 1.5 times in the final calculations. All data was collected and is up to date as of April 18, 2022.