Best places to buy rental property: 50 metros ranked on rent, price and growth

The best places to buy rental property depend on which number you care about. On Zillow's September 2026 data, Pittsburgh, Houston and New Orleans lead 50 large metros on gross rent yield, at 8.6 to 8.8 percent, and San Jose trails at 3.4. Sort and weight them below.

Rental market ranker: 50 metros, your weights

Set a price cap and decide how much yield, rent change and value change matter to you. The table re-sorts as you type. Then enter a deal and see how it compares with the typical home in that metro. The tool compares published numbers. Where to buy is your call.

How do you compare the best places to buy rental property?

Start with gross rent yield: monthly rent times 12, divided by home value. Pittsburgh's typical single-family rent of 1,659 dollars is 19,908 dollars a year. Divide by the 226,389 dollar typical value for 8.79 percent. It lets you compare a 226,000 dollar market with a 1.7 million dollar one in a single number.

Then add what yield leaves out. Rent change tells you whether income has been growing. Value change tells you what has been happening to the asset. The score in the tool puts each measure on a 0 to 100 scale against all 50 metros and applies your weights. Set yield to 100 and the others to 0 and it is a plain yield ranking. It has no opinion of its own, which is more than most lists can say.

We read top-ranking pages for this search. Two come from companies that sell turnkey rentals or landlord software, and neither discloses a scoring formula. The formula here is the paragraph above, and the numbers are in a public Zillow Research download you can check yourself.

What the Zillow numbers are

Zillow describes its home value index as the typical value of homes in the 35th to 65th percentile range, so it is a mid-tier figure and not a median sale price. The rent side is the Zillow Observed Rent Index, which the San Francisco Fed describes as tracking asking rents on listed units. Read it as what a new tenant is asked to pay, not what current tenants pay. The single-family view compares single-family rent with single-family value. The all-rentals view includes apartments in the rent but not in the value, which pulls its yields lower.

Where is rent highest compared with price?

Rent was highest compared with price in Pittsburgh, Houston and New Orleans, at 8.79, 8.69 and 8.61 percent. The bottom of the list was all expensive western metros: San Jose 3.44, San Francisco 4.18, San Diego 4.94, Salt Lake City 5.21 and Los Angeles 5.24. A low yield often goes with buyers paying for something other than rent.

The fastest single-family rent gains ran the other way. San Jose rose 7.4 percent and San Francisco 6.7 percent over the year, against 3.2 percent for the U.S. The biggest value gains were Milwaukee at 5.7 percent and Chicago, Hartford and New York at 5.1. The biggest declines were Austin, Las Vegas and Dallas.

Houston is the useful example. It sits second on yield, while its typical value fell 1.8 percent and rent rose 1.0 percent. One year of change is a snapshot and predicts nothing, but it is why a yield-only list can read very differently from a weighted one. Cap the price at 400,000 dollars with the default weights, and Cleveland and Chicago take the top two places.

Why can a high-yield market still lose money?

A high-yield market can lose money because gross yield comes before costs and the loan. Using the tool's default assumptions, the typical Pittsburgh home keeps about 912 dollars a month after costs. The loan payment is about 1,217 dollars, so it runs about 304 dollars a month short. It was the closest of the 50.

Those assumptions are editable, and they are doing real work. The 45 percent cost share comes from the National Apartment Association's 2025 rent dollar, where operating costs, taxes, payroll and reserves took 45 of every 100 cents (our sum of its categories). That data covers 13,471 apartment communities, so a single house may differ. The 7.75 percent loan rate is an assumption for an investment loan. The Freddie Mac weekly average for a 30-year mortgage was 7.24 percent on October 29, 2026.

None of this says a rental cannot work. All cash, that same home earns about 4.84 percent after costs. Investors also buy below the typical value, raise rents, or accept thin cash flow for other reasons. It does mean a market ranking is the start of the math. Run the real deal in the rental property analysis spreadsheet, and check its cap rate against what counts as a good cap rate for that property type.

Which states are landlord friendly?

There is no official list of landlord friendly states, and the label usually means fewer limits on rent increases and shorter notice before an eviction filing. Local rules can add to state law. Here are four contrasts we confirmed from the statute or agency in November 2026. Every one has exceptions, so read the section itself.

Law is one input among several. We kept the table to what we could confirm, and a shorter notice period does not make a market a better investment. This is general information, so check it with a local attorney before you rely on it.

Multifamily investing: does a market ranking still apply?

In multifamily investing a market ranking is a smaller part of the answer, since a building is priced mainly on the income it earns, and the metro figures here measure houses and condos. Use the all-rentals view to see rent levels and rent change, which do include apartments. Do not read its yield as a cap rate.

For a building, the work moves to the seller's statements. Ask for 12 months of income and expenses, month by month, and test them with a T12. Then compare the result with the going cap rate for apartments in that city.

What this ranking cannot tell you

• Neighborhoods. A metro number blends blocks that rent easily with blocks that do not. Your deal lives on one of them.
• Property tax and insurance. These vary by state and county, and the flat cost share treats every metro the same. Get real quotes.
• Jobs and population. The table leaves them out. Add them from local sources if your plan depends on growth.
• The future. Every figure looks backward, with the latest from September 2026.

What changes when the rental is far from home?

You bought four hours away. The unit opens up on a Tuesday, and the calls come in while you are at your day job, in a town where you know nobody who can pick up. At the Pittsburgh typical rent, one empty month costs 1,659 dollars, more than five months of that 304 dollar shortfall. Distance makes the phone part of the deal.

That is where callflo.ai fits, if it fits at all. It is an AI receptionist that answers your rental line 24/7, handles questions from what you give it, texts follow-ups and captures the lead. On VIP it also books tours on your calendar. Starter is 39 dollars a month on annual billing, or 49 dollars month to month, with 120 minutes and extra minutes at 0.98 dollars. It will not pick your market or find you a deal. If a property manager already takes your leasing calls, or you have a long-term tenant in one house, you do not need it. The page for investors and landlords shows how it works, and the pricing page has the plans.

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