Austin rents and rental comps

The median asking rent across Austin, TX sits at $1,805/month, pulled from active rental listings in 20 zip codes. That's down 2.6% from a year ago.

Rents aren't uniform across the city. ZIP 78701 tops the list at $2,899/month. ZIP 78741 comes in lowest at $1,300/month. That's a 123% spread between the top and bottom zip codes, which is wide. City-wide averages won't tell you much about a specific property here.

A 2-bedroom rents for $1,595/month at the median. 1-bedrooms run about $1,114. 3-bedrooms come in around $2,525.

Listings take longer here. The average is 56 days on market, which gives renters more room to negotiate and means landlords should price carefully.

Rent-to-price math is tight in Austin. The gross figure sits at about 4.1% ($1,805/month against $530,000 median price). Most investors here are betting on appreciation, not monthly cash flow.

HUD's Fair Market Rent for a 2-bedroom in the Austin metro is $2,780/month. Asking rents come in about 35% below the federal benchmark, which can make Section 8 properties competitive here.

Austin built a lot of apartments. Like, a lot. The pandemic-era construction boom is still delivering units and pricing dynamics have flipped. Rents came off their 2022 peaks even as people keep moving in. Good news if you're buying. Bad news if you're pricing a rental against memory. Downtown and East Austin still command premium rents. Pflugerville and Round Rock have gotten meaningfully more competitive. The rent spread between zip codes is one of the widest in Texas, which means city-wide medians won't help you price a specific property here.

These numbers are city-wide averages. If you're pricing a specific property in Austin, pull comps from the same zip code. The spread is usually bigger than people expect.