Everything else equal, we can all agree that living in a cheaper place is better than living in a more expensive place.
I’d much rather pay $500/mo in rent than $1,000. And I’d rather pay $2 for coffee than $5.
And while every neighborhood in Arlington might be more expensive than living in rural Virginia, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Arlington neighborhoods where your dollar goes a little further — you can get that one bedroom instead of the studio?
Instead of relying on public opinion and speculation, we wanted to get the facts straight and determine which neighborhoods in Arlington are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
134 cost of living index
171 cost of living index
164 cost of living index
171 cost of living index
180 cost of living index
153 cost of living index
159 cost of living index
146 cost of living index
128 cost of living index
189 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Virginia’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Arlington hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Arlington, we had to determine what criteria define “cheap” and then apply Saturday Night Science.
Using Census and extrapolated BLS data, we arrived at the following set of criteria:
- Overall Cost Of Living
- Rent To Income Ratio
- Median Home Value To Income Ratio
We then ranked each neighborhood with scores from 1 to 54 in each category, where 1 was the cheapest.
Next, we averaged the rankings for each neighborhood to create a cheap neighborhood index.
And finally, we crowned the neighborhood with the lowest cheapest neighborhood index, the “Cheapest City Neighborhood In Arlington.” We’re lookin’ at you, Columbia Forest.
We updated this article for 2026. Skip to the end to see the list of all the neighborhoods in the city, from cheapest to most expensive.
The full plate
Detailed list of the cheapest neighborhoods to live in Arlington for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Columbia Forest | 134 |
| 2 | Bluemont | 171 |
| 3 | Glebewood | 164 |
| 4 | Arlington Heights | 171 |
| 5 | Highland Park-Overlee Knolls | 180 |
| 6 | Colonial Village | 153 |
| 7 | Ballston-Virginia Square | 159 |
| 8 | Fairlington-Shirlington | 146 |
| 9 | Columbia Heghts | 128 |
| 10 | Waycroft-Woodlawn | 189 |
| 11 | Columbia Heights West | 120 |
| 12 | Radnor-Ft Myer Heights | 151 |
| 13 | Claremont | 149 |
| 14 | Boulevard Manor | 182 |
| 15 | Nauck | 153 |
| 16 | Donaldson Run | 221 |
| 16 | Alcova Heights | 169 |
| 18 | Arlington-East Falls | 196 |
| 19 | Chain Bridge Forest | 228 |
| 19 | Stafford Albemarle Glebe | 228 |
| 21 | Yorktown | 198 |
| 22 | Westover Village | 185 |
| 23 | Maywood | 193 |
| 24 | Old Diminion | 211 |
| 25 | Bellevue Forest | 236 |
| 25 | Rivercrest | 236 |
| 27 | Cherrydale | 207 |
| 28 | Penrose | 157 |
| 28 | Ashton Heights | 176 |
| 30 | High View Park | 191 |
| 31 | Woodmont | 219 |
| 32 | Douglas Park | 161 |
| 32 | Arlington View | 170 |
| 34 | Glencarlyn | 163 |
| 34 | Tara-Leeway Heights | 202 |
| 36 | Barcroft | 164 |
| 37 | Dominion Hills | 191 |
| 37 | Arlington Forest | 189 |
| 39 | Riverwood | 245 |
| 40 | Dover Crystal | 245 |
| 41 | North Rosslyn | 178 |
| 41 | Forest Glen | 132 |
| 43 | North Highland | 164 |
| 44 | Long Branch Creek | 153 |
| 45 | Williamsburg | 204 |
| 46 | Waverly Hills | 183 |
| 47 | Clarendon-Courthouse | 182 |
| 48 | Aurora Highlands | 175 |
| 49 | Lyon Village | 206 |
| 49 | Leeway | 205 |
| 51 | Foxcroft Heights | 164 |
| 52 | Arlington Ridge | 188 |
| 53 | Lyon Park | 211 |
| 54 | Buckingham | 171 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 54 Arlington neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Arlington
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Arlington where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Arlington are Columbia Forest, Bluemont, Glebewood, Arlington Heights, Highland Park-Overlee Knolls, Colonial Village, Ballston-Virginia Square, Fairlington-Shirlington, Columbia Heghts, and Waycroft-Woodlawn.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Arlington aren’t all cheap. Buckingham takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Arlington.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on Virginia? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Arlington FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Arlington?
Columbia Forest is the cheapest neighborhood in Arlington for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Bluemont and Glebewood are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Arlington?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Arlington are Columbia Forest, Bluemont, Glebewood, Arlington Heights, Highland Park-Overlee Knolls, Colonial Village, Ballston-Virginia Square, Fairlington-Shirlington, Columbia Heghts, and Waycroft-Woodlawn. We ranked all 54 neighborhoods in the city.
How do you decide which neighborhoods are cheapest?
Three measures: an overall cost of living index, rent-to-income, and home-value-to-income, all from Census tract data. Scoring costs against local incomes keeps one luxury tower from skewing the math.
Is a cheap neighborhood a bad neighborhood?
Not necessarily — this ranking measures what things cost relative to income, nothing else. Check our safest neighborhoods in Arlington ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Arlington?
Buckingham lands at the expensive end of the 54 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
