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 Austin might be more expensive than living in rural Texas, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Austin 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 Austin are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
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103 cost of living index
Located in
Williamson County, Texas
McKinney is a city in and the county seat of Collin County, Texas, and the second in population to Plano. It is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, and is located about 32 miles north of Dallas.
Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers | Compare
118 cost of living index
107 cost of living index
116 cost of living index
134 cost of living index
98 cost of living index
115 cost of living index
107 cost of living index
90 cost of living index
121 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Texas’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Austin hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Austin, 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 60 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 Austin.” We’re lookin’ at you, McKinney.
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 Austin for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | McKinney | 103 |
| 2 | Pecan Springs Springdale | 118 |
| 3 | Windsor Hills | 107 |
| 4 | Garrison Park | 116 |
| 5 | Crestview | 134 |
| 6 | Georgian Acres | 98 |
| 7 | Johnston Terrace | 115 |
| 8 | Montopolis | 107 |
| 9 | Saint Johns | 90 |
| 10 | Windsor Park | 121 |
| 11 | North Lamar | 100 |
| 12 | Franklin Park | 97 |
| 12 | Saint Edwards | 89 |
| 14 | South Manchaca | 121 |
| 15 | North Burnett | 109 |
| 16 | Sweet Briar | 112 |
| 17 | North Austin | 106 |
| 18 | East Congress | 114 |
| 19 | Mlk | 120 |
| 20 | Martin Luther King-Hwy 183 | 96 |
| 21 | Heritage Hills | 99 |
| 22 | Southeast | 121 |
| 23 | Rmma | 139 |
| 24 | Galindo | 129 |
| 25 | Riverside | 121 |
| 26 | Rosedale | 154 |
| 27 | Govalle | 128 |
| 27 | Dawson | 128 |
| 29 | Rosewood | 123 |
| 30 | University Hills | 122 |
| 31 | Highland | 116 |
| 31 | West Congress | 117 |
| 33 | Triangle State | 130 |
| 34 | Zilker | 161 |
| 35 | Wooten | 122 |
| 36 | Parker Lane | 110 |
| 37 | Central East Austin | 134 |
| 38 | Holly | 134 |
| 39 | Brentwood | 132 |
| 40 | Upper Boggy Creek | 129 |
| 41 | South River City | 154 |
| 42 | Pleasant Valley | 116 |
| 43 | Windsor Road | 186 |
| 43 | Chestnut | 133 |
| 43 | North Shoal Creek | 131 |
| 46 | University Of Texas | 127 |
| 47 | Coronado Hills | 108 |
| 48 | Bouldin | 155 |
| 48 | East Cesar Chavez | 135 |
| 50 | Barton Hills | 146 |
| 51 | South Lamar | 134 |
| 52 | Allandale | 143 |
| 53 | Old West Austin | 202 |
| 53 | Downtown | 173 |
| 55 | North University | 120 |
| 56 | North Loop | 132 |
| 57 | West Gate | 129 |
| 58 | West University | 122 |
| 59 | Hancock | 139 |
| 60 | Hyde Park | 143 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 60 Austin neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Austin
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Austin where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Austin are McKinney, Pecan Springs Springdale, Windsor Hills, Garrison Park, Crestview, Georgian Acres, Johnston Terrace, Montopolis, Saint Johns, and Windsor Park.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Austin aren’t all cheap. Hyde Park takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Austin.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Wondering how McKinney stacks up against a bigger name? See McKinney, TX vs. Plano, TX side by side.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Austin FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Austin?
McKinney is the cheapest neighborhood in Austin for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Pecan Springs Springdale and Windsor Hills are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Austin?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Austin are McKinney, Pecan Springs Springdale, Windsor Hills, Garrison Park, Crestview, Georgian Acres, Johnston Terrace, Montopolis, Saint Johns, and Windsor Park. We ranked all 60 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 Austin ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Austin?
Hyde Park lands at the expensive end of the 60 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
