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 Baltimore might be more expensive than living in rural Maryland, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Baltimore 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 Baltimore are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
81 cost of living index
86 cost of living index
90 cost of living index
89 cost of living index
89 cost of living index
80 cost of living index
93 cost of living index
81 cost of living index
92 cost of living index
86 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Maryland’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Baltimore hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Baltimore, 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 Baltimore.” We’re lookin’ at you, Pulaski.
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 Baltimore for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pulaski | 81 |
| 2 | Berea Area | 86 |
| 3 | Midway-Coldstream | 90 |
| 4 | Beechfielf-Irvington Area | 89 |
| 5 | Brooklyn-Curtis Bay | 89 |
| 5 | Old Town Area | 80 |
| 7 | Cedonia | 93 |
| 8 | Monument Street Area | 81 |
| 9 | Belaire-Edison | 92 |
| 10 | Greenmount East | 86 |
| 11 | Orangeville | 92 |
| 11 | Dundalk Cityside | 87 |
| 13 | Hamilton Area | 98 |
| 14 | Govans | 94 |
| 15 | Bayview Area | 92 |
| 16 | Greater Rosemont | 90 |
| 16 | Winsor Hills | 99 |
| 18 | Madison-Eastend | 88 |
| 19 | Upper Northwood | 97 |
| 20 | Park Heights | 91 |
| 21 | Lower Northwood | 101 |
| 22 | Greater Mount Washington | 106 |
| 23 | Pimlico | 92 |
| 24 | Cherry Hill | 90 |
| 25 | Glen-Fallstaff Area | 95 |
| 26 | Chinquapin Park-Belvedere | 106 |
| 26 | Morrell Park | 96 |
| 28 | Howard Park | 106 |
| 28 | Locust Point | 135 |
| 30 | Mondawin-Walbrook Area | 92 |
| 31 | Hunting Ridge | 107 |
| 32 | West Baltimore | 89 |
| 33 | Patterson Park East | 103 |
| 34 | Roland Parl-Homewood-Guilford | 119 |
| 35 | Riverside | 132 |
| 36 | Hampden-Woodberry-Remington | 101 |
| 37 | Cheswolde Area | 110 |
| 38 | Highlandtown | 117 |
| 39 | Federal Hill | 134 |
| 40 | Grove Park | 98 |
| 41 | Hopkins-Middle East | 92 |
| 42 | Inner Harbor | 129 |
| 43 | Canton | 131 |
| 44 | Lakeland | 97 |
| 45 | Fairfield Area | 92 |
| 46 | Franklintown | 111 |
| 47 | Fells Point | 129 |
| 48 | Reservoir Hill-Bolton Hill Area | 105 |
| 49 | Charles Village | 109 |
| 50 | Forest Park | 104 |
| 51 | Westgate | 111 |
| 52 | Downtown | 122 |
| 53 | Jonestown | 122 |
| 54 | Wakefield | 116 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 54 Baltimore neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Baltimore
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Baltimore where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Baltimore are Pulaski, Berea Area, Midway-Coldstream, Beechfielf-Irvington Area, Brooklyn-Curtis Bay, Old Town Area, Cedonia, Monument Street Area, Belaire-Edison, and Greenmount East.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Baltimore aren’t all cheap. Wakefield takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Baltimore.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on Maryland? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Baltimore FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Baltimore?
Pulaski is the cheapest neighborhood in Baltimore for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Berea Area and Midway-Coldstream are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Baltimore?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Baltimore are Pulaski, Berea Area, Midway-Coldstream, Beechfielf-Irvington Area, Brooklyn-Curtis Bay, Old Town Area, Cedonia, Monument Street Area, Belaire-Edison, and Greenmount East. 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 Baltimore ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Baltimore?
Wakefield lands at the expensive end of the 54 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
