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 Bellevue might be more expensive than living in rural Washington, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Bellevue 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 Bellevue are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
176 cost of living index
195 cost of living index
196 cost of living index
195 cost of living index
168 cost of living index
180 cost of living index
181 cost of living index
200 cost of living index
201 cost of living index
214 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Washington’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Bellevue hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Bellevue, 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 23 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 Bellevue.” We’re lookin’ at you, Wilburton.
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 Bellevue for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wilburton | 176 |
| 2 | North Bellevue | 195 |
| 3 | Meydenbauer | 196 |
| 4 | Phantom Lake | 195 |
| 5 | Overlake | 168 |
| 6 | Bridle Trails | 180 |
| 7 | Robinswood | 181 |
| 8 | Eastgate | 200 |
| 9 | Vasa | 201 |
| 10 | Somerset | 214 |
| 11 | Lakemont | 228 |
| 11 | Newport Hills | 186 |
| 13 | Lake Hills | 177 |
| 14 | Factoria | 186 |
| 15 | Newport Shores | 223 |
| 16 | Crossroads | 180 |
| 17 | Tam O’shanter | 220 |
| 18 | Interlake | 196 |
| 19 | Downtown | 210 |
| 19 | Woodbridge | 212 |
| 21 | West Lake Sammamish | 228 |
| 22 | Enatai | 209 |
| 23 | Hidden Valley | 232 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 23 Bellevue neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Bellevue
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Bellevue where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Bellevue are Wilburton, North Bellevue, Meydenbauer, Phantom Lake, Overlake, Bridle Trails, Robinswood, Eastgate, Vasa, and Somerset.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Bellevue aren’t all cheap. Hidden Valley takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Bellevue.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on Washington? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Bellevue FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Bellevue?
Wilburton is the cheapest neighborhood in Bellevue for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. North Bellevue and Meydenbauer are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Bellevue?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Bellevue are Wilburton, North Bellevue, Meydenbauer, Phantom Lake, Overlake, Bridle Trails, Robinswood, Eastgate, Vasa, and Somerset. We ranked all 23 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 Bellevue ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Bellevue?
Hidden Valley lands at the expensive end of the 23 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
