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 Dallas might be more expensive than living in rural Texas, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Dallas 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 Dallas are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
88 cost of living index
91 cost of living index
Data | Movers
122 cost of living index
88 cost of living index
98 cost of living index
94 cost of living index
120 cost of living index
91 cost of living index
127 cost of living index
104 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 Dallas hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Dallas, 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 33 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 Dallas.” We’re lookin’ at you, Urbandale-Parkdale.
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 Dallas for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Urbandale-Parkdale | 88 |
| 2 | Cockrell Hill | 91 |
| 3 | Preston Hollow | 122 |
| 4 | South Boulevard-Park Row | 88 |
| 5 | Winnetka Heights | 98 |
| 6 | Southeast Dallas | 94 |
| 7 | Northeast Dallas | 120 |
| 8 | Cedar Crest | 91 |
| 9 | Far North | 127 |
| 10 | Eagle Ford | 104 |
| 11 | Oak Cliff | 120 |
| 12 | South Dallas | 93 |
| 13 | North Dallas | 144 |
| 14 | Wolf Creek | 98 |
| 14 | Northwest Dallas | 98 |
| 14 | Southwest Dallas | 101 |
| 17 | m Streets | 141 |
| 18 | Reunion District | 135 |
| 19 | Lake Highlands | 110 |
| 20 | Five Mile Creek | 100 |
| 21 | Oak Lawn | 130 |
| 21 | Main Street District | 136 |
| 23 | University Park | 216 |
| 24 | Government District | 141 |
| 25 | Bluffview | 154 |
| 26 | Love Field Area | 111 |
| 27 | Highland Park | 241 |
| 28 | Farmers Market District | 140 |
| 29 | Convention Center District | 150 |
| 30 | Arts District | 180 |
| 31 | City Center District | 154 |
| 32 | West End Historic District | 199 |
| 33 | Near East | 248 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 33 Dallas neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Dallas
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Dallas where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Dallas are Urbandale-Parkdale, Cockrell Hill, Preston Hollow, South Boulevard-Park Row, Winnetka Heights, Southeast Dallas, Northeast Dallas, Cedar Crest, Far North, and Eagle Ford.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Dallas aren’t all cheap. Near East takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Dallas.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on Texas? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Dallas FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Dallas?
Urbandale-Parkdale is the cheapest neighborhood in Dallas for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Cockrell Hill and Preston Hollow are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Dallas?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Dallas are Urbandale-Parkdale, Cockrell Hill, Preston Hollow, South Boulevard-Park Row, Winnetka Heights, Southeast Dallas, Northeast Dallas, Cedar Crest, Far North, and Eagle Ford. We ranked all 33 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 Dallas ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Dallas?
Near East lands at the expensive end of the 33 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
