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 Glendale might be more expensive than living in rural California, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Glendale 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 Glendale are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
169 cost of living index
184 cost of living index
214 cost of living index
158 cost of living index
161 cost of living index
183 cost of living index
215 cost of living index
172 cost of living index
173 cost of living index
205 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is California’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Glendale hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Glendale, 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 Glendale.” We’re lookin’ at you, Rossmoyne.
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 Glendale for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rossmoyne | 169 |
| 2 | San Rafael Hills | 184 |
| 3 | Chevy Chase | 214 |
| 4 | Fremont Park | 158 |
| 5 | Verdugo Viejo | 161 |
| 6 | Crescenta Highlands | 183 |
| 7 | Verdugo Woodlands | 215 |
| 8 | Glenoake Canyon | 172 |
| 9 | Pelanconi | 173 |
| 10 | Greenbriar | 205 |
| 10 | Pacific Edison | 150 |
| 12 | Vineyard | 159 |
| 13 | Montecito Park | 197 |
| 14 | Oakmont | 199 |
| 14 | Moorpark | 157 |
| 16 | Montrose Verdugo City | 184 |
| 17 | Scholl Canyon | 229 |
| 18 | Woodbury | 194 |
| 19 | College Hills | 214 |
| 20 | Tropico | 167 |
| 21 | Riverside Rancho | 184 |
| 22 | City Center | 168 |
| 23 | El Miradero | 216 |
| 24 | Glenwood | 197 |
| 24 | Adams Hill | 169 |
| 26 | Brockmont | 244 |
| 27 | Somerset | 171 |
| 28 | Citrus Grove | 166 |
| 29 | Grand Central | 172 |
| 30 | Mariposa | 163 |
| 31 | Grandview | 180 |
| 32 | Verdugo Mountains | 244 |
| 33 | Sparr Heights | 204 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 33 Glendale neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Glendale
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Glendale where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Glendale are Rossmoyne, San Rafael Hills, Chevy Chase, Fremont Park, Verdugo Viejo, Crescenta Highlands, Verdugo Woodlands, Glenoake Canyon, Pelanconi, and Greenbriar.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Glendale aren’t all cheap. Sparr Heights takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Glendale.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on California? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Glendale FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Glendale?
Rossmoyne is the cheapest neighborhood in Glendale for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. San Rafael Hills and Chevy Chase are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Glendale?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Glendale are Rossmoyne, San Rafael Hills, Chevy Chase, Fremont Park, Verdugo Viejo, Crescenta Highlands, Verdugo Woodlands, Glenoake Canyon, Pelanconi, and Greenbriar. 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 Glendale ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Glendale?
Sparr Heights lands at the expensive end of the 33 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
