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 Lincoln might be more expensive than living in rural Nebraska, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Lincoln 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 Lincoln are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
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The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Nebraska’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Lincoln hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Lincoln, 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 37 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 Lincoln.” We’re lookin’ at you, South Salt Creek.
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 Lincoln for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Salt Creek | 87 |
| 2 | 40th And A | 91 |
| 3 | Salt Valley View | 97 |
| 4 | East Campus | 91 |
| 5 | High Ridge-Cushman | 95 |
| 6 | Highlands | 100 |
| 7 | Indian Village | 94 |
| 7 | Antelope Park | 94 |
| 9 | Belmont | 90 |
| 10 | Bicentennial Estates | 99 |
| 11 | Country Club | 101 |
| 12 | West A | 97 |
| 13 | Hartley | 87 |
| 14 | Greater South | 96 |
| 15 | Arnold Heights | 93 |
| 16 | Maple Village-Wedgewood | 101 |
| 17 | Capitol Beach | 94 |
| 18 | Meadowlane | 99 |
| 18 | Crown Pointe | 113 |
| 20 | University Place | 92 |
| 21 | Yankee Ridge | 125 |
| 22 | Clinton | 88 |
| 23 | Amber Hills | 113 |
| 24 | North Bottoms | 87 |
| 25 | Everett | 88 |
| 26 | Taylor Park | 102 |
| 27 | Malone | 87 |
| 28 | Woods Park | 90 |
| 29 | Porter Ridge | 114 |
| 29 | Southern Hills | 109 |
| 31 | Near South | 93 |
| 32 | Far South | 98 |
| 32 | Family Acres | 117 |
| 34 | South 48th Street | 95 |
| 35 | Downtown | 91 |
| 36 | Landons | 97 |
| 37 | Autumn Wood | 105 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 37 Lincoln neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Lincoln
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Lincoln where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Lincoln are South Salt Creek, 40th And A, Salt Valley View, East Campus, High Ridge-Cushman, Highlands, Indian Village, Antelope Park, Belmont, and Bicentennial Estates.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Lincoln aren’t all cheap. Autumn Wood takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Lincoln.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on Nebraska? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Lincoln FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Lincoln?
South Salt Creek is the cheapest neighborhood in Lincoln for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. 40th And A and Salt Valley View are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Lincoln?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Lincoln are South Salt Creek, 40th And A, Salt Valley View, East Campus, High Ridge-Cushman, Highlands, Indian Village, Antelope Park, Belmont, and Bicentennial Estates. We ranked all 37 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 Lincoln ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Lincoln?
Autumn Wood lands at the expensive end of the 37 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
