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 Los Angeles might be more expensive than living in rural California, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Los Angeles 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 Los Angeles are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
158 cost of living index
154 cost of living index
142 cost of living index
150 cost of living index
101 cost of living index
155 cost of living index
142 cost of living index
146 cost of living index
129 cost of living index
156 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 Los Angeles hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Los Angeles, 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 83 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 Los Angeles.” We’re lookin’ at you, Sunland.
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 Los Angeles for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sunland | 158 |
| 2 | Mission Hills | 154 |
| 3 | Leiment Park | 142 |
| 4 | Lakeview Terrace | 150 |
| 5 | Fashion District | 101 |
| 6 | Arleta | 155 |
| 7 | Wilmington | 142 |
| 8 | Harbor City | 146 |
| 9 | Civic Center-Little Tokyo | 129 |
| 10 | El Sereno | 156 |
| 11 | Northridge | 170 |
| 12 | Granada Hills | 174 |
| 12 | Sylmar | 152 |
| 12 | Montecito Heights | 168 |
| 15 | Chatsworth | 169 |
| 16 | South Park | 118 |
| 17 | New Downtown | 126 |
| 18 | Pacoima | 145 |
| 19 | Tujunga | 160 |
| 20 | Panorama City | 142 |
| 21 | North Hills | 156 |
| 22 | Canoga Park | 148 |
| 23 | Harbor Gateway | 158 |
| 24 | Portar Ranch | 185 |
| 25 | Eagle Rock | 190 |
| 25 | Reseda | 158 |
| 27 | Wholesale District-Skid Row | 114 |
| 27 | San Pedro | 166 |
| 27 | West Hills | 184 |
| 30 | Atwater Village | 187 |
| 31 | Encino | 204 |
| 32 | Highland Park | 173 |
| 33 | Westchester | 219 |
| 34 | Mount Washington | 183 |
| 35 | Playa Del Ray | 200 |
| 36 | Boyle Heights | 146 |
| 37 | Tarzana | 179 |
| 37 | Brentwood | 263 |
| 39 | Studio City | 219 |
| 40 | South Los Angeles | 146 |
| 41 | Beverly Glen | 298 |
| 42 | Southeast Los Angeles | 140 |
| 42 | Winnetka | 162 |
| 44 | Glassell Park | 177 |
| 45 | Cypress Park | 159 |
| 46 | Sun Valley | 157 |
| 46 | Chinatown | 150 |
| 48 | Valley Village | 192 |
| 49 | Playa Vista | 250 |
| 50 | Lincoln Heights | 155 |
| 51 | Woodland Hills | 193 |
| 52 | Silver Lake | 204 |
| 53 | Bel Air | 317 |
| 54 | West Los Angeles | 225 |
| 55 | Pacific Palisades | 331 |
| 56 | Van Nuys | 157 |
| 57 | Watts | 133 |
| 58 | Hollywood Hills | 240 |
| 59 | Central City | 143 |
| 60 | Los Feliz | 231 |
| 60 | Shadow Hills | 188 |
| 62 | Sawtelle | 193 |
| 63 | Hyde Park | 159 |
| 64 | Central City East | 166 |
| 65 | Mid Wilshire | 236 |
| 66 | Echo Park | 192 |
| 67 | Toluca Lake | 200 |
| 68 | West Adams | 163 |
| 69 | North Hollywood | 166 |
| 70 | Mar Vista | 243 |
| 71 | Jefferson Park | 177 |
| 72 | Venice | 299 |
| 73 | Pico-Robertson | 249 |
| 74 | Mid City | 210 |
| 75 | Palms | 212 |
| 76 | Crenshaw | 169 |
| 77 | Mid City West | 267 |
| 78 | Century City | 251 |
| 79 | Hollywood | 187 |
| 80 | Westlake | 181 |
| 81 | Downtown | 182 |
| 82 | Glendale | 218 |
| 83 | Westwood | 249 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 83 Los Angeles neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Los Angeles
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Los Angeles where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Los Angeles are Sunland, Mission Hills, Leiment Park, Lakeview Terrace, Fashion District, Arleta, Wilmington, Harbor City, Civic Center-Little Tokyo, and El Sereno.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Los Angeles aren’t all cheap. Westwood takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Los Angeles.
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 Los Angeles FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Los Angeles?
Sunland is the cheapest neighborhood in Los Angeles for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Mission Hills and Leiment Park are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Los Angeles?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Los Angeles are Sunland, Mission Hills, Leiment Park, Lakeview Terrace, Fashion District, Arleta, Wilmington, Harbor City, Civic Center-Little Tokyo, and El Sereno. We ranked all 83 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 Los Angeles ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Los Angeles?
Westwood lands at the expensive end of the 83 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
