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 Madison might be more expensive than living in rural Wisconsin, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Madison 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 Madison are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
103 cost of living index
99 cost of living index
107 cost of living index
116 cost of living index
107 cost of living index
112 cost of living index
119 cost of living index
116 cost of living index
115 cost of living index
106 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Wisconsin’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Madison hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Madison, 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 96 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 Madison.” We’re lookin’ at you, Heritage Heights.
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 Madison for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heritage Heights | 103 |
| 2 | Bluff Acres | 99 |
| 3 | Wexford | 107 |
| 4 | Nakoma League | 116 |
| 5 | Rolling Meadows | 107 |
| 6 | Parkwood Hills | 112 |
| 7 | Glacier Ridge | 119 |
| 8 | Summit Woods | 116 |
| 9 | East Buckeye | 115 |
| 9 | Moorland-Rimrock | 106 |
| 11 | Berkley Oaks | 94 |
| 12 | Country Grove | 122 |
| 13 | Emerson East | 105 |
| 14 | Westchester Gardens | 108 |
| 15 | Eastmorland | 103 |
| 16 | Stonefield Woods-Ridge | 126 |
| 17 | Lake Edge | 108 |
| 17 | Stone Meadows | 117 |
| 19 | Indian Springs | 102 |
| 20 | Westhaven Trails | 113 |
| 21 | Skyview Meadows | 111 |
| 22 | Broadway-Lakepoint | 103 |
| 22 | Sherman Village | 108 |
| 24 | High Crossing | 111 |
| 25 | Reston Heights | 117 |
| 26 | Junction Ridge | 114 |
| 26 | Glen Oak Hills | 118 |
| 28 | Oakbridge Community | 111 |
| 29 | Sherman | 103 |
| 30 | Sauk Creek | 116 |
| 31 | Glendale | 108 |
| 32 | East Bluff | 108 |
| 33 | Midvale Heights Community | 121 |
| 34 | Elvehjem | 111 |
| 34 | Sherman Terrace | 94 |
| 36 | Hill Farms-University Neighborh | 112 |
| 37 | Hawthorne | 103 |
| 38 | Sunset Hills | 122 |
| 39 | Worthington Park | 100 |
| 40 | Schenk-Atwood-Starkweather-Yahar | 108 |
| 41 | Meadowood | 110 |
| 42 | Norman Acres | 99 |
| 43 | Spring Harbor | 116 |
| 44 | Leopold | 95 |
| 45 | Westmorland | 125 |
| 46 | Tamarack Trails Community | 121 |
| 46 | Walnut Grove | 121 |
| 48 | Hawk’s Landing | 134 |
| 49 | High Point Estates | 116 |
| 49 | Schenk-Atwood | 116 |
| 51 | Whitetail Ridge | 106 |
| 52 | Lake View Hill | 106 |
| 52 | Burr Oaks | 102 |
| 54 | Marbella | 110 |
| 55 | McClellan Park | 120 |
| 56 | Highlands Community | 126 |
| 56 | Woodland Hills | 126 |
| 56 | Carpenter-Ridgeway | 103 |
| 59 | Maple-Prairie | 116 |
| 60 | Faircrest | 116 |
| 61 | Eken Park | 102 |
| 62 | Clarendon Hills | 100 |
| 63 | Lerdahl Park | 115 |
| 63 | North Lake Mendota | 115 |
| 65 | Prairie Hills | 110 |
| 66 | Wisconsin Co-Op Housing | 120 |
| 67 | Waunona | 108 |
| 68 | Old Middleton Greenway | 122 |
| 69 | Allied Community | 101 |
| 70 | Brentwood Village | 105 |
| 70 | Sheridan Triangle | 105 |
| 72 | Dudgeon-Monroe | 134 |
| 73 | Bay Creek | 117 |
| 74 | Greentree | 116 |
| 75 | Heistand | 111 |
| 76 | Vera Court | 104 |
| 76 | Nobel Park | 104 |
| 78 | Bram’s Addition | 103 |
| 79 | Blackhawk | 151 |
| 80 | Park Ridge | 109 |
| 81 | Mayfair Park | 107 |
| 82 | Dunn’s Marsh | 104 |
| 83 | Radio Park | 129 |
| 83 | Vanchamasshe | 129 |
| 83 | Ridgewood | 111 |
| 86 | Sunset Village | 123 |
| 87 | Orchard Ridge Community | 113 |
| 87 | Marquette | 119 |
| 89 | Bayview | 105 |
| 90 | Regent | 139 |
| 91 | Tenney-Lapham | 128 |
| 92 | Brittingham Apartments | 116 |
| 93 | Greenbush | 125 |
| 94 | Vilas | 133 |
| 95 | University Apartments | 131 |
| 96 | Capitol | 134 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 96 Madison neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Madison
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Madison where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Madison are Heritage Heights, Bluff Acres, Wexford, Nakoma League, Rolling Meadows, Parkwood Hills, Glacier Ridge, Summit Woods, East Buckeye, and Moorland-Rimrock.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Madison aren’t all cheap. Capitol takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Madison.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on Wisconsin? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Madison FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Madison?
Heritage Heights is the cheapest neighborhood in Madison for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Bluff Acres and Wexford are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Madison?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Madison are Heritage Heights, Bluff Acres, Wexford, Nakoma League, Rolling Meadows, Parkwood Hills, Glacier Ridge, Summit Woods, East Buckeye, and Moorland-Rimrock. We ranked all 96 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 Madison ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Madison?
Capitol lands at the expensive end of the 96 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
