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 Phoenix might be more expensive than living in rural Arizona, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Phoenix 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 Phoenix are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
98 cost of living index
91 cost of living index
111 cost of living index
129 cost of living index
100 cost of living index
97 cost of living index
100 cost of living index
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121 cost of living index
116 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Arizona’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Phoenix hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Phoenix, 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 15 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 Phoenix.” We’re lookin’ at you, New Village.
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 Phoenix for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Village | 98 |
| 2 | Alahambra | 91 |
| 3 | Deer Valley | 111 |
| 4 | North Gateway | 129 |
| 5 | Estrella | 100 |
| 6 | Maryvale | 97 |
| 7 | South Mountain | 100 |
| 8 | Laveen | 110 |
| 9 | Ahwatukee Foothills | 121 |
| 10 | Camelback East | 116 |
| 10 | North Mountain | 103 |
| 12 | Encanto | 109 |
| 13 | Desert View | 134 |
| 14 | Paradise Valley | 118 |
| 15 | Central City | 102 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 15 Phoenix neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Phoenix
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Phoenix where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Phoenix are New Village, Alahambra, Deer Valley, North Gateway, Estrella, Maryvale, South Mountain, Laveen, Ahwatukee Foothills, and Camelback East.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Phoenix aren’t all cheap. Central City takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Phoenix.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on Arizona? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Phoenix FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Phoenix?
New Village is the cheapest neighborhood in Phoenix for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Alahambra and Deer Valley are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Phoenix?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Phoenix are New Village, Alahambra, Deer Valley, North Gateway, Estrella, Maryvale, South Mountain, Laveen, Ahwatukee Foothills, and Camelback East. We ranked all 15 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 Phoenix ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Phoenix?
Central City lands at the expensive end of the 15 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
