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 Tempe might be more expensive than living in rural Arizona, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Tempe 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 Tempe are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
103 cost of living index
104 cost of living index
93 cost of living index
106 cost of living index
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125 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 Tempe hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Tempe, 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 49 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 Tempe.” We’re lookin’ at you, East Rio.
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 Tempe for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | East Rio | 103 |
| 2 | Kyrene-Superstition | 104 |
| 3 | Ntna-College | 93 |
| 4 | Tempe Royal Estates | 106 |
| 5 | Baseline-Hardy | 98 |
| 5 | Superstition | 120 |
| 7 | McClintock | 116 |
| 8 | Tempe Gardens | 120 |
| 9 | Optimist Park Se | 125 |
| 9 | Optimist Park Ne | 125 |
| 11 | Ntna-Indian Bend | 99 |
| 12 | Cyprus Southwest | 122 |
| 13 | Optimist Park Sw | 126 |
| 14 | Dava-Lakeshore | 122 |
| 15 | Knoell Gardens | 97 |
| 16 | Wood Park | 103 |
| 17 | Broadmor | 121 |
| 18 | Optimist Park Nw | 125 |
| 19 | Meyer Park | 120 |
| 20 | Ntna-Canal Park | 107 |
| 20 | Escalante | 106 |
| 22 | Bell De Mar Crossing | 116 |
| 23 | Tally Ho Farms North | 166 |
| 23 | Raintree | 166 |
| 25 | Estate La Colina | 140 |
| 25 | Kiwanis Park | 122 |
| 27 | Holdeman | 111 |
| 27 | Gililland | 111 |
| 29 | Pepperwood | 103 |
| 29 | Camelot Village | 134 |
| 31 | University Heights | 107 |
| 32 | Sunset | 99 |
| 33 | Clark Park | 109 |
| 34 | Ntna-West Rio | 105 |
| 34 | NTNA-Cavalier Hills | 105 |
| 36 | Rural-Geneva | 124 |
| 36 | Hughes Acres | 124 |
| 38 | Mach 8 | 111 |
| 39 | Mitchell Park East | 119 |
| 40 | Evergreen | 129 |
| 41 | Alegre Community | 115 |
| 42 | University Park | 127 |
| 42 | Maple-Ash | 127 |
| 42 | University Estates | 127 |
| 42 | Daley Park | 127 |
| 46 | Brentwood-Cavalier | 124 |
| 46 | Alameda-Campus | 124 |
| 48 | Riverside | 121 |
| 49 | Shalimar | 133 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 49 Tempe neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Tempe
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Tempe where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Tempe are East Rio, Kyrene-Superstition, Ntna-College, Tempe Royal Estates, Baseline-Hardy, Superstition, McClintock, Tempe Gardens, Optimist Park Se, and Optimist Park Ne.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Tempe aren’t all cheap. Shalimar takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Tempe.
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 Tempe FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Tempe?
East Rio is the cheapest neighborhood in Tempe for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Kyrene-Superstition and Ntna-College are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Tempe?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Tempe are East Rio, Kyrene-Superstition, Ntna-College, Tempe Royal Estates, Baseline-Hardy, Superstition, McClintock, Tempe Gardens, Optimist Park Se, and Optimist Park Ne. We ranked all 49 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 Tempe ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Tempe?
Shalimar lands at the expensive end of the 49 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
