Apartments rented by millionaires surged 204% in three years

Where do millionaires increasingly want to rent? Look south.

Houston tops apartment listing platform RentCafe’s ranking of the fast-growing metros with millionaire renters, based on an analysis of IPUMS data. Texas’ most populous city has seen the number of millionaires who rent multiply by 25 in 2023 from 2019.

Though New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other coastal hotspots claim the top three slots among cities with the greatest concentration of millionaires who lease apartments, cities in the South are gaining in popularity. Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, Virginia Beach and Phoenix follow Houston as the metros where the number of millionaire-renter households has grown the most, as people have increasingly moved to the South in the hopes of more job opportunities, lower taxes and better weather.

Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Seattle round out the top 10. And traditional wealth magnets San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York are still among the trending metro areas for millionaire renters, ranking 11th, 13th and 17th, respectively.

Three of the top five newest locales in which millionaires are increasingly opting to rent are also in the South; the other two are in California. Charleston ranks first as an emerging hub for millionaire tenants — defined as a city that had no millionaire-renter households in 2019. Now, Charleston has 206.

Across the country, the number of millionaires who rent has grown more than those who buy. From 2019 to 2023, the number of millionaire-renter households surged by 204 percent to 13,700. That’s compared to a growth of 169 percent — to 142,320 households — among millionaires who own their properties.

A booming stock market, growing technology sector and flexible working conditions helped fuel the rise of millionaires in the rental housing market, RentCafe noted in the report. 

Here is a closer look at the trending cities for millionaire renters and the metros with the greatest number of millionaire renters.