At what cost, Austin?

A pair of recent studies put into fairly sharp relief exactly how quickly the cost of living in Austin is rising. The first comes from GoBankingRates, looking at what U.S. cities have seen the largest increases in the cost of living comfortably. That study ranks Austin second in large part because it found Austin residents needed to earn $18,532 more in 2018 than in 2017 – or $73,163 in total yearly income – to continue living at the same level of financial stability. Arlington, Fort Worth, San Antonio, El Paso and Houston were the other Texas metros that landed in the top 20 spots on that list. The second study comes from the rental market firm Rent Cafe, which ranked average rental costs per ZIP code across the the U.S. The good news, relatively speaking, is that even Austin’s most expensive ZIP codes in terms of average monthly rent fall well outside of the top 50 spots, which were dominated by Manhattan and an assortment of California ZIP codes. In Texas, however, Austin had the most expensive ZIP code (78701, with an average monthly rent of $2,658) and two other spots in the top 10: 78703 with a $2,480 average, and 78702 with a $1,876 average.