If you’re in the market for an affordable apartment where you really have some room to stretch your legs, then you need not look further than South Texas. That’s because several of South Texas’ largest cities offer spacious apartments that won’t break the bank, according to a new analysis by RentCafe.
The apartment search recently announced its findings of its 2026 analysis, “$1,500 rent budget: How much apartment space can you get in 200 U.S. cities?” Topping the list nationwide is McAllen, in the Rio Grande Valley, where renters can get more square footage than any of the other cities across the country that RentCafe analyzed. But other South Texas cities weren’t far behind, including Brownsville, Corpus Christi and San Antonio, where $1,500 a month can easily offer renters more than 1,000 square feet of space.
McAllen, in the Rio Grande Valley, offers renters the most bang for their buck, with a $1,500 monthly rent budget easily covering a unit with more than 1,300 square feet of space, according to RentCafe. That’s 6.5 times more space than what a renter with the same budget can expect to find in The Big Apple…