With 5 million Americans now working remotely, it’s useful to know the places that offer not only great working and living conditions, but also affordable rates. A new report from RentCafe located the cities for remote workers that offer the best mix of features, affordability and remote work-readiness.
RentCafe analyzed 19 relevant metrics for hundreds of cities, which fall into five main categories most sought-after by digital nomads: comfort, value, leisure and remote work-readiness. The report found 50 cities that offer remote workers the best value for their money, and ranked them accordingly.
Key highlights:
- The South and Southeast offer the best work and life mix at reasonable costs. Greenville, South Carolina; Raleigh, North Carolina; Durham, North Carolina; West Palm Beach, Florida and Tampa, Florida came up on top as the best places where remote workers could relocate to get the biggest bang for their buck. Other towns in Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Maryland rounded out the top 10.
- Greenville ranks first as the best city for remote workers, earning high scores in several relevant categories, including apartment size, availability of short-term leases and cost of living. Apartments in Greenville are among the largest in the country and there are plenty of short-term rentals.
- Raleigh ranks second, thanks to a combination between high-quality apartments availability and the 13th highest score in terms of access to broadband internet. What’s more, the city has the 14th-highest number of remote workers already relocated here.
- West Palm Beach is the third-most desirable city for remote work, with the highest internet speed and fourth-best score in air quality. The city is also 14th on the list for most short-term rentals, which is ideal for remote workers who want to relocate temporarily.
- Larger cities can be spotted in the Top 50, like Austin, Texas at 12th, which has an already established community of remote workers and the 7th fastest internet speed in the nation. Jacksonville, Florida, comes right behind on the 13th spot nationwide, boosted in the rankings by its large apartment spaces. Atlanta, Georgia and Houston, Texas, secured the 18th and 25th spots, respectively.
- Cities like Manhattan, Washington D.C. and San Francisco have been pushed outside the Top 50 mainly because of their high costs of living. Combine that with high apartment occupancy rates and a short supply of short-term rentals, and it becomes a struggle for digital nomads to move here.
Major takeaway:
According to the report, in the category of remote work readiness the cities of Rockville, Maryland; Irvine, California and Plano, Texas are the most desirable. For the category of comfort, Fort Myers and Sarasota, Florida are the winners and for the category of leisure, Fort Myers, Naples and West Palm Beach, Florida are the winners. Lastly, for the category of rental demand Kalamazoo, Michigan; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Birmingham, Alabama are the most desirable.
“Nowadays, if your job is fully remote, it’s common to say goodbye to your hometown and move somewhere else for a few months (or forever) in search of a better, cheaper life. In fact, the internet abounds with stories of people who did exactly that. A recent Upwork study unveiled that 4.9 million Americans have already relocated due to remote work and almost 19 million more are predicted to do so in the near future,” said Laura Pop-Badiu, author of the report. “However, if you’re going to upend your life and go through the trouble of moving across the country, you should choose your new location carefully.”
For the full report, click here.
