Every southern Dallas exurb costs more than Dallas, until you look at one-bedrooms

The assumption behind moving out to Waxahachie or Midlothian is that rent gets cheaper the further you drive away from Dallas. Looking at the rent prices, it doesn't work that way at all.

Typical rent in Dallas is $1,605, and every exurb south of it that we track costs more than that.

The one-bedroom column is the real answer

Look across instead of down and the picture inverts, because that's where the comparable units are. A one-bedroom in Ennis runs $1,290 and in Waxahachie $1,330, against $1,603 in Dallas. That's $313 a month cheaper in Ennis, or $3,756 a year, for the same size unit.

The reason the medians run the other way is what's actually for rent out there. Exurban listings skew heavily towards family so you see three-bedroom houses, and that's the reason for the higher median prices compared to a market full of apartments. Midlothian's three-bedroom is $2,510 and Ennis's is $1,900, which is what pulls those medians up.

So these towns are cheaper per bedroom and more expensive per household. If you're a couple looking for a one-bedroom, the drive saves real money. If you need three bedrooms, Dallas at $2,359 undercuts Midlothian, Red Oak, Cedar Hill and Mansfield, so the drive isn't buying you anything.

Where the pressure is building

Cedar Hill is the one to watch, up 13.4% in a year, by far the fastest move in this group and one of the steeper climbs anywhere in the Dallas metro. Its one-bedroom now costs $1,940, which is $337 more than Dallas proper for the same unit type.

At the other end, Ennis fell 5.1% and Midlothian 3.8%, so the far edge of the metro is softening while the inner ring tightens. That's the same pattern we found measuring rent against distance from downtown, where the cheapest band sits closer in than most people assume.

One caveat worth stating. These are smaller cities, so a handful of new buildings can move a median more than it would in Dallas, and the year-over-year swings here should be read as direction rather than precision.

For the other side of the metro, our northern Dallas suburbs breakdown covers Plano, Frisco and McKinney, where the same house-versus-apartment effect shows up even more strongly.

Sources

• RentDataNow rent data for Dallas and its southern exurbs, by bedroom size, anchored to the Zillow Observed Rent Index, June 2026