More Americans earning $1 million a year are choosing to rent

The number of US households earning at least $1 million a year that rent their homes grew 229% to about 18,400, according to a RentCafe analysis of Census Bureau data, and nearly half of them are millennials. Millionaire renter households headed by millennials rose 392%, and Gen Z's grew from fewer than a dozen to more than 400, the analysis found.

Renters are still a small slice of the very rich. The total number of million-dollar households nearly tripled, to about 208,000, and owners made up most of that gain, Realtor.com reported. The renter share of those households rose from 8% to just under 9%, according to Realtor.com senior economist Hannah Jones. "Standard measures treat renting as a fallback for people who can't buy. Here, the top of the income distribution may increasingly be renting by choice," Jones said.

Two caveats come with the numbers. RentCafe compared Census five-year estimates for 2016 through 2020 with those for 2020 through 2024, so the change describes overlapping periods, not two single years. And the $1 million line isn't adjusted for inflation, so some of the growth is simply more households crossing a fixed bar. Jones also noted that renters started from a much smaller base, which makes big percentage gains easier. Houston, for example, went from 18 millionaire renter households to 232.

Most millionaire renters live in a few expensive markets. New York had 7,296 such households, about 4 in 10 nationwide, followed by San Francisco with 1,863, Los Angeles with 1,532, and San Jose with 895. Miami grew more than tenfold, from 51 to 538. Many work as chief executives, in technology, or as financial managers, RentCafe said.

Part of the answer is in how home prices compare with rent. Dividing a city's median home value by a year of typical rent gives a price-to-rent ratio, and the higher it is, the more expensive buying is relative to renting. In Seattle, the Census median home value of $950,800 equals about 36 years of the city's $2,234 typical rent, using RentDataNow data built on the Zillow Observed Rent Index. It's about 30 years in San Jose, 28 in Los Angeles, and 23 in San Francisco.

New York lands near the bottom of that list because its rent is so high, not because buying is cheap. Its typical rent of $4,154 is the second highest of these cities, behind only San Francisco. For a high earner there, the bigger draw may be what Jones described in Realtor.com's report: renting a premium unit can cost far less than buying a comparable one, and it leaves capital free to invest.

Mobility is the other reason. About 21.6% of people in renter-occupied homes moved in 2024, compared with 6.2% of people in owner-occupied homes, according to Census data cited in the Realtor.com report. For executives and tech workers who change jobs or cities, renting avoids a big bet on one expensive market, and Houston's affluent newcomers often rent before deciding whether to buy, RentCafe said.

For how to run the numbers yourself, see should you rent or buy right now, and for where buying looks worst, cities where renting still beats buying.

Sources

• RentCafe, millionaire renters analysis (October 15, 2026), based on IPUMS Census microdata, American Community Survey five-year estimates for 2016-2020 and 2020-2024
• Realtor.com (October 16, 2026), for the Hannah Jones quotes and mobility figures
• US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-year estimates, 2024, table B25077, median home value
• RentDataNow city rent data, anchored to the Zillow Observed Rent Index, August 2026