How much space $2,000 a month in rent gets in 25 biggest U.S. cities

Living alone on a $2,000 housing budget can be nearly impossible in some major cities; but in some you can afford up to three bedrooms.

throughout the USA, average rent The monthly rent for a studio apartment listed on Apartments.com in October was $1,699, and the average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment was $1,887, according to data collected and analyzed by Apartments.com in its November report.

Among the 25 most populous cities in the USA, New York, Boston and the California cities of San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose were the most expensive. The average rent for a studio apartment in those cities was over $2,000 in October, according to data Apartments.com shared with CNBC Make It.

According to a normalized estimate from October listings, with $2,000 you can own an average of 267 square feet of space in New York City, or one-third the size of a pickleball court. Compare that to Oklahoma City, the most affordable of the most populous cities, where $2,000 equates to about 1,900 square feet (more than two pickleball courts).

While this data provides a useful benchmark for cross-city comparison, it may not be indicative of the size of any given apartment a tenant may encounter. In reality, apartment sizes and prices can vary within the same city depending on a variety of factors, and tenants should keep this in mind, the report’s authors said.

Here’s where $2,000 rent will get you the least amount of space in America’s 25 most populous cities:

1. New York, New York: 267 square meters
2. Boston, Massachusetts: 336 square meters
3. San Francisco, California: 340 square meters
4. San Diego, California: 458 square meters
5. San Jose, California: 427 square meters

Here’s where $2,000 rent will get you the most space in America’s 25 most populous cities:

1. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: 1,900 square meters
2. El Paso, Texas: 1,762 square meters
3. Indianapolis, Indiana: 1,676 square meters
4. Columbus, Ohio: 1,633 square meters
5. San Antonio, Texas: 1,517 square meters

Here’s how much space you can get for $2,000 a month in the 25 most populated US cities as of October.