The 20 Best College Towns to Buy Rental Property in 2026

Most people are looking for the best college towns to buy rental property in the wrong places.

I see so many lists that are the same overpriced markets every other investor has already invested in. Meanwhile, the deals that actually made me a millionaire? Markets other investors never even considered.

When I walked away from my pharmacist job at 31, it wasn’t because I got lucky. I just stopped doing what everyone else was doing. I built a system, and I use that same system every time I research a new market. That’s how I built a portfolio of now 12 properties.

Today I’m going to break down the metrics I actually use, and give you the 20 college towns I’d consider if I started over in 2026. I update this list every year, and when I do so, I assess every city based what I’m actually seeing in my own and my clients’ portfolios.

City	University	Home Value	Avg Rent	Walk Score	US News Ranking
Houston, TX	Rice University	$264,952	$1,900	77	#17
Gainesville, FL	University of Florida	$300,239	$1,650	37	#30
Troy, NY	Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute	$295,947	$1,500	55	#64
Columbus, OH	Ohio State University	$251,236	$1,490	41	#49
Baltimore, MD	Johns Hopkins University	$179,536	$1,600	64	#7
Atlanta, GA	Emory University	$389,027	$2,100	48	#24
Louisville, KY	University of Louisville	$266,708	$1,325	34	#158
West Lafayette, IN	Purdue University	$370,061	$1,795	51	#51
Tuscaloosa, AL	University of Alabama	$232,519	$1,650	33	#169
Philadelphia, PA	University of Pennsylvania	$236,883	$1,624	75	#7

Sources: Zillow, US News, Walk Score.

In this guide:

• Top 10 best college towns to invest in
• Honorable mentions: 10 more markets worth analyzing
• Why college towns are a great real estate investment
• How I actually evaluate a college town before I buy
• The zoning loophole almost nobody uses
• My personal disqualifier
• Will fewer college kids wreck this strategy?
• Can you invest in student housing out of state?

Before I get into the list, here’s a quick overview of how I built my portfolio using this exact strategy:

Top 10 best college towns to buy rental property (with data)

Before I get into the list, let me tell you how I actually decided where to invest when I built my own portfolio. I cross-referenced listing data, walkability scores, university rankings, and local unrelated-tenant ordinances, then filtered everything through one question I ask every time: can I maximize the number of bedrooms for my investment and make the numbers work?

Here’s what most “best college towns” lists get wrong:

They rank markets by prestige or population and ignore whether you can actually cash flow there. A top-5 university in an overpriced city isn’t a great metric if the only way to break even is renting the whole house to one tenant for $2,200 a month.

I built this list so that every market on it has the potential to cash flow when you rent by the room.

Disclaimer: Some of these markets have occupancy limits, meaning a cap on how many unrelated tenants can live in one unit. Talk to a local real estate attorney before you buy in any market.

1. Houston, TX – Rice University, University of Houston, Texas Southern University

Home Value: $264,952 | Avg Rent: $1,900 | Walk Score: 47 | Rice #17 nationally, University of Houston #132

I get asked about Austin constantly, and I used to have it at the top of this list. Not anymore. Austin’s mortgage payments are just too high right now to make cash flow work for most first-time investors. Appreciation is still solid there because of all the new job creation (companies are putting real money into that city), but if you’re chasing cash flow, that’s not the city I’d point you to in 2026.

Houston is.

Here’s what most people miss: Houston doesn’t have one good school, it has three, and they’re all clustered close together. Rice University, University of Houston, and Texas Southern University. That’s three separate tenant pipelines in the same neighborhoods, which creates real demand.

The math works too. Median home price sits around $300,000, and you can get a solid 1,500+ square foot house in that range. Rent by the room and you’re looking at roughly $800 per bedroom, which generates great cash flow on a 4 or 5-bedroom layout.

Two things to know before you buy in Houston:

1. Hurricanes. They’ve historically wiped out a real chunk of the city, which is part of why there’s so much new construction right now (a lot of the older stock got replaced). Insurance costs will run higher here. Budget for it.
2. Property taxes are close to 2%. Higher than most states on this list. Still, with entry prices this low and rents this consistent, the numbers hold up.

If Houston ever gets too competitive for you, keep an eye on San Antonio. I’m seeing more investors get priced out of Austin and land there instead, and Texas in general is still a growing state.

Sources: Zillow home value, Zillow rental trends, Walk Score

2. Gainesville, FL – University of Florida

Home Value: $300,239 | Avg Rent: $1,650 | Walk Score: 37 | UF #30 nationally

A top-30 university at a $300,000 entry price is still an amazing combination, and Gainesville still makes this list because of it.

Gainesville recently raised its unrelated-tenant occupancy limit to allow more than five unrelated tenants per unit in most zones (verify the current number with the city before you buy, since local ordinances shift). That’s a real change from a few years ago, when investors had to be a lot more careful about how many bedrooms they could actually rent out.

UF has over 56,000 students, and the real bonus most people miss is UF Health Shands Hospital, one of the largest hospital systems in the Southeast, sitting on the same campus. Two tenant pipelines in one neighborhood is one of the best guarantees you can have as a landlord.

My student Benny owns property in Gainesville and turned his first property into $2,550 in monthly cash flow. It’s a 5 bed, 3 bath house he purchased for $320,500 about two years ago and converted it up to 7 bedrooms. Benny recently invested in his second property in the area.

Note: Gainesville is car-dependent, and UF’s own housing office calls it a renter’s market, meaning students have no shortage of options. Walk (or bike) the actual route from your prospective property to campus before you make an offer.

Sources: Zillow home values, Zillow rental trends, Walk Score

3. Troy, NY – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Home Value: $295,947 | Avg Rent: $1,500 | Walk Score: 52 | RPI #64 nationally

Troy is an excellent student housing market. It’s the kind of place most investors would never think to check, next to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a top-65 engineering school. One of my clients bought enough rentals here to reach financial freedom. He doesn’t work anymore – he just runs his rental portfolio.

Home values sit around $295,947, up over 5% in the past year, and student rooms in RPI-adjacent rentals commonly lease in the $750-per-bed range. That’s a strong rent-to-price ratio for a market this size.

Troy is proof that a state you’d “normally not think is a good market” (upstate New York, in this case) can still throw off great numbers if the university anchor is strong enough.

Sources: Zillow home values, Zillow rental trends, Walk Score

4. Columbus, OH – Ohio State University

Home Value: $251,236 | Avg Rent: $1,457 | Walk Score: 41 | Ohio State #49 nationally

Columbus is one of the fastest-growing cities in the Midwest, and Ohio State’s enrollment gives it a massive, stable renter pool.

A few things I’ve learned buying in Ohio specifically:

• Older housing stock means more maintenance. Ask directly whether the seller already replaced the big-ticket items (HVAC, sewer line, roof) before you buy, or budget for the fact that you might be the one replacing them.
• Property taxes run higher than average for the region.
• Cash flow tends to run higher too, because the median home price is lower. You can find properties that cash flow $2,000+ a month just because the entry cost is so much more manageable.

Sources: Zillow home values, Zillow rental trends, Walk Score

5. Baltimore, MD – Johns Hopkins University

Home Value: $179,536 | Avg Rent: $1,600 | Walk Score: 64 | Johns Hopkins #7 nationally

A top-10 university at a sub-$180,000 entry price isn’t something you see every day. I don’t personally own in Baltimore (my own rentals are in Cleveland, Sacramento, and Stockton), but several of my students do, and the numbers they’re running near Johns Hopkins are some of the best rent-to-price ratios I’ve seen.

Baltimore also isn’t a one-university city. University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is right there too, which means your tenant pool includes med students, grad students, and healthcare workers from two major institutions instead of one.

Johns Hopkins Medicine is one of the largest hospital systems on the East Coast, which gives you a second tenant pipeline if a room ever sits empty between semesters.

Know your neighborhood before you buy. Baltimore is a city where the difference between one block and the next can be significant. Walk it yourself, or have someone you trust walk it for you.

Sources: Zillow home values, Zillow rental trends, Walk Score

6. Atlanta, GA – Emory University

Home Value: $389,027 citywide | Avg Rent: $2,100 | Walk Score: 48 | Emory #24 nationally

I had Athens, Georgia (University of Georgia) in this slot for years. I’m pulling it, and the reason is that Athens has a strict unrelated-tenant occupancy limit, no more than two unrelated tenants per single-family home in most zones. I’ve seen cities enforce this and force landlords to remove tenants mid-lease. If UGA is still on your radar, get the current ordinance in writing from the city before you buy, not after.

Atlanta, and specifically the area around Emory, is where I’d point you instead. One of my students found a property near Emory and is running strong cash flow on it. Emory Healthcare is also a major regional employer, which gives you the same student-plus-healthcare-worker tenant blend that makes Baltimore and Gainesville work so well.

Sources: Zillow home values, Zillow rental trends, Walk Score

7. Louisville, KY – University of Louisville

Home Value: $266,708 | Avg Rent: $1,325 Walk Score: 34 | University of Louisville #158 nationally

Louisville is a market I’ve run numbers on recently, and they came back strong. Home values sit in the mid $200,000s, well below the national median, and cash flow potential near campus is great.

All in all, the numbers are solid, and the rent by the room system can work, especially with UofL Health in the area.

Sources: Zillow home values, Zillow rental trends, Walk Score

8. West Lafayette, IN – Purdue University

Home Value: $370,061 | Avg Rent: $1,795 | Walk Score: 51 | Purdue #51 nationally

West Lafayette is a small city, and that’s not a problem. When a city has about 45,000 people and one of the world’s top engineering universities, Purdue is that town’s economy.

What I learned when researching this market: Purdue is effectively split by the Wabash River, and the walkable, close-to-campus inventory sits almost entirely on one side of it. When I was last searching, inventory on the campus side was thin. It’s more of a commuter school than a market like Philadelphia or Baltimore, where you can walk in from almost any direction. If you’re buying here, confirm which side of the river a listing sits on before you get attached to it.

One more thing I’d flag for older homes in this market specifically: run a sewage lateral camera inspection before you close. I’ve seen a $9,000 surprise come out of nowhere on older properties in college towns. It’s completely avoidable if it’s on your inspection checklist from the start.

Sources: Zillow home values, Zillow rental trends, Walk Score

9. Tuscaloosa, AL – University of Alabama

Home Value: $232,519 | Avg Rent: $1,650 | Walk Score: 33 | University of Alabama #169 nationally

I had Albany, NY in this slot before. Albany’s still a fine market (it’s in the honorable mentions below), but Alabama earned a spot on the main list.

University of Alabama has around 39,000 students and rent growth running near 7.8% annually as of this update, well above what most of the markets on this list are seeing. Home values sit around $230,000, among the more affordable entry points on the entire list, and enrollment stays strong because tuition here is low enough that families aren’t financially stretched paying for it. Low financial strain on the household paying rent is one of the most underrated recession-resistance signals in student housing.

Sources: Zillow home values, Zillow rental trends, Walk Score

10. Philadelphia, PA – University of Pennsylvania

Home Value: $236,883 | Avg Rent: $1,624 | Walk Score: 75 | Penn #7 nationally

A 75 walk score next to an Ivy League university at a $230,000 median home value shouldn’t exist. It does, in West Philadelphia near Penn’s campus.

What doesn’t show up in most “best college towns” lists is that Philadelphia isn’t a one-university city either. Penn, Temple, and Drexel all sit close together, which means three separate student populations feeding rental demand in overlapping neighborhoods. Penn’s own student body skews heavily toward graduate and professional students (Wharton MBAs, Penn Law, and Penn Medicine), which in my experience renting to this demographic makes for financially serious tenants, often with parental guarantors in place.

At $236,883 with per-room pricing in a 75 walk score neighborhood next to a top-10 university, the rent-to-price ratio here is the best Ivy League opportunity on this list.

Sources: Zillow home values, Zillow rental trends, Walk Score

Honorable mentions (10 more markets to analyze)

Here are 10 more great opportunities I see right now. However, run each of these through my student housing market vetting process (below) before you make any investment decisions.

11. St. Louis, MO (Washington University in St. Louis, #15 nationally) | Home Value: ~$172K | Avg Rent: $1,250 | Walk Score: 85 — One of the most affordable entry points on this list next to a top-15 university.

12. Cleveland, OH (Case Western Reserve, #44 nationally) | Home Value: ~$105K | Avg Rent: $1,150 | Walk Score: 92 — I own a rental here myself. Lowest entry price and one of the highest walk scores on the whole list.

13. Charlotte, NC (UNC Charlotte, #143 nationally) | Home Value: ~$350K near University City | Avg Rent: ~$700/room | Walk Score: low, car-dependent — The houses near UNC Charlotte tend to be big and relatively new. It’s common to find 7-bedroom houses here, which is a strong bedroom multiplier if you can find inventory in the right pocket.

14. Ann Arbor, MI (University of Michigan, #25 nationally) | Home Value: ~$489K | Avg Rent: $2,057 | Walk Score: 52 — Rents above the national average help offset the higher purchase price.

15. Charlottesville, VA (University of Virginia, #25 nationally) | Home Value: ~$465K | Avg Rent: $2,100 | Walk Score: 58 — Strong rents, well-regarded university, but a small city with limited inventory.

16. Austin, TX (UT Austin, #30 nationally) | Home Value: $554,697 | Avg Rent: $1,983 | Walk Score: 42 — I moved Austin down from my #1 spot this year. It’s genuinely pricey right now and cash flow won’t be as strong as it used to be. Appreciation potential is still real, driven by the wave of new jobs (including from Elon’s companies) landing in the city. If you’re chasing appreciation over cash flow and you can handle the entry price, it’s still worth a look.

17. Williamsburg, VA (William & Mary, #41 nationally) | Home Value: ~$465K | Avg Rent: $1,997 | Walk Score: 61 — Small city anchored entirely by the university, similar to West Lafayette. Stable enrollment, low inventory, less competition.

18. Buffalo, NY (University at Buffalo, #89 nationally) | Home Value: ~$216K | Avg Rent: $1,400 | Walk Score: 67 — Affordable, decent walk score, large public university. Worth comparing directly against Albany or Binghamton below before you commit.

19. Binghamton, NY (Binghamton University, #73 nationally) | Home Value: $158,145 | Avg Rent: ~$1,350 | Walk Score: moderate — One of the cheapest entry prices on this entire list next to a genuinely well-ranked public university. I almost had a client invest here.

20. Iowa City, IA (University of Iowa, #83 nationally) | Home Value: ~$284K | Avg Rent: $1,350 | Walk Score: 45 — A classic college town with a large teaching hospital, which creates the same dual tenant pipeline I look for elsewhere (students and healthcare workers). One of my students, Christian, actually built his best cash flow here renting mid-term to travel nurses he found on Furnished Finder rather than to students directly. Worth knowing that student housing markets can flex into medical mid-term rentals when the academic calendar leaves gaps.

Those are the 20 markets I’d be looking at right now. Before you run numbers on any of them, back up with me for a second, because if you’re new to this strategy, you might still be asking: why student housing in the first place?

Why college towns are a great investment opportunity 

When I was still a pharmacist wanting to replace my salary, I needed an investment that would work whether the economy was booming or in a recession. Student housing does exactly that.

No matter what’s happening in the economy, parents send their kids to college. And when the economy gets bad, enrollment actually goes up. Between 2007 and 2010, right in the middle of the worst recession in a generation, college enrollment increased by nearly 16%. When jobs disappear, people go back to school to reskill. Your tenant pipeline doesn’t dry up with the market. It grows.

And when something truly unpredictable hits, like a pandemic that sent students home overnight, student housing investors can get creative. They pivot to hospital workers, traveling nurses, and healthcare professionals who need short-term housing near the hospitals they’re working at. That’s exactly what happened across my own portfolio.

Student housing also has a built-in safety net most investors don’t realize exists. When a student signs a lease, their parents typically cosign. You’re not just renting to a 20-year-old, you’re renting to a family. I once had a tenant who never even moved in. His grandfather got sick and he took a gap year to be home with family. His dad paid every single month of that 12-month lease anyway. He told me: “we signed an obligation, we owe it to the landlord.”

There’s a simple supply-and-demand reality working in your favor too. On-campus dorms only hold a fraction of a school’s enrollment. The rest of those students need somewhere to live within biking or walking distance, and there will never be enough supply to meet that demand.

And unlike renting to high-income professionals, students don’t need granite countertops or stainless appliances. They need clean, safe, and close to campus. That keeps renovation costs low and cash flow high.

Want to hear more about how this strategy actually works in practice? Here’s a deeper breakdown:

How I evaluate a college town: the framework I actually use

Most investors pick a college town the wrong way. They look at the ranking, see a big enrollment number, and assume demand is guaranteed. Then they buy a house two miles from campus and wonder why it sits vacant.

Start with the three demand anchors

Before I look at a single property, I want to know a market has at least two of these three things: a top university, a major hospital system, and strong job growth. Ideally all three.

Top universities bring students. Major hospitals bring healthcare workers. Job growth brings young professionals. Each group needs housing, on an ongoing basis, regardless of what the broader economy is doing. Own property in a market with all three and you’re not dependent on any single tenant type to keep your rooms filled.

It’s worth tracking where rents are actually growing, not just where enrollment is highest. Some of the strongest rent growth in the country right now is happening at schools that aren’t the most famous names on a ranking list.

Apply the Procrastinating Student Radius

Once I’ve confirmed a market has the right demand anchors, I get specific about location.

Students aren’t renting your house if it’s two miles from campus. They want to wake up 10 to 15 minutes before class and get there on foot or by bike. If they have to drive, park, and walk, your house might as well be in a different city.

This is what I call the Procrastinating Student Radius: you need to be within 0.7 to 1 mile of campus. That’s it.

This radius also gives you a natural moat. Even if enrollment dips in a given year, the students who are there will always choose the house they can walk or bike to. You’re not competing with every landlord in the city, just the handful inside that radius, and there are never enough of them to meet demand.

Apply the Bedroom Multiplier

Once you’re inside the right radius, the next thing you’re looking for is how many bedrooms you can maximize in the property.

A traditional single-family home rented to one tenant might bring in $1,500 to $2,000 a month. That same house, rented by the room to four or five students, brings in $3,500 to $4,500 a month, just because of how you structure the lease.

When I’m evaluating a deal, I want to know: how many bedrooms does this house have, and can I add more without a major structural change? A four-bedroom house in the right location will almost always outperform a two-bedroom house anywhere else in the market.

Before you run numbers on any of the markets in this list, I’d recommend going through my student housing ROI calculation guide — it’ll walk you through exactly how to stress-test a deal before you make an offer.

Want to see exactly how I analyze a property before I make an offer? I walk through the whole process here:

The zoning trick few people use

Did you know that most cities cap the number of unrelated tenants who can legally live in a single-family-zoned home, sometimes as low as two (that’s Athens, Georgia, from earlier in this list)? But some multifamily-zoned districts allow for what’s literally called a “rooming house” or “boarding house” designation. If you’re buying in a multifamily zone, or if you apply for the right special permit, you can sometimes house more unrelated tenants than a single-family district would ever allow.

This doesn’t apply everywhere, and it’s not automatic. But before you write off a market over a strict occupancy ordinance, ask your city planning department specifically whether a multifamily zoning designation changes the math.

I almost bought in Lubbock, Texas once. The numbers worked really well on paper. Then I called the city planning division to confirm the occupancy rules, and they told me straight up: it’s against the local ordinance to have more than two unrelated tenants in a unit, and they’d already forced landlords to remove students before. That call saved me from a bad deal.

My personal disqualifier

If you ask me for the one thing that takes a state or city off my list entirely, no matter how good the numbers look, it’s this: people are generally moving out of the area.

Migration patterns matter more than almost anything else long-term. If a population is decreasing, that’s a sign the housing market is going to soften. Rents stagnate or drop. It gets hard to fill vacancies because there just aren’t enough people to fill the housing supply. Appreciation suffers too. The worst thing you can have as a landlord is more housing than people who want to live in it.

Isn’t the number of college students declining?

I get this question a lot: the number of college-age students is projected to shrink because of demographic shifts (basically, fewer babies were born a generation ago). So how does that affect where I’d buy going forward?

My take: it’s going to disproportionately hit the less popular schools, community colleges, and lower-ranked state schools. The top-ranked colleges, the ones that pull the best of the best from all over the world, are going to keep seeing steady or increasing enrollment. Think about schools like the Ivies, or Johns Hopkins for healthcare. Those schools are always going to attract students, regardless of what the broader demographic pool looks like. That’s part of why this list leans toward strong-ranking, high-demand-anchor markets rather than just “cheap towns with a college in them.”

Can you invest in college towns out of state? 

Yes, and most of my portfolio is proof of it. I live in Sacramento and own properties in multiple states. Many of my students have closed their first deal in a market they’d never even visited before.

The key is building the right remote team before you make an offer: a local investor-friendly agent, a vetted contractor who can be your eyes on the ground, and a solid inspection checklist that covers the systems that will sink you if you miss them: HVAC, sewer laterals, electrical, roof, plumbing, and foundation.

I’ve written a complete step-by-step guide on exactly how to do this: How to Successfully Buy Rental Property Out of State. And if you want more states to consider, check out my guide on the best states to buy rental property.

How to stop analysis paralysis, and invest in your first property!

There you have it: 20 best college towns to buy rental property, with real numbers, and the framework I actually use to evaluate every deal.

But none of it matters if you never actually invest. When I bought my first property, I didn’t have everything figured out. I made mistakes that cost me $30,000. What I did have was the willingness to act when everyone else was waiting for the “perfect” time.

If you’re sitting on a W-2 income right now, you’re in the single best position to start. Banks will lend to you, and you can build a rental portfolio on the side while keeping your paycheck, exactly the way I did.

If you have a downpayment ready and you’d like to learn the exact steps to turning your first real estate investment into an asset that can help replace your salary so you can live a more fulfilling life, you can click here to learn about my real estate investing coaching services, so we can discuss how I might be able to help you.

This blog post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

About Ryan Chaw: Ryan Chaw is a real estate investor with a multi-state, multiple six-figure rental portfolio, which he built on the side of his full-time job. Ryan teaches others how to buy their first deal and quickly scale to owning multiple properties.