Where people make over $1 million a year but still choose to rent

For even America's highest earners, renting can look more appealing than buying a home.

The number of renters in the US earning $1 million and up more than tripled between 2020 and 2024, according to RentCafe data, outpacing the growth in high-earning homeowners during the same period.

The data suggests that even the country's highest earners , while likely able to afford to buy if they wanted to, aren't immune to trends that have pushed millions of Americans to rent for longer . High mortgage rates still curtail their buying power, strong stock market performance makes tying up money in a home look less appealing, and renting can be a more flexible option than going through the process of buying and selling a high-end home.

Most $1 million-earning renter households are concentrated in the nation's priciest cities, where salaries tend to be higher and the cost differential between renting and owning often aggressively favors renting.

In New York City, home to more than 7,000 of these high-earning renters, a monthly rent of $15,000 to $20,000 — considered "comfortable" on that income by conventional affordability metrics — can cover a two- or three-bedroom apartment overlooking Central Park or a two-story unit in the trendy West Village. Buying a comparable unit, though, usually costs far more after factoring in high mortgage rates, taxes, and monthly maintenance fees.

San Francisco has the second-highest population of high-earning renters, with more than 1,800, followed by Los Angeles with 1,500.

But high-earning renters are increasingly popping up in small and midsize cities. Harrisburg, Pa., the state's capital, now has more than 140 renter households making over $1 million, up from just three in 2020. In Provo, Utah, the figure jumped from 10 to 264 in four years. Des Moines, Iowa, saw its highest-earning renters increase from four to 92 during the same period.

Most high-earning renters work in well-paying industries such as technology and finance or hold executive or managerial roles within their companies. About three-quarters of renter households bring in more than $1 million a year by combining two relatively high salaries, rather than having a single person rake in seven figures.

Claire Boston is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering housing, mortgages, and home insurance.