In a Manhattan apartment that costs $1,600 a month or more to rent, you'd be lucky to have a separate bedroom, a dishwasher, and a living room that fits a full couch.
Get a job transfer to Oklahoma City and a 1,228-square-foot three-bedroom apartment in a luxury development with its own clubhouse, hot tub, and swimming pool can be yours for only $989 a month.
"Renting is a very good value in Oklahoma," says Carmen Goodspeed, broker associate with Price Edwards in Oklahoma City. "It would be hard to find an apartment for $1,000 a month here. There just aren't that many."
It's unlikely that rent will drive New Yorkers to seek wide-open apartments in the Great Plains. But there are many large vibrant metro areas with jobs and plenty of action that don't require half a paycheck just to cover rent. Oklahoma topped the list of 20 large metros with populations of more than 1 million with the lowest rents, compiled for BusinessWeek.com by Manhattan-based real estate research firm Reis (REIS).
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