With homeownership increasingly out of reach for buyers, renting remains the best option across the country, and the most favorable place to rent by one analysis may be a surprise.

McAllen, Texas, surged to the top of the list of U.S. cities where renting is better than buying in a monthly index created by Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University to measure the ratio of home prices to rent in 100 U.S. metropolitan areas.

“All measured markets favor renting over buying, and that reflects the fact that home prices generally are rising faster than rents,” Ken H. Johnson, an FAU economist, said in a statement.

McAllen, a border city, vaulted past No. 2 Spokane, Washington, on the September index. August's No. 2 Austin, Texas, slipped to fifth place. Nashville, Tennessee, moved up to third place and Durham, North Carolina, was in fourth.

Eli Beracha with FIU’s Hollis School of Real Estate noted that while the index doesn’t address housing affordability, “when looking at the data as a whole and comparing it to the pace of construction, it is clear that we are not building homes for ownership at a fast-enough pace to keep up with the demand for ownership over renting.”

In addition to that shortage, rising mortgage rates and higher home prices have been a drag on housing affordability. Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages are above an average of 7%, roughly double the averages through much of last year.

All 100 metropolitan areas tracked by the researchers showed the cost of owning a home to be at a premium to renting an apartment, house, townhouse or condominium, based on the latest available data. The ratio is determined by dividing the area’s average home price by annualized rent to compare the relative costs.

Neither McAllen nor Durham was in the Top 10 in the August rankings.

The McAllen area has about 880,000 people, and the home price-to-rent ratio has been increasing, with data from Redfin showing the median home price at $245,500, up 9.1% from a year ago and roughly 19% from two years ago.

There are 17,374 apartment units in the market, and rent growth peaked at 5.3% this year, much higher than the trend over the past decade. There are just 782 new units under construction.

Durham is a rapidly growing area with more than 654,000 people. The median home price of $410,000 is 11.9% higher than a year ago and roughly 27% higher than two years ago, according to data from national residential real estate firm Redfin.

Meanwhile, rent growth has slowed significantly from its peak of 17.4% in the final three months of last year to about 5.6% annually, largely because of new construction adding about 4,000 units since 2020, CoStar data shows. There are 3,434 units under construction now, or roughly 6% of inventory of 55,711 units.

Durham's home price-to-rent ratio has declined since June, indicating that the ratio has dropped more quickly in other areas to push the North Carolina metro higher in the rankings.