GlobeQuest

Where to live in St. Louis

One of the cheapest housing markets of any major American metro, and one of the best-built — St. Louis sat on its own clay beds and made brick out of them, so the ordinary housing stock is solid nineteenth and early twentieth-century masonry rather than timber frame. The decision that actually matters is not the neighbourhood but the boundary: the City of St. Louis separated from St. Louis County in 1876 and has never rejoined, so the city line changes your income tax by a full percent, your police force, your assessor and your school district, and it runs through what looks like continuous urban fabric. Missouri statute bars local rent control, so nothing here is stabilised.

The neighbourhoods

Central West End

USD 1,200–1,750 / month for a 1-bed

The city's densest and most expensive neighbourhood — Gilded Age mansions on private streets, high-rise flats, and the BJC and Washington University medical campus at its edge

WalkableProfessionalsHealthcare workersCentral

Commute: 10 minutes to downtown on the MetroLink Red or Blue Line from Central West End station

  • Walk to the medical complex, Forest Park and the MetroLink
  • The best restaurant and bar density in the city
  • Genuinely mixed-use and busy at night as well as by day
  • Inside the city line, so the 1% earnings tax applies
  • The most expensive rents in the city
  • Parking is metered, permitted or paid monthly

Tower Grove East & South

USD 850–1,250 / month for a 1-bed

Brick two-flats and shotgun houses around a Victorian park, with South Grand's Vietnamese, Bosnian and Ethiopian restaurants as the high street

BudgetWalkableFoodCommunity

Commute: 15 minutes to downtown by car; buses along Grand and Arsenal

  • Best value walkable neighbourhood in the metro
  • Tower Grove Park and the Missouri Botanical Garden on the doorstep
  • The Saturday farmers market and the most interesting food in the city
  • No MetroLink station — buses or a car
  • Older brick stock, much of it without central air conditioning
  • Inside the city line, so the earnings tax applies

Soulard & Lafayette Square

USD 1,000–1,500 / month for a 1-bed

The oldest surviving neighbourhoods — French and German brick rowhouses, the 1779 Soulard Market, and the Anheuser-Busch brewery still working at the end of the street

CharacterNightlifeWalkableHistory

Commute: 10 minutes to downtown by car or bus

  • The most intact historic streetscape in the city
  • Soulard Market is the oldest west of the Mississippi and still a working produce market
  • Walkable to downtown and the stadium
  • Mardi Gras weekend turns the neighbourhood into a festival whether you wanted one or not
  • Historic district rules constrain alterations
  • Some blocks back onto industrial land and the interstate

The Grove & Forest Park Southeast

USD 1,000–1,500 / month for a 1-bed

A mile of bars, restaurants and music venues on Manchester Avenue, with the Cortex innovation district and cheap brick housing behind it

Young professionalsNightlifeLGBTQ+Tech

Commute: 10 minutes to downtown by car; walkable to Cortex and the Cortex MetroLink station

  • Walk to the Cortex startups and to Forest Park
  • The centre of the city's LGBTQ+ nightlife
  • Cheapest access to a MetroLink station in a lively neighbourhood
  • Manchester Avenue is loud at weekends
  • Change is rapid and displacement is a live local argument
  • Inside the city line and the earnings tax

University City & The Loop

USD 900–1,400 / month for a 1-bed

A separate municipality in St. Louis County built around the Delmar Loop and Washington University's main campus — brick apartment blocks and 1920s houses

StudentsAcademicsBudgetWalkable

Commute: 20 minutes to downtown on the MetroLink Red Line from Delmar Loop or University City–Big Bend

  • Outside the city line — no 1% earnings tax if you also work outside it
  • Walk to Washington University, the Loop's venues and two MetroLink stations
  • Good schools and a settled, long-integrated community
  • The Delmar Divide runs straight through it — conditions differ sharply north and south of the boulevard
  • Student turnover on some blocks
  • Its own municipal rules, including occupancy permits

Clayton & the inner county

USD 1,400–2,000 / month for a 1-bed

The county seat and the region's second downtown — office towers, the top-rated Clayton school district, and leafy inner suburbs around it

FamiliesSchoolsProfessionalsWalk to work

Commute: 15–20 minutes to downtown on the MetroLink Blue Line from Clayton or Forsyth

  • No city earnings tax, and a large share of the region's professional jobs are here
  • Clayton's public schools are among the best in Missouri
  • Walkable downtown core with MetroLink into the city
  • The most expensive rents in the metro
  • St. Louis County property taxes are high
  • Far quieter in the evenings than the city neighbourhoods

How renting works in St. Louis

Leases are typically 12 months and the market is soft by national standards. Missouri caps security deposits at two months' rent and requires the landlord to return the balance with an itemised statement within 30 days of the tenancy ending. Missouri statute prohibits local governments from imposing rent control, so nothing is stabilised and renewal increases are unregulated in amount. Chapter 441 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri is the framework, and it is short enough to read.

  1. 1

    Confirm whether the address is inside the City of St. Louis

    This is the first question, not a detail. Inside the independent city you pay a 1% earnings tax on everything you earn; in University City, Maplewood, Clayton or Richmond Heights — visually identical inner suburbs — you do not. Over a career the difference is substantial, and it does not appear on any listing.

  2. 2

    Ask about occupancy permits in the county municipalities

    Many St. Louis County municipalities require an occupancy permit and a pre-move-in inspection before anyone may lawfully live in the property, and some cap the number of occupants. It is a step that does not exist inside the city and it can delay a move-in by a week or two if the landlord has not started it.

  3. 3

    Ask about air conditioning, and about the heating in the same breath

    Summers are hot and genuinely humid, winters get well below freezing, and a great deal of the brick stock was built before either central heating or air conditioning. Window units and radiators are common. Ask what a July electricity bill and a January gas bill actually were.

  4. 4

    Get the application pack ready

    Photo ID, offer letter or pay stubs, and bank statements. Landlords typically want gross income around 3× the monthly rent. With no US credit file expect a larger deposit or a guarantor — Missouri caps the deposit at two months' rent, which is a real protection.

  5. 5

    Ask about lead paint, especially in the brick stock

    Most of the city's housing predates 1978 and federal law requires the landlord to disclose known lead-based paint hazards and to give you the EPA pamphlet before you sign. If there are young children in the household, ask for the disclosure in writing rather than accepting a verbal assurance.

  6. 6

    Document the condition and give a written forwarding address

    Photograph every room at move-in and email the set to the landlord. Missouri's 30-day deposit deadline runs from the end of the tenancy, and a landlord who wrongfully withholds can be liable for up to twice the amount improperly retained.

Upfront cost

Typically first month's rent plus a security deposit. Missouri caps the deposit at two months' rent by statute, which is a genuine and unusual protection — a thin US credit file often means the landlord asks for the full two. Application fees are common. There is no broker fee culture.

Where to search

Zillow and Apartments.com — the widest coverage of both city and county stockFacebook groups by neighbourhood — Tower Grove, Soulard, The Grove and University City all have active onesBJC, Washington University and Saint Louis University housing boards, which carry a lot of the Central West End marketLocal management companies directly for the brick two-flats in south cityCraigslist, still used for flats in two-family houses and for roomsHotPads and Rent.com

Insider tips

  • Settle the city-versus-county question before you look at anything. It is worth 1% of your gross pay and it changes your schools, your police force and your assessor as well.
  • The brick is not decorative — a solid masonry two-flat holds heat and cool far better than the timber-frame stock you will see in the newer county suburbs. It is one of the genuine quality advantages of the old neighbourhoods.
  • Living near a MetroLink station is worth paying for. The Red and Blue lines connect the airport, the medical complex, downtown and Clayton, and they are the only part of the metro where a car is optional.
  • Ask which spaces in the building are below grade and where you would shelter in a tornado warning. In a brick two-flat with no basement access, the answer matters.
  • If schools are the priority, the district — Clayton, Ladue, Kirkwood, Webster Groves — is the thing people move for, and they are all in the county rather than the city.
  • Check whether the county municipality requires an occupancy permit before your move-in date, not after.

Avoid these

  • Wiring a deposit for a place you have not seen — the standard US rental scam, and cheap-looking St. Louis listings attract it.
  • Signing inside the city line without pricing the 1% earnings tax into the comparison.
  • Missing a county municipality's occupancy permit requirement and being unable to move in on time.
  • Assuming rent control exists. Missouri statute bars local governments from imposing it.
  • Taking an old brick flat without checking what heats and cools it, and what that costs in January and July.
  • Not giving a written forwarding address at the end and weakening the deposit claim.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.

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