The 10 Cheapest Riverside, CA Neighborhoods To Live In For 2024


The cheapest Riverside neighborhoods are Sycamore Canyon Park and La Sierra South for 2024 based on Saturday Night Science.

Worst Neighborhoods In Riverside
Source: Public domain

Everything else equal, we can all agree that living in a cheaper place is better than living in a more expensive place.

I’d much rather pay $500/mo in rent than $1,000. And I’d rather pay $2 for coffee than $5.

And while every neighbhorhood in Riverside might be more expensive than living in rural California, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.

What exactly are those Riverside neighborhoods where your dollar goes a little further — you can get that one bedroom instead of the studio?

Instead of relying on public opinion and speculation, we wanted to get the facts straight and determine which neighborhoods in Riverside are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.

The Cheapest Neighborhoods In Riverside For 2024

  1. Sycamore Canyon Park
  2. La Sierra South
  3. La Sierra Acres
  4. Victoria
  5. Mission Grove
  6. Northside
  7. Hawarden Hills
  8. Grand
  9. Eastside
  10. Orangecrest

What’s the cheapest neighborhood to live in Riverside for 2024? According to the most recent census data, Sycamore Canyon Park looks to be the cheapest Riverside neighborhood to live in.

At this point, we should make it clear that you do get what you pay for — some of these neighborhoods might not be the best places to live in Riverside. You could be sacrificing location or crime rates for more space and cheaper groceries.

Read on to see how we determined the places around Riverside that deserve a little bragging rights, or maybe you’re interested in the worst neighborhoods in Riverside.

For more California reading, check out:


Table Of Contents: Top Ten | Methodology | Summary | Table


The 10 Cheapest Neighborhoods To Live In Riverside For 2024

Overall SnackAbility

8
/10

Population: 309
Cost Of Living Index: 100 (cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 3.9 (5th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.013 (cheapest)
More on Sycamore Canyon Park: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

8
/10

Population: 14,828
Cost Of Living Index: 119 (18th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 3.7 (cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.019 (9th cheapest)
More on La Sierra South: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

6
/10

Population: 12,761
Cost Of Living Index: 112 (10th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 4.8 (14th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.018 (5th cheapest)
More on La Sierra Acres: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

9
/10

Population: 9,567
Cost Of Living Index: 123 (20th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 4.0 (7th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.016 (2nd cheapest)
More on Victoria: Data | Real Estate

Mission Grove Riverside, CA

Source: Flickr User danorth1 | CC BY-ND 2.0
Overall SnackAbility

8.5
/10

Population: 9,682
Cost Of Living Index: 133 (24th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 3.8 (2nd cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.017 (3rd cheapest)
More on Mission Grove: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

8
/10

Population: 9,866
Cost Of Living Index: 115 (13th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 3.8 (4th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.02 (15th cheapest)
More on Northside: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

8.5
/10

Population: 2,134
Cost Of Living Index: 150 (27th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 3.8 (3rd cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.018 (4th cheapest)
More on Hawarden Hills: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

8
/10

Population: 6,151
Cost Of Living Index: 114 (11th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 5.1 (2cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.018 (6th cheapest)
More on Grand: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

7
/10

Population: 15,833
Cost Of Living Index: 109 (4th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 5.4 (24th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.019 (11th cheapest)
More on Eastside: Data | Real Estate

Overall SnackAbility

9.5
/10

Population: 22,794
Cost Of Living Index: 139 (26th cheapest)
Home Value To Income Ratio: 4.0 (6th cheapest)
Rent To Income Ratio: 0.019 (8th cheapest)
More on Orangecrest: Data | Real Estate

Methodology: How We Determined The Cheapest Riverside Hoods In 2024

To rank the cheapest places to live in Riverside, we had to determine what criteria define “cheap” and then apply Saturday Night Science.

Using Census and extrapolated BLS data, we arrived at the following set of criteria:

  • Overall Cost Of Living
  • Rent To Income Ratio
  • Median Home Value To Income Ratio

We then ranked each neighborhood with scores from 1 to 28 in each category, where 1 was the cheapest.

Next, we averaged the rankings for each neighborhood to create a cheap neighborhood index.

And finally, we crowned the neighborhood with the lowest cheapest neighborhood index, the “Cheapest City Neighborhood In Riverside.” We’re lookin’ at you, Sycamore Canyon Park.

We updated this article for 2024. This is our fourth time ranking the cheapest neighborhoods to live in Riverside. Skip to the end to see the list of all the neighborhoods in the city, from cheapest to most expensive.

Summary: Lowest Cost Places To Live In Riverside

If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Riverside where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.

The most affordable neighborhoods in Riverside are Sycamore Canyon Park, La Sierra South, La Sierra Acres, Victoria, Mission Grove, Northside, Hawarden Hills, Grand, Eastside, and Orangecrest.

As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Riverside aren’t all cheap. Arlington South takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Riverside.

The most expensive neighborhoods in Riverside are Arlington South, University, Canyon Crest, Alessandro Heights, and Arlington.

We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below.

For more California reading, check out:

Detailed List Of The Cheapest Neighborhoods To Live In Riverside For 2024

Rank Neighborhood Cost Of Living Index
1 Sycamore Canyon Park 100
2 La Sierra South 119
3 La Sierra Acres 112
4 Victoria 123
5 Mission Grove 133
6 Northside 115
7 Hawarden Hills 150
8 Grand 114
9 Eastside 109
10 Orangecrest 139
11 La Sierra Hills 125
12 Arlington Heights 127
13 Magnolia Center 115
14 Canyon Springs 117
15 Casablanca 110
16 Hunter Industrial Park 105
17 Ramona 111
18 Airport 116
19 Wood Streets 123
20 La Sierra 115
21 Presidential Park 117
22 Downtown 110
23 Arlanza 112
24 Arlington 109
25 Alessandro Heights 155
26 Canyon Crest 136
27 University 104
28 Arlington South 126
About Chris Kolmar

Chris Kolmar has been in the real estate business for almost ten years now. He originally worked for Movoto Real Estate as the director of marketing before founding HomeSnacks.

He believes the key to finding the right place to live comes down to looking at the data, reading about things to do, and, most importantly, checking it out yourself before you move.

If you've been looking for a place to live in the past several years, you've probably stumbled upon his writing already.

You can find out more about him on LinkedIn or his website.