Why is Nashville called Music City? The history of the nickname.
Nashville earned its nickname after decades and decades of musical pursuits.
- Nashville stats follow a national trend showing the number of millionaire renters is growing.
- High earners sometimes choose to rent instead of own for the flexible, turnkey lifestyle it allows.
- The new data from RentCafe found one in 11 millionaires is a renter in the U.S.
As Nashville grows, so does the number of Music City millionaires.
A recent report from RentCafe found Nashville’s population of seven-figure earners is on the rise, and a growing number of them are renting their homes instead of owning.
In the Nashville metro area, there are 928 households earning $1 million or more annually, according to the study, which analyzed IPUMS data that integrated U.S. Census and American Community Survey microdata.
The vast majority of those millionaires are homeowners, but an increasing number of high-earners across the country are choosing the turnkey lifestyle of luxury rentals instead, the report said. In 2019, there were zero Nashville area renters making at least $1 million per year. That number grew to 30 in 2023, the most recent year data is available.
The study defined “millionaires” as those earning at least $1 million annually.
The Nashville numbers follow national trends. In 2023, one in 11 millionaires was a renter, compared to one in 13 in 2019.
The biggest hotspots for millionaire renters are Houston, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta and Phoenix.
The RentCafe study analyzed data from IPUMS, a platform that aggregates and integrates microdata from census and survey results. IPUMS is part of the Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation at the University of Minnesota.
Why are millionaire renters on the rise in Nashville?
High earners in Nashville and beyond are increasingly looking for seamless access to luxury rental communities, with all the polished amenities they come with. In Nashville, that includes rooftop pools, state-of-the-art gyms, valet parking, golf simulators and sprawling resident lounges.
Other metro areas in the south are also seeing the trend play out, especially in Texas.
The number of millionaire renter households in Houston, for example, grew by a factor of 25 from 2019 to 2023. Charleston, South Carolina, has also seen an influx, going from zero millionaire renters in 2019 to more than 200 in 2023.
But the super wealthy are still more likely to purchase a home than rent one.
In Nashville, the number of millionaire homeowners more than tripled between 2019 and 2023. There were 898 millionaire homeowners in the Nashville area in 2023.
“Many of today’s high-income renters live in metro areas like New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, with historically high rentership rates — where the abundance of apartments as well as sky-high costs of homeownership make renting the more practical and cost-effective option,” the RentCafe report states. “According to IPUMS data, millennials and Gen X are the two generations driving the rise in millionaire households. However, while today’s typical millionaire renter is more likely to be a millennial, the typical high-earning homeowner is more likely to be Gen X.”
