What salary do you need to live in Cape Girardeau, MO?

Rent, home values and prices in Cape Girardeau

A one-bedroom in Cape Girardeau rents for a median of $688 a month, utilities the tenant pays included; a two-bedroom goes for $863 and a three-bedroom for $1,141. Over a full year, the two-bedroom median comes to $10,356.

The median value of owner-occupied homes in the metro is $208,400. Against a median household income of $66,759, the ratio is 3.1× — one of the gentler home-price-to-income ratios in the country.

BEA's Regional Price Parity for the metro is 86.1, where 100 is the US average. In plain terms, the full basket of goods, services and housing costs 13.9% less than average, so $100,000 here buys roughly what $116,174 would at average US prices.

Cape Girardeau: the pre-tax income for each grade

With a two-bedroom at the median rent, the score enters Tight at $22,000, Okay at $43,000 and Comfortable at $86,000 a year before tax. At the Comfortable line, a year of rent takes 12% of income and the median home is 2.4× income.

Reaching Royal takes $207,000 — 2.4× the Comfortable line — because the last points come slowly once rent is already a small share.

Nothing here is a separate rule of thumb; plug any of these incomes into the calculator with two bedrooms and Cape Girardeau shows the matching grade.

Four salaries, three home sizes in Cape Girardeau

On $75,000, a one-bedroom scores 65 and a three-bedroom 57, both Okay; the extra bedrooms cost points but not a grade.

Of the four salaries, $100,000 is the first where a two-bedroom reads Comfortable or better; $75,000 still lands at Okay.

Cape Girardeau on the national list

Out of 387 metros, Cape Girardeau has the 364th highest price parity and the 369th highest two-bedroom rent, which puts it among the least expensive tenth on overall prices and in the bottom 10% on rent.

Next to Cape Girardeau on the national rent ranking: Florence-Muscle Shoals, AL ($866) and Rocky Mount, NC ($861).

Cape Girardeau vs. the rest of Missouri

Compared with Missouri as a whole, two-bedroom rent in Cape Girardeau is 16% lower ($863 vs. $1,027) and the median home is 10% lower ($208,400 vs. $230,300). Because the metro spans Missouri and Illinois, the comparison uses Missouri, where Cape Girardeau itself is.

Run Missouri's statewide medians through the same score and Comfortable begins at $110,000; Cape Girardeau's line is −22% from that.

Within Missouri, the metros closest to Cape Girardeau on rent and overall prices are St. Joseph, MO-KS, Joplin, MO-KS, and Jefferson City, MO. Their Comfortable lines for two bedrooms sit at $82,000, $80,000, and $88,000.

Cape Girardeau's median income on the scale

A household at the Cape Girardeau median income of $66,759 would see a two-bedroom score of 58 — Okay — with rent at 16% of income. That falls $19,241 short of the $86,000 Comfortable line, a reminder that the typical household here spends a larger share on housing than the Comfortable band allows. Statewide, the Missouri median household ($70,702) grades Okay on the state's own medians. A household figure may pool several earners, unlike a single salary.

Treat every number here as a pre-tax, public-data estimate rather than financial advice.