What salary do you need to live in Virginia Beach, VA?

The cost side of living in Virginia Beach

Median gross rent, meaning contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities, runs $1,229, $1,394 and $1,734 a month for one, two and three bedrooms across Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC. The largest of those is 41% more than the smallest.

On the ownership side, the typical owner-occupied home is valued at $340,900. With median household income at $82,330, a typical home costs 4.1× a typical income, close to the middle of the range across US metros.

Price levels matter beyond rent. The Bureau of Economic Analysis measures Virginia Beach's overall prices at 97.9 on a scale where the nation is 100, which makes a $100,000 salary feel like about $102,102 would elsewhere.

How much you need to earn in Virginia Beach

With a two-bedroom at the median rent, the score enters Tight at $46,000, Okay at $92,000 and Comfortable at $184,000 a year before tax. At the Comfortable line, a year of rent takes 9% of income and the median home is 1.9× income.

Reaching Royal takes $555,000 — 3.0× 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 Virginia Beach shows the matching grade.

Virginia Beach at four common salaries

At $75,000 home size barely changes the picture: one, two and three bedrooms all grade Tight, with scores from 36 to 41.

Comfortable is above every row of the table here. At $150,000 a two-bedroom still grades Okay, with rent taking 11% of income.

Virginia Beach on the national list

Out of 387 metros, Virginia Beach has the 115th highest price parity and the 99th highest two-bedroom rent, which puts it near the middle on overall prices and in the middle half on rent.

Its nearest neighbors on the rent list are Salem, OR ($1,394) and Panama City-Panama City Beach, FL ($1,390).

Virginia Beach next to Virginia and similar metros

Compared with Virginia as a whole, two-bedroom rent in Virginia Beach is 6% lower ($1,394 vs. $1,481) and the median home is 11% lower ($340,900 vs. $383,700). The metro also reaches into North Carolina; it is compared with Virginia, home of its first-named principal city.

The Virginia figure for the Comfortable line, using state medians, is $216,000 against $184,000 for Virginia Beach.

Looking for somewhere comparable without leaving Virginia? Richmond, VA, Winchester, VA-WV, and Charlottesville, VA have the closest mix of rent and overall prices.

Where the typical Virginia Beach household lands

A household at the Virginia Beach median income of $82,330 would see a two-bedroom score of 42 — Tight — with rent at 20% of income. That falls $101,670 short of the $184,000 Comfortable line, a reminder that the typical household here spends a larger share on housing than the Comfortable band allows. Statewide, the Virginia median household ($93,170) grades Tight on the state's own medians. Household income can include more than one earner, so a single salary of the same size goes less far.

All figures are pre-tax estimates from public data, not financial advice.