Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Brentwood's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Brentwood?
Your $100,000 in Brentwood has the same purchasing power as $70,611 in the average US city. You'd need $29,389 more here to maintain that standard of living.
Demographics and workforce data from the US Census ACS 5-Year.
bachelor's or higher
Climate, safety, and walkability indicators.
See a side-by-side breakdown of cost of living, housing, and salaries.
Popular comparisons
Sorted by affordability — most affordable first.
Within 10 points of Brentwood's cost index of 142, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to Brentwood, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. Above-average earnings, not just for a few people and on the calmer side of the national distribution lead, plus 2 more things worth knowing — the rest unpacked below.
Brentwood's typical household earns $134,689, which puts it in the top tier of US cities for household income. The bottom of the wage distribution isn't necessarily different from anywhere else, but the median and above sit meaningfully higher.
Reported crime in Brentwood comes in around 2,406 per 100,000 — under the national baseline of about 3,500. Worth digging into specific neighborhoods before settling on one, but the city-level picture is on the safer side.
Average AQI in Brentwood comes in around 42, well into the "good" band. Clean air isn't a thing you appreciate until you've lived somewhere it wasn't — and this is the side of that line you want to be on.
Brentwood has a college-educated share of about 38% among adults 25+, which is higher than the national norm. It shows up in the local job mix, in the school district's reputation, and in the kind of conversations you have at the coffee shop.
Reasons are pulled from Brentwood's actual data — Census ACS, BLS, BEA, NOAA, EPA AQS, FBI, and Walk Score. We don't list positives that aren't supported by the numbers, which is why different cities show different sections.
Not really a snow town. With winters averaging 40°F, Brentwood sits in the mild-cold band where snowflakes appear occasionally and everything melts within a day. Most years see one storm worth talking about.
Cool, not cold. Winters in Brentwood sit around 40°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Properly hot. Brentwood's summer averages around 93°F with daily highs that routinely break 100°F. The trick to summer here is starting the day at sunrise and staying inside through the worst of it.
Zone 9, give or take a half-zone. Brentwood's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 9 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Around 89 feet (27 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about Brentwood's altitude shows up in daily life.
Middle of the pack. Brentwood comes in around 2,406 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
Significantly. Brentwood's index of 142 puts it in the top tier of US cities for cost of living — roughly 42% above the national baseline. The pattern is familiar: housing eats a large share of incomes, and people earning median-equivalent jobs from cheaper metros feel the difference fast.
Brentwood scores 32 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Some neighborhoods buck the citywide average; the dense inner cores are usually noticeably more walkable than the city number suggests.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $99,134 to live in Brentwood the way a $70,000 earner lives in a typical US city. The math gets less forgiving the lower you go below that. Median rent in Brentwood runs about $2,451/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.