Home Consumer Best & Worst Cities for First-Time Home Buyers; Miami Beach #299!

Best & Worst Cities for First-Time Home Buyers; Miami Beach #299!

Jul 19, 2016

With July being one of the top months for home sales and a third of all home buyers also being first-timers, the personal-finance website WalletHub took an in-depth look at 2016’s Best & Worst Cities for First-Time Home Buyers.

To determine the most favorable housing markets for first-time buyers, WalletHub’s analysts took the pulse of real estate in 300 cities of varying sizes. Our data set ranges from housing affordability to real-estate tax rate to property-crime rate.

Best Cities for First-Time Home Buyers		Worst Cities for First-Time Home Buyers
1	Overland Park, KS	291	Inglewood, CA
2	Greeley, CO	292	Paterson, NJ
3	Thornton, CO	293	New York, NY
4	Cedar Rapids, IA	294	Miami, FL
5	Westminster, CO	295	Compton, CA
6	Longmont, CO	296	Santa Barbara, CA
7	Boise, ID	297	Berkeley, CA
8	Lincoln, NE	298	Oakland, CA
9	Centennial, CO	299	Miami Beach, FL
10	Lexington, KY	300	Newark, NJ

Best vs. Worst

Santa Monica, Calif., has the lowest housing affordability, 6.6 percent, which is 12 times lower than in Detroit, the city with the highest, 76.5 percent.
Honolulu has the lowest real-estate tax rate, 0.29 percent, which is 12 times lower than in Waukegan, Ill., the city with the highest, 3.49 percent.
Detroit has the highest rent-to-price ratio, 23.17 percent, which is six times higher than in Sunnyvale, Calif., the city with the lowest, 3.64 percent.
Laredo, Texas, has the lowest cost-of-living index, which is three times lower than in New York, the city with the highest.
Mission Viejo, Calif., has the lowest number of property crimes per 1,000 residents, 8.9, which is 12 times lower than in Miami Beach, Fla., the city with the highest, 102.7.
Shreveport, La., has the lowest average energy cost per household, $127.60, which is four times lower than in Honolulu, the city with the highest, $504.30.