The most affordable region in the US to buy a home right now

Realtor.com, in conjunction with The Wall Street Journal, put out its latest housing market ratings, revealing the Midwest to be the most affordable US region to buy a home. What trends can potential homebuyers key in on to find the best bang for their buck?

Yahoo Finance Personal Finance Reporter Rebecca Chen joins Wealth! to discuss the pricing trends within the most affordable cities to buy a house in the US this spring.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Wealth!

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

Realtor.com and the Wall Street Journal out with their latest housing market rankings.

And you might notice a trend here, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri.

If you’re looking for the best bang for your buck in the housing market, sounds like the Midwest might just be the spot for you.

For more on the Midwest housing trends is our own.

Rebecca Chen.

OK.

Welcome in Rebecca.

We’re going to the landlocked part of the country here, I guess.

So, what’s what’s the big finding?

Hey, Brad.

So based on this latest realtor ranking, which where they named the best market for the spring, we are seeing half of the cities were dominant were in the Midwest.

And this is pretty interesting because just a month ago Zillow came out with a very similar ranking where they were listing the best ho best housing market for first time home buyers.

And that list was also dominated by cities in the Midwest.

So we are definitely seeing a pattern here.

And I think the reason is fairly straightforward housing affordability is definitely the top reason why so many of the cities are getting the spotlight.

But also they have a thriving local economy and friendly, really good local communities that people would love to settle down in.

Um But I did want to kind of go back to highlight to talk about the housing affordability in the Midwest because that is definitely the top reason why these cities are so popular nowadays.

Um And so how much affordability are we really talking about here?

One of the studies that we saw is that in the Midwest right now, it’s the only region in the US that you are paying less than 25 or 20% of your paycheck on a monthly mortgage payment.

So everywhere else in the US other regions, whether you are in the West or the South, you are paying more than 20% on a for your home cost.

But Midwest is the only place that you are paying less than that.

So it definitely has a housing affordability that a lot of home buyers are looking for.

Um And this data is based on the National Association of Real Estate of Realtors.

Story continues

Um This is their housing affordability index in March.

So I think according to all of this monthly average mortgage payment, we can see that just in the west, you are paying almost sometimes almost double of what you will be paying in the Midwest.

So I think as this affordability challenge continues, these Midwest cities will only become more popular as we go.

All right, we’re gonna be watching this very closely.

A lot of people trying to figure out if they need to be Wolverines fans, Buckeye fans are fighting a lion eye fans here.

Rebecca Chen, thanks so much for the breakdown.