Ten Most Affordable Cities In The U.S.

Leave it up to the National Association of Home Builders to make me feel good about where I live. Last Thursday, they put out their list of the top ten most affordable and top ten least affordable cities to live in throughout the United States. And my home area, Syracuse NY, sits at number six on the top list; yeah!

An interesting thing about the top list is that out of the top ten, nine of the cities would be considered as northern cities, with only the top city, Indianapolis, being in the midwest. No southern or western cities need apply. Here’s the list:

Indianapolis IN 93.1% $103,000

Scranton PA 85.2% $85,000

Of course, as I said, they also put out the listing of the ten least affordable cities to live in, and the only area not represented on this list is the midwest. However, I’d be hard pressed to say that any of the cities on this list are a surprise. Here you go:

New York NY 13.9% $455,000

Seattle WA 40.6% $335,000

Of course, these are the large cities. When we look at the top ten small cities, all are northern cities, with two here in the central New York area, Utica-Rome and Binghamton. And in looking at the least affordable top ten, once again they’re all over the place, the the worst city being San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA. It’s important to remember that these lists are talking about affordability as it pertains to housing, but since housing is probably the most expensive component of most people’s lives, whether they actually own a house or live an an apartment, it’s easily an important aspect of whether one can afford to life in a certain area or not.

So, come on, all you sun worshippers; move north!