These Are the Best Markets for New Homebuyers Right Now
As the cost of renting a home remains high , some tenants are considering buying their own home and taking on mortgage payments instead.
If you’re ready to take the plunge, you might be interested in Realtor.com’s expert report, which identifies the top 10 markets for first-time homebuyers in 2023. Here’s what you need to know.
The best markets for first-time homebuyers in 2023
To compile this list, Realtor.com real estate analysts assessed 659 cities with populations over 5,000 located within the nation’s 100 largest urban areas, limiting their selection to one location in each city area.
The rankings are based on how well each city meets the following criteria , consisting of characteristics deemed attractive to first-time homebuyers:
- Proportion of persons aged 25 to 34 in the local population.
- Availability of homes for sale, measured by active listings per 1,000 existing households, so that homebuyers have a good choice when searching.
- A measure of affordability, measured by the ratio of list prices to the gross income of 25–34-year-old residents of that city.
- A measure of job opportunities estimated based on the projected unemployment rate in the vicinity of a city.
- Average travel time to work.
- A measure of neighborhood amenities, measured by the number of eating establishments per 1,000 households in the vicinity of a city.
- Metro home sales forecast and rising home prices in 2023 as new buyers may want to make sure they are in a healthy market that will encourage capital growth and an easy transition when they outgrow their home.
When the counts were completed, these 10 cities came out on top:
- Portsmouth, Virginia (Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, Virginia-NC Metro Area)
- DeForest, Wisconsin (Madison, Wisconsin metro area)
- Windsor Castles, Connecticut (Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, Connecticut Metro Area)
- Gloucester City, NJ (Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Germany-Maryland)
- Moore, Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma metro area)
- Magna, UT (Salt Lake City Utah Metro Area)
- Eggertsville, New York (Buffalo-Chicktowaga-Niagara Falls, New York metro area)
- Watervliet, NY (Albany-Schenectady-Troy, New York metro area)
- Matthidale, New York (Syracuse, New York metro area)
- Somersworth, NH (Boston-Cambridge-Newton Metro Area MA-NH)
The full report has more details if you’d like to take a closer look at Realtor.com’s samples or methodology.