THE BEST AND WORST CITIES FOR FIRST-TIME HOME BUYERS ARE…

WalletHub has taken another look at the U.S. housing market, this time with the newly published 2023 edition of the Best & Worst Cities for First-Time Home Buyers.

For this study, WalletHub analyzed 300 cities using 22 key metrics ranging from housing affordability to real-estate tax rate to property-crime rate to quality-of-life issues.

When it came to Best Cities for First-Time Home Buyers, the top five were all Florida metros: Palm Bay, Cape Coral, Tampa, Port St. Lucie, and Orlando. The sixth and seventh-ranked Best Cities were in Arizona – Surprise and Gilbert – and the remainder of the top 10 berths were occupied by Boise, Idaho; Chesapeake, Virginia; and Henderson, Nevada.

As for the Worst Cities for First-Time Home Buyers, nine of the bottom 10 rankings were held by California markets. Berkeley and Santa Monica were the worst and second worst, respectively, while Anchorage, Alaska, was considered the third worst. Rounding out the bottom 10 were California’s Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, San Mateo, Burbank, and Daly City.

WalletHub identified Springfield, Illinois, as having the most affordable housing – defined as median house price divided by median annual household income – with a ratio of 1.67, which is 17.5 times cheaper than Santa Barbara, which had the least affordable housing with a ratio of 29.24.

Honolulu has the lowest real estate tax rate at 0.30%, which is 12 times lower than Waterbury, Connecticut, the city with the highest at 3.59%. Flint, Michigan, has the highest rent-to-price ratio, 26.64%, which is 16 times higher than Santa Monica, California, the city with the lowest at 1.66%. And Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has the lowest total home-energy cost per month, $100.84, which is 3.6 times lower than Bakersfield, California, the city with the highest at $360.76.