NEW ORLEANS — With July being one of the top months for home sales and nearly 40% of 2017’s single-family home purchases made by first-time buyers, the personal-finance website WalletHub took an in-depth look at 2018's Best & Worst Cities for First-Time Home Buyers. New Orleans ranks the 53rd best of the large cities analyzed in the report.
To determine the most favorable housing markets for first-time buyers, WalletHub took the pulse of real estate in 300 cities of varying sizes using 27 key metrics. The data set ranges from housing affordability to real-estate tax rate to property-crime rate.
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Here are some key stats from the report:
- Akron, Ohio, has the most affordable housing (median house price divided by median annual household income), with a ratio of 1.72, which is 8.9 times cheaper than in Berkley, California, the city with the least affordable, with a ratio of 15.25.
- Honolulu has the lowest real-estate tax rate, 0.28 percent, which is 13 times lower than in Waterbury, Connecticut the city with the highest at 3.65 percent.
- Cleveland, Ohio has the highest rent-to-price ratio, 17.8 percent, which is 4.7 times higher than in San Mateo, California, the city with the lowest at 3.8 percent.
- Shreveport, Louisiana, has the lowest average energy cost per household, $109.48, which is four times lower than in Honolulu, the city with the highest at $432.62.
Read the complete report here.
– by Alexa Renée Harrison, associate news editor
