The nation’s cheapest markets for family homes
We recently told you about the nation's most expensive markets for family homes. Average listing prices for benchmark homes in the 25 most expensive cities exceeded $900,000, and in the most expensive city of all, the average listing price for a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home topped $2 million.
Now let's return to planet Earth with some more realistic prices.
The 25 cheapest markets for what we're calling "family homes" -- that is, homes that are the "aspirational" but attainable size of four bedrooms and two bathrooms -- dot much of the nation, including two cities in Florida and three in New York. As a matter of fact, one of those super-affordable New York cities is traditionally considered the Honeymoon Capital of the World.
In the nation's cheapest market for family homes, you could buy a whole city block's worth of four-bedroom, two-bathroom homes -- 34 of them, to be precise -- for about the same price you'd spend on one of those homes in the most expensive market, Malibu.
All of these figures come from Coldwell Banker Real Estate. As you'll recall from our previous post, this ranking differs from others in that it does not try to determine median home prices for all communities across the board. Rather, Coldwell Banker is trying to filter out extremes at the ultra-high end as well as the very low end. It wants to put a price on the kind of home that's bigger and better than a starter home, comfortable for a family but not a mansion, to give an "apples-to-apples comparison across markets" that helps explain how much the same house would cost in one city versus another.
You still might be wondering, though, why Detroit (to give one example) doesn't appear on this list of the cheapest markets. That's because during the entire six months of Coldwell Banker's January-to-June sampling period, Detroit never hit the threshold of 10 four-bedroom, two-bathroom listings on ColdwellBanker.com. Just as Beverly Hills never reached the 10-listing threshold of four-bedroom, two-bathroom homes to make it into the rankings for most expensive markets, Detroit too failed to rack up the necessary number of homes that size. Of course, the difference is that Beverly Hills mostly had homes with too many bedrooms or bathrooms; Detroit's stock is mostly smaller homes that fall short in the number of bedrooms and bathrooms.
With that caveat, then, here are the 25 most affordable markets for family homes:
25. Aurora, Missouri
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $117,013
24. Akron, Ohio
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $116,906
23. Camden, Arkansas
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $116,072
22. Dayton, Ohio
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $115,176
21. Kansas City, Missouri
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $113,718
20. Lehigh Acres, Florida
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $111,410
19. Eatonton, Georgia
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $111,108
18. Niagara Falls, New York
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $109,809
17. Park Forest, Illinois
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $109,709
16. McCook, Nebraska
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $107,986
15. Arcadia, Florida
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $107,691
14. Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $107,039
13. Hillsdale, Michigan
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $106,384
12. Ashland, Wisconsin
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $104,774
11. Utica, New York
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $103,877
10. Kankakee, Illinois
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $103,187
9. Buffalo, New York
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $101,631
8. Moberly, Missouri
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $99,593
7. Jonesboro, Georgia
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $98,332
6. Sioux City, Iowa
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $97,969
5. Jackson, Mississippi
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $94,155
4. Saginaw, Michigan
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $87,181
3. Flint, Michigan
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $84,437
2. Garfield Heights, Ohio
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $66,075
1. Cleveland, Ohio
Average listing price for a 4BR/2BA home: $63,729
