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Mortgages Reports

The Fastest Growing Cities That Are Still Affordable For Homebuyers

Published Sep 15, 2020
6-min read
Mike Brown Author Photo
Written by Mike Brown
Mike Brown Author Photo
Written by Mike Brown

Expertise:

Mike Brown uses data from surveys and publicly-available resources to identify emerging personal finance trends and tell unique stories. Mike’s work, featured in outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, provides consumers with a personal finance measuring stick to make informed financial decisions.

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For any prospective homebuyer, two things are key to consider: affordability and return on investment.

You want to buy a home in a city where monthly housing costs, including mortgage payments, are manageable. You also want to find a community that is growing and desirable so when it’s time to sell your home you can profit off your initial investment.

Unfortunately, finding a city or town that meets both requirements can be tough since many of the trendiest places already have high home prices that reflect their desirability.

But by using the most up-to-date housing data on over 25,000 U.S. cities, LendEDU has compiled a list of the places that are not only booming in popularity but are also still affordable for homebuyers that intend on using a mortgage.

Below, you will find a list of the 1,000 U.S. towns and cities that are projected to grow the most over the next five years; each community is then ranked according to its average monthly home cost, which factors in mortgage payments.

The cities at the top of the list are not only the fastest growing in the entire country but are also still very affordable for homebuyers that plan on taking out a mortgage, which makes them terrific locations to purchase a home, start a family, and eventually turn a profit on when it’s time to sell.

The Fastest Growing Cities That Are Still Affordable For Homebuyers

To see how a city ranked within only its state, either sort the table on the “State” column or type your desired state into the search bar. 

To be considered for this ranking, a city had to have a minimum population of 15,000. Further, a city had to then rank in the top 1,000 for its five-year population projection percent increase from its current population.

The data found below derives from a dataset from GreatData that was licensed by LendEDU. GreatData compiles the most up-to-date data and estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, in addition to calculating its own projections based on historical trends, to provide accurate and current household data for over 25,000 U.S. cities.

The “Median Monthly Home Cost” statistic for each city includes the monthly mortgage cost plus utilities.

Tips For Buying a Home With a Mortgage

Becoming a homeowner with the help of a mortgage is not only a serious life decision, but a serious financial one as well.

For this reason, LendEDU provides a few tips below on buying a home with a mortgage.

Compare Your Options & Do Your Research

From regular mortgage lenders to online mortgage lenders and VA mortgage lenders, there are a ton of home loan lenders out there today so it’s imperative to compare all of your options in order to feel confident in the mortgage provider you eventually settle on.

Further, you must also do some research on current mortgage interest rates in addition to the mortgage lenders themselves. From 30-year mortgage rates to VA mortgage rates, home loan interest rates can vary quite significantly so doing your due diligence will go a long way towards getting favorable terms.

Set a Budget

Since becoming a homeowner is such a massive financial undertaking, it’s imperative to set a budget so that you target a specific price range that will make your monthly mortgage payments affordable and as stress-free as possible.

One way to set your home buying budget is to utilize LendEDU’s mortgage calculator, which allows you to estimate your monthly home loan payments and total mortgage cost based on things like the mortgage amount, interest rate, and loan term.

Think About Refinancing in the Future

Once you have taken out a mortgage and have become a homeowner, you should first focus on meeting your monthly mortgage payments to build up your credit and prove that you can afford your home loan.

After some time, it’s never a bad idea to look into a mortgage refinance to see if you can qualify for a lower home loan interest rate or more favorable repayment terms compared to your original mortgage. LendEDU’s mortgage refinance calculator may give you a better idea of what refinancing your mortgage could potentially save you.

Methodology

All data found in this report comes from GreatData. LendEDU licensed the dataset provided by GreatData, which derives mainly from the U.S. Census Bureau. For data points like “Median Monthly Home Cost,” the data comes from the most recent U.S. Census Bureau update but GreatData also calculates and combines its own projections based on historical trends to provide the most up-to-date data. The “Median Monthly Home Cost” statistic for each city includes the monthly mortgage cost plus utilities.

The “5-Year Population Projection Percent Increase From Current Population” figure comes from finding the percent increase from each city’s current population to its projected population in five years. For example, we took a given city’s current population according to the latest estimates and lined it up with it’s five-year population projection according to the latest estimates. We then found the percent increase from the former to the latter to provide the “5-Year Population Projection Percent Increase From Current Population” for each city.

For some cities listed in the report, GreatData provided multiple ZIP Codes within the city, with each ZIP Code having its own data. In these instances, we combined all ZIP Code data for that city to provide a single, weighted stat line for each city. For example, to find the weighted median monthly home cost for a city with multiple ZIP Codes, we weighted each ZIP Code’s median monthly home cost by that same ZIP Code’s current population estimate.

LendEDU did not have to complete this weighting process for the population numbers for any city with multiple ZIP Codes as those population figures were simply summed together.

To be considered for this ranking, a city had to have a minimum population of 15,000. Further, a city had to then rank in the top 1,000 for its five-year population projection percent increase from its current population.

Once each eligible city had a single statistic line for all pertinent statistics, LendEDU ranked each city from lowest to highest according to its respective median monthly home cost.

See more of LendEDU’s Research here.