Grand Rapids Is 2019’s 4th Best City for First-Time Home Buyers
Grand Rapids is on top of another list but some people probably disagree with the findings. WalletHub.com released a survey of the best cities for new home buyers and Grand Rapids came in at #4 overall on the list.
4th best city for new home buyers in the country? That's pretty amazing! But, I bet a lot of people will argue that it is currently a pretty bad place for first time home buyers because the market is absolutely insane right now. There is such high demand for homes in West Michigan in general, that you almost need to show up with a bid over the value of the home and pay in straight cash.
But let's just forget about that for a moment and find out why Grand Rapids was ranked so high. WalletHub used three key metrics to determine the rankings: market attractiveness, affordability, and quality of life. Grand Rapids ranked 39th in affordability, 14th in market attractiveness, and 116th in quality of life.
The 10 Best Cities for First-Time Home Buyers
- Tampa, FL
- Overland Park, KS
- Thornton, CO
- Grand Rapids, MI
- Boise, ID
- Greeley, CO
- Peoria, AZ
- Arvada, CO
- McKinney, TX
- Centennial, CO
Looking at Michigan as a whole, many cities show up in various parts of the study:
- Dearborn has the 4th highest median home-price appreciation in the country
- Grand Rapids has the 5th highest median home-price appreciation in the country
- Flint has the 2nd lowest cost of living in the US
- Lansing has the 5th lowest cost of living in the US
- Detroit has the 5th highest real-estate tax rate in the nation
- Sterling Heights has the 5th lowest property-crime in the country
You can check out the entire study at WalletHub.com and also see the worst cities for first-time home buyers (hint: one of them is Detroit... duh.)