At a time when the economy is still recovering, moving is a critical life decision, especially for buyers with families. Being in close proximity to prosperous job markets, decent healthcare, and quality education is paramount for many families looking to set down roots, but it’s also important to not have to break the bank.
Recently, personal finance site WalletHub released a study on 2016’s most family-friendly cities in America, which rated 150 cities across 36 key metrics. Metrics weighted heavily included housing, violent-crime rates, poverty level, and divorce rates. A couple of smaller cities with big potential appeared on the top of their list, including Madison, Wisc., and Colorado Springs, Colo., where housing prices for a traditional, single-family home with a nice backyard are still relatively affordable. In the long-term, families with multiple children, pets, or those who might have a multi-generational household in the future are better suited to buy a home that they can grow into over the years. In addition, plenty of studies reveal that most Americans, including millennials, still prefer living in a single-family home over condominiums or town homes.
To help figure out where families are better off living in single-family homes, we have mashed up WalletHub’s findings with our own data from Metrostudy, and re-ranked the top 10 cities by the median price of new single-family homes as of the second quarter of 2016. Please note that due to the limitation of availability in certain markets, we have added Chesapeake, Va., in our count to replace Sioux Falls, S.D.
In our re-ranking above, two Nebraska cities, Omaha, and Lincoln, and Chesapeake, Va., moved up in the list due to their affordability, with a median closing price no higher than $300,000. Closely behind is Madison, Wisc., where the median price for a new home was $312,500 in the second quarter, and also where there are the most playgrounds per 100,000 residents (72.96), according to WalletHub’s study. Despite its sky-high median new home price, Fremont, Calif. has the lowest divorce rate of 12.2% among all cities studied, compared to Cleveland, Ohio where the rate is the highest, at 41.3%.
Read the full WalletHub report here>>
