Fort Tucker via Flickr Creative Commons
It’s Veterans Day, when the entire nation pays tribute to veterans for serving our country. Yet, many veterans—and many service members, on a broader level—need better access to jobs, health care, and housing.
Which states provide the most resources for military families and veterans? Where should service members reside after retirement? And in which markets can military retirees find the most affordable new or existing homes, without sacrificing valuable benefits?
WalletHub recently compiled a ranking of 2015’s best and worst states for military retirees, based on weighted metrics like economic environment, quality of life, health care accessibility, and density of veterans per 100 inhabitants. However, WalletHub’s ranking doesn’t contain finite data regarding where military buyers can most afford to buy a home. To provide a new perspective from the residential construction industry, we’ve pulled median home price data for both new and existing homes from Metrostudy, and identified the most affordable markets where veterans will still have access to VA health facilities, job opportunities, and a community of veterans. In the heat map below, we’ve averaged our state ranking for new and existing home affordability with WalletHub’s ranking. We’ve given WalletHub’s rank a weight of 50%, since the report primarily focuses on important services available to veterans in each state.
