A historic low amount of home purchases were made by first-time home buyers in the U.S. in 2024, but many cities in Arizona rank near the top of the list for those who want to buy their first home.
Surprise (No. 4) and Gilbert (No. 6) both ranked in the top 10 among 300 cities across the nation that were analyzed by the personal finance website, WalletHub.
Chandler (No. 11), Peoria (No. 13), Scottsdale (No. 21), Yuma (No. 27) and Mesa (No. 34) are the other top ranked cities in the Grand Canyon State.
The annual report titled “Best Cities for First-Time Home Buyers” uses 22 different factors that measure market attractiveness, affordability and quality of life.
Surprise rose two spots from the 2024 study and was bolstered by the top ranking of all cities in the category of market attractiveness.
Yuma was the top ranked Arizona city in terms of affordability, coming in at No. 15 nationally.
The top Arizona city for quality of life was Scottsdale, coming in at No. 65.
Best and worst cities in the nation for first-time home buyers
Topping the list for first-time home buyers in the nation was Palm Bay, Florida.
Boise, Idaho came in at No. 2, Tampa, Florida came in at No. 3 and Huntsville, Alabama came in at No. 5.
On the other end of the spectrum, all five of the worst ranked cities were based in California.
Berkeley (No. 300), Santa Monica (No. 299), Oakland (No. 298), San Francisco (No. 297) and Santa Barbara (No. 296) were all dragged down by some of the worst affordability rankings in the country.
How the study was conducted
Each of the three main categories were equally rated based on a point system.
The score for each category was further broken down and weighted by 22 subcategories.
Affordability had five subcategories ranging from real estate taxes to the ratio of median house price to median annual household income.
The market attractiveness category was broken into 10 subcategories most heavily influenced by rent-to-price ratio and median home price appreciation.
Seven subcategories were judged in the quality of life score where the quality of school system was given the most influence with a double weighted score in the formula.
Overall real estate market
The percentage of first-time home buyers that made up the total market shrunk to 24% in 2024.
In 2023, that number was 32%.
Wallethub analyst Chip Lupo says part of the blame can be attributed to housing prices and interest rates.
“Buying a home for the first time is a very stressful and difficult process, especially when housing prices are through the roof and interest rates have risen sharply in the past few years,” he said.
Nonetheless, Arizona still boasts many cities that are comparably better for first-time home buyers than most places in the country.
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