Tired of renting? These Michigan cities offer 'affordable' home prices -

While home prices have been rising, southeast and mid-Michigan offer some of the most affordable options in the nation, according to a personal finance company’s ranking.

Flint, located in Genesee County, had the most affordable housing options in the nation, and Detroit was second in the WalletHub ranking released on May 19. The cities both have vacant housing available and low median prices for potential buyers.

The 10 most expensive locations in the ranking of 300 US cities are mainly in California, along with New York City, WalletHub noted.

“When deciding where to buy, home prices alone aren’t a good enough indicator of how affordable things will be. You also have to consider how prices compare to incomes in the area, plus factor in things like the cost of living, maintenance expenses and taxes. The most affordable cities, like Flint, MI, Detroit, and Surprise, AZ, have low costs across several of these different metrics,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo wrote.

In addition to Flint and Detroit, seven other Michigan cities were among the most affordable, including Warren, Grand Rapids, Livonia, Lansing, Sterling Heights, Dearborn and Ann Arbor.

Here’s what to know about the WalletHub affordability ranking.

Why does Flint rank as the most affordable city?

Flint ranked as the city with the most affordable housing in the US, with a 79.5 score out of 100 in the WalletHub ranking. The housing prices are most affordable, relative to residents’ income, the median home price per square footage is lowest, and the city has the lowest cost of living index nationwide, WalletHub said.

Flint median price per square foot was $59 while the highest-priced cities were more than $1,000 per square foot.

Buying is cheaper than renting in Flint, as the city has the highest rent-to-price ratio, the study found.

“To top things off, nearly 20% of all houses in the city are vacant, meaning buyers have a lot of choices. Part of this is likely due to the city’s water crisis, but Flint’s drinking water has now been in compliance with EPA standards for six years,” the WalletHub ranking said.

What makes Detroit the second-most affordable city to buy?

WalletHub ranked Detroit as the second-most affordable city for housing in the US, with a 74.71 score.

Detroit has a low median home price for square foot, and the median home price is the second-lowest rate in the US at over twice the median household income, WalletHub said. The median price per square foot is about $89.

“Due to people moving out of Detroit during past financial crises, nearly 22% of housing in the city is vacant, which makes it a buyers’ market compared to other cities where available houses are scarce. Detroit is also a city where you’ll benefit more from buying a home compared to renting,” the WalletHub ranking said.

In addition to low housing prices, the city’s rent-to-price ratio tied for highest with Flint.

Detroit had the third-highest home vacancy rate among the 300 cities studied and was 299th in maintenance affordability as a share of income.

What are the top 10 most affordable cities?

Here are the 10 US cities with the most affordable housing, according to WalletHub:

Flint
Detroit
Surprise, Arizona
Yuma, Arizona
Akron, Ohio
Pittsburgh
Memphis, Tennessee
Augusta, Georgia
Indianapolis
Cleveland

What are the 10 least affordable cities?

Here are the 10 US cities with the least affordable housing, according to WalletHub:

Westminster, California
San Francisco
New York City
Pasadena, California
Los Angeles
Berkeley, California
Glendale, California
Costa Mesa, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Barbara, California

What Michigan cities were ranked as most affordable?

In addition to Flint and Detroit, the following cities were ranked by WalletHub:

14, Warren
26, Grand Rapids
36, Livonia
52, Lansing
54, Sterling Heights
70, Dearborn
166, Ann Arbor

How did WalletHub compile the ranking?

WalletHub compared a sample of 300 US cities for housing affordability, maintenance affordability, average cost of homeowner’s insurance, cost of living, cost per square foot, real-estate tax rate, rent-to-price-ratio, median home-price appreciation, quarterly active listings per capita, and vacancy rate, and graded each metric on a 100-point scale, the company said.

Each city’s overall score came from its weighted average across the 10 metrics and the ranking was determined accordingly. WalletHub divided cities into size groups by small cities with less than 150,000 residents, midsize cities with 150,000 to 300,000 residents, and large cities with more than 300,000 residents.

WalletHub used data as of April 21 from the US Census Bureau, the National Association of Realtors, the Council for Community and Economic Research and the Insurance Information Institute to create the ranking, the company said.