Where's the best place to own a home? Some would say near a Zabar's on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Others prefer living on a beach. Yet others want a mountaintop. SmartAsset, however, went looking for the best spots to live based on economics. Here's what it found:
In order to find the best states for homeowners, we looked at nine metrics. Specifically we looked at average price per square foot, the one-year percent change in value per square foot, foreclosures per 10,000 homes, average effective property tax rate, median annual property taxes, average closing costs, average homeowners insurance and the burglary rate. Check out our data and methodology section below to see where we got our data and how we put it together.
Key Findings
- Midwest and West on top – All the states in our top 10 are either in the West or the Midwest. Midwest states tend to be more affordable while home values are on the rise in Western states.
- Good investments – Even states which ranked poorly tended to have some home value growth. The only state which did not show any growth in home values from 2016 to 2017 was Alaska, where home values decreased by 0.4%.
