St. Louis was the most affordable home buying city for millennials as of year-end 2018.
In St. Louis, more than 88 percent of homes for sale are affordable on a $68,805 annual salary, the median household income for a millennial in the area, according to a report from Redfin. The majority of the remaining most affordable places for millennial buyers ages 23-38 are inland, with three in the state of Ohio.
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Daryl Fairweather[/caption]
Of the top-5 most affordable areas, Columbus, Ohio, was the only place where the share of homes within reach for millennials increased from 2018 to 2017. The rest saw their share of affordable homes decline.
"Millennials who dream of owning a home will have better luck if they move inland to places like St. Louis, Columbus and Pittsburgh. These cities used to have economies that relied heavily on manufacturing, and during the recession a lot of young people moved away in search of jobs. However, now these cities have more diverse economies based on education, healthcare and technology, and there are open jobs with salaries that are high relative to cost of living," said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist for Redfin.
Five Most Affordable Housing Markets for Millennials
| Metro area | Median income (2018) | Share of homes for sale affordable on a median income (2018) |
Change (by % points) in the share of affordable homes for sale from 2018 to 2017
|
| St. Louis | $68,805 | 88.1% | -1 pt. |
| Pittsburgh | $70,169 | 87.5% | -1.3 pts. |
| Columbus, Ohio | $71,181 | 87.1% | 0.6 pts. |
| Cincinnati | $68,511 | 85.9% | -2.9 pts. |
| Hartford, Conn. | $76,235 | 85.7% | -4.5 pts. |
"But millennials may want to move as quickly as possible because even in most inland cities the share of homes affordable to the typical millennial is shrinking as housing prices go up," said Fairweather.
By contrast, the 10 least affordable metro areas are all in coastal states like California, New York and Florida. In Los Angeles, which had the lowest share of affordable homes for millennials in 2018, just 18.5 percent were within reach. San Jose, San Diego and San Francisco are among the regions with the lowest percentage of affordable homes for millennials, all with less than 40 percent of homes affordable to young professionals.
And in all the areas except Miami, which has remained essentially flat, the percentage of affordable homes for sale dropped from 2017 to 2018.
Overall, 67.3 percent of homes across all the metro areas Redfin tracks were affordable for millennials in 2018, down from 71.2 percent in 2017.
