This Is The U.S. City With The Most Affordable Housing

Whether you're trying to balance a household budget for the year or aiming to buy a home in the coming months, one of the biggest factors to consider is the cost of housing. This can refer to either rent or a mortgage payment, but it typically makes up a large portion of your monthly expenses. Before you start searching for a home to buy, you need to know how much money should go to these expenses each month.

Though this is a personal decision based on what you're comfortable with paying each month, the standard guideline is that housing should make up about 30% of your income each month, as noted by NerdWallet. If your monthly income is $5,000, your mortgage or rental payment shouldn't be more than $1,500. How much will that get you, though, in terms of a home? That depends on where you live. You'll get much less for that amount in California than you would in the Midwest, for example. Some cities are simply more affordable than others overall. There's one U.S. city that offers some of the most affordable housing in the country, meaning living there could help you get more for your budget.

Detroit is the city with the most affordable housing based on data reported by Yahoo! Finance based on a Consumer Affairs nationwide survey. The survey found the median housing cost here was just $755 per month, while the median home value was around $69,300. In October of 2022, the national median monthly mortgage payment was $2,012, as noted by the Mortgage Bankers Association, with the median rent nationally at $1,334. Detroit is highly affordable, by contrast.

Another way to see the affordability of a community is to look at the overall cost of buying a home there. The median home sale price in November of 2022 was $395,500 for a single-family existing home, as reported by the National Association of Realtors. That price climbed 8.6% from the prior year, though many experts believe home prices will not rise at the same rapid pace going forward. This, too, showcases just how affordable it is to own a home in Detroit.

There's plenty to love about Detroit, whether it's the hard work ethic of the Blue Collar community that's been noted for its innovation since the development of the vehicle decades ago. Much of Detroit's economy centers around the Ford Motor Company's plants and supporting services, though the Motor City has seen a significant amount of change in recent years. That includes many people moving out of the big city for the suburbs, with Roofstock indicating the population declined by 1.1% in 2021 to just over 639,000. The median household income here was $62,768.

Another factor impacting the Detroit housing industry is its strong rental market, with over 40% of people renting the home they live in. The most expensive place to rent is in Downtown Detroit where rents can climb to $2,800, while the least expensive neighborhood is St. Jean, where rent may be as little as $615 per month. Data shared by NerdWallet shows the average cost of living here is 14% lower than that in Chicago. Still, Detroit is a strong location for starting a business and has a growing job market.