As property values and mortgage rates continue to rise nationwide, some local housing markets are giving consumers the best shot at homeownership.
While certain areas are pricing potential buyers out of the market, a handful of cities offer purchasing power advantages to homebuyers with more sustainable mortgage rates and home price appreciation in relation to local wages.
While markets like Cleveland experienced a nearly 30% leap in "real" home prices year-over-year in September, other regions saw growth hover around 11%, according to a First American Financial Corp. analysis of home values, factoring in local wages and mortgage rates in large cities.
From Minneapolis to Oklahoma City, here's a look at 12 housing markets offering buyers a purchasing power advantage.
The data, from the First American Real House Price Index, measures annual home price changes, taking local wages and mortgage rates into account "to better reflect consumers' purchasing power and capture the true cost of housing."
The September 2018 data is ranked by smallest year-over-year changes in RHPI for cities where the current value is less than 100 (an RHPI reading of 100 is equal to housing conditions in January 2000).
