How Chicagoland Ranks For First-Time Home Buyers

CHICAGO, IL — Here’s some good news for all the millennials out there: The Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro area has been ranked among the top half of cities in America for first-time home buyers. The personal finance site Bankrate ranked the nation’s 50 largest metro areas Tuesday. The rankings were based on 13 measures related to affordability, culture, job market, market tightness and safety.

Our metro area ranked 19th overall, just ahead of the Baltimore area and behind the Tampa area. Here’s how we ranked in each category:

• Affordability: 20
• Culture: 7
• Job market: 45
• Market tightness: 12
• Safety: 24

Bankrate said those thinking of buying their first home ought to skip the West Coast and Rocky Mountains. Instead, consider heading to Pittsburgh. The Steel City ranked No. 1 overall for first-time homebuyers buoyed by top rankings in both affordability and safety.

Here are the 10 best metros for first-timers:

1. Pittsburgh, PA
2. Raleigh, NC
3. Oklahoma City, OK
4. Hartford, CT
5. St. Louis, MO-IL
6. Cincinnati, OH
7. Buffalo-Cheektowaga-Niagara Falls, NY
8. Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI
9. Kansas City, MO
10. Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News-VA

Perhaps just as importantly, first-time homebuyers ought to avoid California altogether. The metro areas for San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Jose, Riverside and San Diego all placed in the bottom 10. The San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro ranked dead last.

Bankrate weighted affordability highest at 30 percent, followed by 20 percent weights for safety, market tightness and quality of the job market. Culture received a 10 percent weight.

The authors used data from Attom Data Solutions, the U.S. Census Bureau, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Realtor.com, and the 2017 Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index.

If you’re looking to buy your first home, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau offers some tips and resources to get you started. Step one is, of course, to check your credit. Scores range from 300 to 850. Generally, the higher the score, the lower your interest rate will be. In March 2015, the median FICO score nationwide, meaning the score used by most mortgage lenders, was 721.

Other tips include assessing you spending, determining how much money to spend on a down payment, and creating a loan application packet.

Click here to find additional information on homeownership and home-buying assistance programs.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.