Indianapolis: A City Where You'll Get Biggest Bang For Your Buck

INDIANAPOLIS, IN — In a land where size truly matters, there's a deep national desire to own a great big home. Plenty of folks dream of living in a place where dogs can roam, kids can scream their hearts out without inflicting familial insanity, and multiple generations can nest. Maybe you can even have room to set up an in-house bar!

But all of that glorious space doesn't come cheap. The typical home over 3,000 square feet costs $589,700—or about $147 per square foot, according to realtor.com listings data, including desirable neighborhoods of big cities, like the $809 per square foot people are shelling out in San Francisco.

Thankfully, that's not exactly the case for some other areas, like Indianapolis. Fortunately, there are still oversize bargains to be had in some of the nation's more affordable markets —and your trusty realtor.com data team set out to find them! We uncovered the housing markets that offer buyers the lowest cost per square foot on large homes.

We sifted through realtor.com listings in the first six months of the year to calculate the price per square foot for homes with more than 3,000 square feet. Then we limited the lowest big-home price rankings to one metropolitan area per state to ensure geographic diversity. (Metros include the main city and the suburbs and exurbs surrounding it.)

So where can buyers score the most home for the least cash? Indianapolis is one of those spots!

>> Indianapolis, IN

• Median price per square foot for large homes: $100.66
• Median list price on homes over 3,000 square feet: $445,000
• Share of homes over 3,000 square feet: 42.0%

Indianapolis is one of the hottest cities in the Midwest, with masses of millennials coming here for jobs with employers like big pharma's Eli Lilly and tech firms like Salesforce.

Those ready to settle down into a big abode have plenty to choose from both downtown and in the suburbs. Among the places that made our list, Indy by far has the highest share of large residences.

One popular destination is Cottage Home, a historic district with older big homes, as well as Mapleton-Fall Creek. The latter is an up-and-coming area with remodeled, historic homes where folks can expect to find lower prices, with 3,000-square-foot homes starting at $175,000.

"If you're looking in Indianapolis, a 3,000-square-foot home with updated amenities goes for somewhere in the low to mid $300,000s," says Jenni Dubach Bliss, a local real estate agent with Nottingham Realty Group.

"You can get them for lower, but they'll probably need some serious work.

List:

• 1) Scranton, PA
• 2) McAllen, TX
• 3) Indianapolis, IN
• 4) Youngstown, OH
• 5) Wichita, KS
• 6) Columbia, SC
• 7) Augusta, GA
• 8) Tulsa, OK
• 9) Little Rock, AR
• 10) Louisville, KY

* Median price per square foot on homes with at least 3,000 square feet

Written by Lance Lambert. Allison Underhill contributed to this report.

This article, "Huge House, Tiny Price: Top 10 Cities Where You'll Get the Biggest Bang For Your Buck" appeared first on Real Estate News and Insights from realtor.com.

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  Photo: Courtesy of Realtor.com