New York City Ranked 7th Worst in the Country For First-Time Home Buyers: Report

NEW YORK CITY, NY — New York is the seventh-worst city for first-time buyers looking to purchase a home, according to a study from the leading personal finance website WalletHub.

WalletHub graded 300 cities of varying sizes using 19 different factors to determine the best markets for first-time home owners. Wallethub sorted those 19 factors into three categories of equal weight — affordability, real-estate market and quality of life.

New York City ranked 287th in affordability, 125th in real-estate market and 285th in quality of life for an overall ranking of 293, according to the study. When broken down by size, New York City was ranked 60th out of 62 for cities with more than 300,000 resident. The report also found New York was dead last in cost-of-living index.

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Consider your dream of owning a home in New York dead — unless you have barrels of cash at the ready.

The only cities that were ranked lower than New York were Miami; Compton, California; Santa Barbara, California; Berkeley, California; Oakland, California; Miami Beach, Florida and New York's dejected neighbor, Newark.

Here is a full list of factors used in the study:

Affordability

• Housing Affordability (median annual household income divided by median house price)
• Average Cost of Homeowner’s Insurance
• Cost of Living
• Cost per Square Foot
• Real-Estate Tax Rate

Real-Estate Market

• Rent-to-Price-Ratio
• Housing-Market Health Index
• Percentage of Homes Sold in One Year
• Median Home-Price Appreciation
• Foreclosure Rate

Quality of Life

• WalletHub “Recreation” Ranking
• WalletHub “Recession Recovery” Ranking
• WalletHub “Weather” Ranking
• WalletHub “School Systems” Ranking
• WalletHub “Driver-Friendliness” Ranking
• WalletHub “Jobs Availability” Ranking
• Total Home-Energy Cost
• Violent-Crime Rate
• Property-Crime Rate

[Photo: Aurelien Guichard]