Ohio Housing Market Among Least Competitive In U.S.: Study

Ohio's housing market is among the least competitive in the nation, according to a study released by LendingTree. For buyers, that's great news. It means homes in the Buckeye State are cheaper than almost anywhere else.

Three Ohio cities, Youngstown, Dayton and Toledo, where among the 10 least competitive markets in the nation. Cincinnati, Akron and Cleveland also rank among the less competitive markets.

LendingTree’s rankings of the 100 most competitive housing markets in the U.S. were based on factors that “truly create a competitive market for homebuyers,” the company explained. To compile the rankings, LendingTree looked at factors like how many house hunters are putting more money down, have high credit scores and “start loan shopping before home shopping.”

To come up with the rankings, LendingTree said it looked at 1.5 million purchase mortgage loan requests that came through the company’s marketplace in the 100 largest U.S. cities for 2017.

The cities were then ranked based on the following three criteria:

• The share of buyers shopping for a mortgage before identifying the house they want
• Average down payment percentage
• Percentage of buyers who have prime credit (above 680)

Here's how Ohio's cities ranked (the lower the ranking, the less competitive the housing market is):

• Youngstown (100)
• Dayton (96)
• Toledo (90)
• Cincinnati (81)
• Akron (78)
• Cleveland (73)
• Columbus (62)

Here are the top 10 most competitive housing markets in the country:

• San Francisco, California (1)
• San Jose, California (2)
• Denver, Colorado (3)
• San Diego, California (4)
• Ventura, California (5)
• Los Angeles, California (6)
• Seattle, Washington (7)
• Honolulu, Hawaii (8)
• Portland, Oregon (9)
• Sacramento, California (10)

Here are the least competitive or most accessible housing markets in the U.S.:

• Youngstown, Ohio (100)
• McAllen, Texas (99)
• Scranton, Pennsylvania (98)
• El Paso, Texas (97)
• Dayton, Ohio (96)
• Augusta, Georgia (95)
• Birmingham, Alabama (94)
• Winston-Salem, North Carolina (93)
• Little Rock, Arkansas (92)
• Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (91)

Photo from Rick Uldricks, Patch