Are you currently searching for the best cities to buy a house where nowadays food prices are up gas prices are up, and housing prices are insane? Living in today’s economy, What are you supposed to do? Well if you’re thinking of moving to a more affordable city, you’re trying to find out what are the best cities out there you can move to. You’re not only wanting to look at what is the cost of living in these different cities, but you also wanna know. Do I even wanna live in this place? Is the city desirable? What are the amenities of the city? Can I see myself living here for the long term? If you’re considering buying a house, you wanna know if you can stick with this city for a while and I wanna show you why Cincinnati is one of the best cities to buy a house in the United States.
My name is Eric Sztanyo from Keller Williams Realty and team Sztanyo.com, where we are helping you find your home and strengthen your family. If this is your first time on the channel, welcome! we are the number one largest YouTube channel in the Cincinnati area for all things, Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati real estate. If you wanna learn more about the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky region and all things living here, as well as the real estate market and other data, please consider subscribing below. You’ll be a part of the Sztanyo Clanyo. So, Are you considering moving and you’re looking at what are some of the best cities to buy a house? There’s a lot to consider here. Things are crazy right now. Inflation is going wild. Everything is more expensive!
Things To Consider In Finding The Best Cities To Buy A House
And so you’re looking for somewhere new to live that’s maybe a little kinder on your wallet. When you guys are looking for what city to choose, there are three considerations you wanna look at. Number one is affordability. Number two is the lifestyle of the city. And number three is the long-term potential of living in that new city. If you’re gonna pack up and move, let’s make sure you can stay there a while.
Number one to look at for you to find the best cities to buy a house is Affordability. Times are hard right now. Inflation is crazy. I did a video a few years back called the cost of living in Cincinnati. If you guys want to check that out and go into more detail, you can click right here. I wanted to give a quick update here. Because there’s a new article that just posted that I want you to check out. The headline of this article is that Cincinnati again ranks among the most affordable US cities to buy a home.
“Cincinnati continues to be a great place to put down stakes if you were looking for the best cities to buy a house. According to a new study. The queen city is tied for number 11 down from number 10 a year ago among the top 50 US metros when it comes to housing affordability. According to a report from OJO labs and Austin Texas-based real estate brokerage company, Cincinnati’s unaffordability score is 3.4. And according to OJO Labs, Cincinnati’s medium home sale price was $242,000 in March, a 12.6 increase from this time last year. Green Bay Appleton Wisconsin continues to rank as the most affordable market with a median home sale price of $150,000 followed by Buffalo New York at $165,000 and Cleveland at $176,000.”
Let’s be real here. You don’t wanna root for the Browns. You don’t wanna live in Cleveland. I mean, I know you can get a cheaper house at $176,000 compared to the $245,000 in Cincinnati, but Cleveland, eh…
“San Francisco is the least affordable market with a median home sale price of 1.3 million followed by San Diego at $825,000 and Los Angeles at $720,000.”
And I know this is true because a lot of you guys who watch this channel and give us a call at team Sztanyo are moving here from California. So welcome to Ohio. Welcome to Kentucky. Everyone just come on board, come on to the Midwest. You’re gonna love it here. I promise you.
“Other study highlights nationally, the median home price in the US climbed to $374,647 in March, a 16.2% increase from a year ago. The nation’s unaffordability index rows from 4.4 in February to 4.7 in March.”
Guess what! things are getting unaffordable out there. Let’s keep digging in on this affordability topic because it’s probably the most important when it comes to finding the best cities to buy a house and what you wanna look at here.
I want to jump over to this other website. Yes, this is built by Cincinnati, but it’s a really helpful tool. It is the Cincinnati experience.com. And the question is, is Cincinnati affordable? Cincinnati is one of the most affordable cities to live in the US. Now, this website data is gonna be a little bit behind what we just read in that other article, but you’ll get the gist.
“In the Cincinnati region. You can buy a great house for an affordable price, as well as pay for groceries, healthcare, transportation, and utilities, without busting your budget. Unlike big cities, we have an incredibly low cost of living here in Cincinnati. Leaving you money to dream and explore.”
And that’s what we want, right? We don’t want all of your disposable income just going towards housing. You want to have some money to dream, to explore, to go on a vacation, to save for retirement, to do some things with those dollars that you wanna do, not just pay for an overpriced home or apartment somewhere in California.
“The cost of living is 8% lower than the national average. (It’s the number 14 as we just read the number 11 most affordable place to live) The cost of how affordable is Cincinnati. The cost of living index is 84.6. The index is determined by the cost of housing, groceries, transportation, health, and utilities. But it’s simply your dollar goes a long way here. Overall Cincinnati’s cost of living is 8% lower than the national average. Living in Cincinnati is shockingly affordable when compared to other cities yet the quality of life here is just as good if not better.”
So a big stat here is the cost of housing is 24% lower than the national average. Housing is obviously a big part of your budget. And so having affordable housing here in Cincinnati goes such a long way to loosen up those restrictions that are hurting your wallet every month right now.
“Is Cincinnati housing affordable? absolutely! From the downtown business district to the suburbs, Cincinnati has quality neighborhoods to fit any budget. Whether you’re looking to rent an apartment or buy a house for a large family, Cincinnati has a neighborhood for you.”
And then there’s a link to kind of highlighting different neighborhoods within Cincinnati. You guys can check that out on your own time. One last thing here on affordability that I wanna show you guys, that’s really awesome on this website is there’s a cost of living calculator and you can compare it to whatever city you’re living in right now.
It’ll show you the cost of living of Cincinnati compared to the city you’re in. So if you’re looking at Chicago right now, in Cincinnati, the food is 7.45% lower, and housing is 51.6% lower than housing in Chicago. Transportation is 14.2, 9% lower, and healthcare is about the same.
Let’s look at Cincinnati compared to a few more cities versus Seattle. Food is 24% lower, housing is 61% lower, transportation is 23% lower, and healthcare is 19% lower than in Seattle Washington. What about Brooklyn, New York? Food is 23% cheaper here in Cincinnati. Housing is 74% more affordable. Transportation’s 6% lower healthcare, 4% lower. And how about California? Let’s take a look at Los Angeles. Then we’ll look at the bay area. In Los Angeles food is 14% lower. Housing is 64% lower transportation, 20% lower and healthcare 11% lower in Cincinnati versus Los Angeles. And now looking at San Francisco, which obviously is an expensive place to live, but the food is 26% lower, housing is 76% lower in Cincinnati than in San Francisco. Transportation is 28% lower and healthcare is 20% lower.
We live in a post COVID world. You can take your job with you. Many of you can take your job with you. You can work remotely. So why are you still spending dollars? Thousands of extra dollars a month for housing, transportation, food, for all these things in these more expensive cities. When you can move to a city like Cincinnati, that’s got great amenities. It’s a great place to live and you can take those dollars. If you wanna fly out of the ocean. If you wanna go to the mountains. If you wanna go to Vegas. If you wanna go to Florida, whatever you wanna go to Europe. If you wanna do that, you can because you’re saving money every single month on your overall budget.
We’ve looked at affordability. Now let’s look at lifestyle cause you don’t wanna move to a city
That sucks, right? What’s the point? Why move from California If you’re gonna go to somewhere in the middle of nowhere? Let’s show you a little bit about what Cincinnati has to offer from a lifestyle perspective. The same website, jumping over to their lifestyle page.
It says “In Cincinnati, you can build a life and live it too. On the banks of the Ohio River, where Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana meet is a place with a view and a vibe unmistakably its own. A kaleidoscope of tradition, reinvention, and celebration. Its pride is colorful, its energy contagious. Welcome to America’s queen city.”
Just a little bit about my lovely home here in Cincinnati. The median home price we saw is actually up to 2 45 now. So this is a few years old. The population’s around 2.2 million with more than 75 neighborhoods covering three states. Last year, the NAE Cities index ranked Cincinnati, the 18th, most immigrant-friendly out of the nation’s 100 largest cities.
Sports, this is where I get excited, cuz I love professional sports, particularly baseball and football. “Sports bring our region together from the Cincinnati Reds the first professional team in baseball” That’s a great history there, even though we’re absolutely terrible. And all the reds fans hate the ownership right now. And if you tweet “sell the team, Bob” you’re gonna find that hashtag to the Cincinnati Bengals, which in a bizarro world of understanding Bengals are like the best team in the NFL or one of them. And the Reds are like the worst. We don’t really understand fully how to comprehend that yet as a Cincinnati sports fan base. But I tell you what, with Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase, we are gonna enjoy the ride. You can come and enjoy it with us.
I did predict last year before the Bengals even made the playoffs that we were gonna go all the way. That Joe Burrow was gonna take us to the promised land. We were about one second away from shocking the world and winning the super bowl. I only we could block for one more second, Jamar chase had beaten Jaylen Ramsey.
So besides the Reds and the Bengals, we have the major league soccer FC Cincinnati team. For hockey fans, There’s the Cincinnati cyclones, the Kentucky Speedway, and the Western Southern tennis open, which is a great event. Professionals love coming here and playing the event here cuz the press is kind of low key and they all use it as a warmup for the US Open. It’s an awesome event. And you’ve got some big-time NCAA programs, the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University. If you move to Kentucky, you might become a big blue fan of the University of Kentucky or the University of Louisville.
Another one that you need to look at in finding the best cities to buy a house is the parks. “You can live outdoor life in the Cincinnati region in both urban and rural parks, featuring wooded hiking trails, rolling hills, formal gardens, and gorgeous architecture. Plus more than 116,000 acres of protected greenspace.”
I’ve done a few other videos of parks here like Ault park, uh, Smale park, and downtown Washington park.
The park system here is fantastic. So is the outdoor life in terms of trails, biking trails, and hiking. Also, you’re close to everything. The Midwest is the best exploration in Cincinnati. You’re within a short drive or flight of other major cities. And so if you look at this map on the site, you can see how close you are to Lexington, Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, even Chicago, DC, or not too long. If you wanna throw the kids in a van, which I do because I have five kids, we jump in the Sztanyo Vanyo and we drive down to Florida. It’s like 10, 12 hours. If you wanna get to the panhandle, if you wanna get down to Orlando or Tampa Bay area, that’s a little bit longer, maybe 14 hours, something like that. But everything is kind of attainable here. What’s kind of fun about Cincinnati is the topography sets up these different unique neighborhoods.
So make sure you watch this video where it talks about living like a local. You can get a sense of the eclectic neighborhoods here. Each with its own personality. You can explore what each place has to offer and find your place.
Rivers. Cincinnati is a river town through and through rivers are our history and they flow through our present day. Our region runs from where the Ohio River meets the licking river along the heart of downtown to where the little Miami hugs its scenic trail, a favorite of local cyclists. There are universities. As I mentioned before, you see Northern Kentucky University, Xavier, and Miami, also the art scene here is fantastic. Our art scene is a way of life with traditional and contemporary art museums, doting the region and professional orchestras, ballet companies and theaters programmed all year long. Plus the entire region is a living art gallery with hundreds of larger-than-life murals.
Commute’s gonna be easy no matter where you’re at since now, you’re probably about 30 minutes from everything or less. Traffic is just not that bad except for the Brent Spence Bridge, which I always talk about. But other than that, the commute’s always really easy around here.
Finding Your Home in Cincinnati with Team Sztanyo
So we’ve looked at affordability, we’ve talked about lifestyle, but the last question is, could you see yourself here for the long term? So guys, as someone who has lived here for 30 years, I moved here when I was six years old from Michigan. So I was a relo down to the Cincinnati area. I’ve grown up here. I went to college in Nashville but came back. I married my wife. Who’s from here. We’ve been married 17 years in December. We have five kids. I can’t imagine seeing myself living anywhere else.
This is where I’m raising my children. This is where I plan to be, to be around my grandchildren and God willing around my great-grandchildren as well. So we believe in Team Sztanyo, that home is where families grow strong together. I did another video. You guys can check that one out of why Cincinnati is a great place where you can put down roots. It’s a city where your family can grow strong. It’s a city where it’s diverse enough. It’s economically sound enough where you can be around your family for generations to come. That’s a vision for me. That’s super exciting, which is why I wanna stay here. So if you’re interested guys, go ahead and watch that video. Now we’ll put it up here for you to click. Thank you so much!