The housing market in our region can often be described as “out of control,” but a study done by a financial tech company looked at each state and came up with a list of the most affordable housing markets.
The study was done by the website Smartassset.com, and took into account five years’ worth of expenses that are part of owning a home — things like closing costs, homeowners insurance, property taxes, as well as the annual amount spent on mortgages. Then they took those five year costs as a proportion of the median incomes in those places.
With the high costs of housing in Northern Virginia, it may come as no surprise that you would have to drive a good ways out from D.C. to find anything on the list.
But it was a different story in Maryland.
Checking in at number one in Maryland was Chesapeake Ranch Estates, a small town on the southern tip of Calvert County just north of Solomons Island. Second is Riverside, Maryland, which is just south of Aberdeen in Harford County.
Most of the top ten was much closer to D.C.: Places like Poolesville, Marlboro Village, Rosaryville, Marton, Friendly, and Mitchellville.
You’ll have to trek farther out into Virginia if you want to land affordable housing. The closest two cities to make the top 10 in this study were Aquia Harbor, which came in at number seven, and King George, which ranked ninth.
Four of the 10 most affordable housing markets according to this list were in the Richmond area.
Number one was Covington, Virginia, which is located on Interstate 64 just a few miles east of the West Virginia border.
Nationally, the single most affordable housing market was found in Pecos, Texas, a town nestled in the panhandle south of New Mexico. In fact, three of the top five cites were found in that region.
The city closest to D.C. to make the top 10 was Shamokin, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town along I-81 between Harrisburg and Scranton.
