If you're hunting for a real estate bargain, look no further: Here are cities where the typical home costs less than $82,000.
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The nation's cheapest major housing market is the area in and around Youngstown, Ohio.
There, the median home price barely breaks $55,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. We're not talking about hovels in slums; these are well-kept homes in nice suburban or city settings priced at levels to make consumers in pricey coastal markets ache with envy.
Here are the nation's five cheapest housing markets:
No. 1 - Youngstown, Ohio
Median price: $55,400
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| A Youngstown mansion costs just $150,000. Photo: Re/Max Valley Real Estate |
Want something even nicer? There is a seven bedroom, 4,800 square foot home -- 19 rooms total -- well kept and in the historic district on the market for $150,000. That's not a misprint.
Take your time house hunting: That could save you some dough. Fiserv, the provider of real estate information and analysis, is forecasting a further home price decline in 2011 totaling nearly 12% for the year.
No. 2 - Lansing, Michigan
Median price: $64,400
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| A four-bedroom house in Lansing can cost under $65,000. Photo: Coldwell Banker Hubbell Briarwood |
Charming ranch houses and bungalows can be had for less than $60,000 in this, the state capital located in the heart of the lower peninsular.
Lansing has been battered both by the automotive industry decline -- there are several plants in the metro area -- and the state budget crisis, which has resulted in lay-offs of state workers. The job losses mean that many homeowners have missed mortgage payments -- Lansing had the 38th highest foreclosure rate in the nation during the first three months of 2011.
That has put many repossessed homes on the market and these sell at deep discounts to conventional sales. Price drops are expected to last through much of 2011 before a modest rebound takes hold next year, according to Fiserv.
No. 3 - Toledo, Ohio
Median price: $64,900
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| Just $54,900 buys a three-bedroom house in Toledo. Photo: Coldwell Banker Haynes Real Estate |
There are still vestiges of this city's heavily industrial past with auto plants building Jeeps and General Motors products. There are fewer of these high-paying factory jobs, however, as many plants have closed and the others have reduced their workforce through automation.
As a result, population growth in the metro area has almost stalled, rising only about 2% during the 2000s. The central city has shrunk in each of the past four decades, losing about a quarter of its residents in the process.
With growth so stagnant, there's a large stock of existing homes with many on the market, which has kept a lid on prices. They will continue to fall most of 2011 before beginning a modest upturn next year.
No. 4 - South Bend, Ind.
Median price: $68,700
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| At $75,000, this three-bedroom house in South Bend is near the area norm. Photo: Re/Max Valley Real Estate |
Sports fans know this town on the Indiana-Michigan border as the home of the University of Notre Dame, but it also has been a small industrial powerhouse, home to heavy industries like automaker Studebaker in the past.
The area suffered during the recession with many residents out of work, but hiring picked up over the past 12 months and the unemployment rate here is now just slightly above the national average.
The median price for homes sold in the metro area has dropped about 20% over the past three years and there are some prime properties available at very attractive terms. A three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,200 square-foot home in a tidy community near a golf course south of downtown is on the market for just $69,900.
No. 5 - Akron, Ohio
Median price: $74,900
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| This well-kept, three-bedroom house costs less than $75,000 in Akron. Photo: Howard Hanna- Stow |
As the "Rubber Capital of the World," Akron rode the explosion in auto manufacturing early in the 20th century to a "boomtown" level, with the core city tripling its population from 1910 to 1920. Rubber still represents a big part of the economy with Goodyear headquartered there and Polymer Valley, a center of plastics manufacturing, centered there.
Like many Rust-Belt industrial areas, Akron was buffeted by the recession and the decline in the auto industry; unemployment jumped into double digits. Hiring has picked up lately and unemployment now roughly mirrors the national rate.
LeBron James was not the only Akron native to leave his hometown: The central city has lost population every decade since 1960. The number of residents in the surrounding suburbs has grown slowly.That has left a lot of underused real estate and home prices reflect the weak demand. A three-bedroom, two-bath in Goodyear Heights is for sale for just over the area's median home price of $74,900.
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