These Cities Have the Cheapest Homes in America

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Oct 21, 6:53AM EDT · Published Oct 20, 11:12AM EDT

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American home prices rose to an all-time high in July.
West Coast cities were the most costly, but Rochester was the cheapest.
Also: Dividend legends to hold forever.

According to the carefully followed S&P CoreLogic Case Shiller Home Price Index, American prices rose 5.5% in July, compared to July last year, putting them at an all-time high. West Coast cities, led by Los Angeles and San Diego, were costly. They rose nationwide to some extent because people with 3% mortgages do not want to sell their homes when current mortgages can carry interest rates as high as 7%.

According to Realtor.com, some markets are still affordable compared to national numbers. A home’s median sale price in the United States is $425,000. In several markets, home prices are over $100,000 cheaper based on the same yardstick.

Rochester is among the markets with the lowest median price per home for sales, $282,500. This is even though home values rose 13% year over year in September, which was due to low inventory.

Home prices may be low because Rochester is among America’s most troubled cities. It has a high poverty rate, which is why, among other things, it is ranked number 43 on WalletHub’s “Neediest Cities.”

Detroit is another market with very inexpensive homes. According to Realtor.com, a home’s median sale price is $277,000. However, it ranks number one on the WalletHub list.

Although homes may be very cheap in several American metros, those cities tend to be troubled and have high poverty levels.

The Income You Need to Comfortably Afford the Median-Priced Home in America

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.