MA Has 6 Of The WORST American Cities For First-Time Home Buyers

Here’s an interesting fact, Berkshire County friends and neighbors: Slightly over a quarter of home purchases in 2022 were made by first-time home buyers. As many of you are well aware, buying (or selling, for that matter) a home can be a tricky business.

Aligning yourself with an intelligent, well-informed real estate agent should be step #1 and that will surely make the process a whole lot easier. If you’re looking to make your first home purchase, congratulations and good luck!

Recently, the personal finance pros at WalletHub released its report on 2023’s Best & Worst Cities for First-Time Home Buyers. Needless to say, I was quite surprised by some of the rankings.

First, to come up with their findings, WalletHub compared 300 American cities in 22 various metrics including property-crime rate, cost of living, home energy costs, housing affordability, etc.

NINE Massachusetts cities of varying sizes made the rankings, some cities faring much better than others. In the end, Massachusetts had 6 cities landing in the bottom tier (between 200-300) of the rankings.

But before we get to that, this is for those Massachusetts residents planning on moving to another state. Here are WalletHub’s top 10 rankings for 2023’s Best Cities for First-Time Home Buyers:

Palm Bay, FL
Cape Coral, FL
Tampa, FL
Port St. Lucie, FL
Orlando, FL
Surprise, AZ
Gilbert, AZ
Boise, ID
Chesapeake, VA
Henderson, NV

Hmmm…according to that, I would say one particular state seems to be a great locale for purchasing that first home. Here are the top 5 rankings for 2023’s Worst Cities for First-Time Home Buyers, according to WalletHub’s study:

Berkeley, CA
Santa Monica, CA
Anchorage, AK
Santa Barbara, CA
Los Angeles, CA

Boy, California not getting much love there, huh? And speaking of “no love”, here are the six Massachusetts cities (and where they ranked) that are considered some of the worst cities for first-time home buyers:

Cambridge (#265)
Boston (#252)
Fall River (#220)
Quincy (#217)
Lynn (#211)
New Bedford (#205)

A few Massachusetts cities did perform slightly better and landed somewhat higher in the rankings including Springfield. To check out the full list, visit WalletHub’s website here. And thanks, WalletHub, for another great study!

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Gallery Credit: Eliza Siegel

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Every beach town has its share of pluses and minuses, which got us thinking about what makes a beach town the best one to live in. To find out, Stacker consulted data from WalletHub, released June 17, 2020, that compares U.S. beach towns. Ratings are based on six categories: affordability, weather, safety, economy, education and health, and quality of life. The cities ranged in population from 10,000 to 150,000, but they had to have at least one local beach listed on TripAdvisor. Read the full methodology here. From those rankings, we selected the top 50. Readers who live in California and Florida will be unsurprised to learn that many of towns featured here are in one of those two states.

Keep reading to see if your favorite beach town made the cut.

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Just saying the names of these towns immediately conjures up images of grand mansions, luxury cars, and ritzy restaurants. Read on to see which town in your home state took the title of the richest location and which place had the highest median income in the country. Who knows—your hometown might even be on this list.

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