15 Most Affordable U.S. Metro Areas: 2025

Americans looking for a new home, whether to buy or rent, have a wide variety of wish lists for their ideal residence. But what every household wants is a price it can afford. That's a high hurdle in many cities, according to a new report from Clever Real Estate, a St. Louis-based real estate company. Nationwide, rent prices have surged by a third from pre-pandemic levels, and the cost to purchase a home is up by at least 50% in many markets over the same period, according to the report. Clever Real Estate researchers ranked 100 of the most populous U.S. metropolitan areas to find the most affordable ones by weighting 14 factors for each metro, including home values, rent prices, household incomes, homeowners insurance costs and tax rates. They then determined each city's weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score. See the gallery for the 15 most affordable metro areas in the U.S., according to Clever.