20 Great Cities With Cheap Real Estate

There’s good news if you’re currently on a fixed income and need to move or plan to retire on a tight budget. Across the United States are 20 cities that offer affordable real estate combined with a great quality of life.

Where are these cities? GOBankingRates looked at the 300 largest cities by population and sourced each city’s December 2023 average single family home value. The only cities we kept to showcase with cheap real estate were those with an average single family home value below 75% of the national average home value. Additional annual expenditure costs and livability index were also incorporated to rank cities in reverse order of preference with the top city listed last.

Here are 20 great cities with cheap real estate.

• Average home value: $248,421.02
• Livability index: 80
• Annual expenditure cost: $28,309.35

• Average home value: $209,300.49
• Livability index: 78
• Annual expenditure cost: $26,613.12

• Average home value: $202,214.81
• Livability index: 78
• Annual expenditure cost: $24,330.83

• Average home value: $252,609.15
• Livability index: 81
• Annual expenditure cost: $23,295.28

• Average home value: $227,185.96
• Livability index: 80
• Annual expenditure cost: $23,731.81

• Average home value: $186,107.87
• Livability index: 78
• Annual expenditure cost: $24,579.64

• Average home value: $196,559.15
• Livability index: 79
• Annual expenditure cost: $23,735.95

• Average home value: $214,195.13
• Livability index: 80
• Annual expenditure cost: $21,944.26

• Average home value: $252,702.36
• Livability index: 82
• Annual expenditure cost: $23,773.96

• Average home value: $173,795.87
• Livability index: 78
• Annual expenditure cost: $21,800.11

• Average home value: $170,630.87
• Livability index: 78
• Annual expenditure cost: $27,926.01

• Average home value: $254,048.80
• Livability index: 83
• Annual expenditure cost: $22,680.09

• Average home value: $244,862.07
• Livability index: 83
• Annual expenditure cost: $23,876.96

• Average home value: $216,889.03
• Livability index: 82
• Annual expenditure cost: $25,235.28

• Average home value: $137,964.52
• Livability index: 78
• Annual expenditure cost: $23,138.21

• Average home value: $189,651.23
• Livability index: 81
• Annual expenditure cost: $24,217.37

• Average home value: $187,997.68
• Livability index: 81
• Annual expenditure cost: $23,500.59

• Average home value: $145,462.42
• Livability index: 79
• Annual expenditure cost: $26,432.99

• Average home value: $215,527.94
• Livability score: 83
• Annual cost of living (excluding housing): $22,415.21

• Average home value: $118,149.50
• Livability index: 80
• Annual expenditure cost: $22,895.24

John Csiszar and Heather Taylor contributed to the reporting for this article. 

Methodology: For this study, GOBankingRates wanted to find great quality of life cities with cheap real estate. GOBankingRates started by finding the [1] top 300 cities by population as sourced from the US Census American Community Survey. For each city, the [2] December 2023 average single family home value was sourced from Zillow Home Value Index for all cities and nationally. Only the cities with an average single family home value below 0.75 times the national average home value for single family homes were kept to showcase the cities with cheap real estate. The [3] livability index was sourced from AreaVibes and all locations with a livability index at or below 75 were removed to showcase only the cities with a great quality of life. The average home value was scored, the livability index was scored, and both scores were combined and sorted to showcase the cities with great cities and cheap real estate. All data was collected and is up-to-date as-of February 7th, 2024.