Where’s the best place to buy a home? Wichita, according to two national reports

Carrie Rengers
·2 min read
2

If you’re looking to buy your first home in Wichita, congratulations. There’s apparently no better place to do it.

So says Zillow, which bills itself as “the most visited real estate website in the United States.”

The company named the top 10 affordable markets for first-time home buyers, and Wichita topped the list because “it’s among the top metros where people spend the smallest share of their income on rent and mortgage costs.”

“And it has a higher share of for-sale listings relative to active shoppers, which means more options and bargaining power for potential home buyers,” Zillow’s report said. “Wichita home shoppers can also find a number of deals popping up, with 22% of listings seeing a price cut in October.”

The RealtyHop blog also puts Wichita on top, but not only for first-time buyers.

“For the fourth month in a row, Wichita ranks as the most affordable city in the country,” said RealtyHop’s report. “Wichita became even more affordable for residents this month, as the median asking price for a home decreased from $149,900 to $145,000. An average household earning $59,861 annually will now only need to spend 16.36% of their income on homeownership costs.”

Wichita made another affordability list as well this week, though it did not rank as high.

Realtor.com’s 2023 forecast ranked the top 100 markets, and Wichita came in at No. 63.

“These markets are not only poised to see the strongest combined growth in home sales and listing prices in the coming year, but up to this point they have seen lower price increases, a relatively smaller affordability crunch than other markets across the U.S.,” said a release from Realtor.com.

So do these rankings jibe with what local experts say? Yes and no.

“It is very much true that Wichita is a very affordable place because our housing values are relatively low compared to other parts of the country,” said Stan Longhofer, director of the Center for Real Estate at Wichita State University.

However, he said, sometimes these and other kinds of rankings have uncertain methodology or they’re downright wrong.

For instance, RealtyHop bases its ranking off the premise that the median list price in Wichita is $145,000 when in fact, Longhofer said, last month it was $286,260.

“I will say that Zillow is better than most,” he said, noting that the company employs solid research economists.

However, Longhofer said, unlike the research coming out of universities such as WSU, “They are never going through the kind of careful, methodical thought process to check for accuracy to make sure the data are correct.”

“They are doing it to get media coverage so they can sell something.”

Longhofer said the reports are “kind of fun to look at when you get a high number . . . but don’t necessarily think they mean that much.”