selling at or below list price<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe second- and third-best cities for homebuyers were Palm Coast, Fla., and Surprise, Ariz.,, which offer a combination of affordability and lower competition. Other areas that cracked the top 10 places to buy include Sugar Land, Texas (sixth), Centennial, Colo. (ninth) and Carmel, Ind. (10th).<\/p>\n
None of this is to say living in Arizona or Indiana is preferable to living in places like the Bay Area, Edens noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cBay Area cities rank poorly, not because people don\u2019t want to live there, but because they\u2019re some of the hardest places to buy a home,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPrices are extremely high relative to income, inventory is limited, and competition is intense \u2014 and those are the exact conditions that make a market challenging for buyers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The study evaluated 272 cities based on housing market competitiveness, affordability, home size and livability, with affordability and competition accounting for the majority of each city\u2019s score.<\/p>\n
High per-square-foot prices further squeeze buyers, particularly in Silicon Valley cities.<\/p>\n
Southern California cities Burbank, Inglewood and Pasadena (pictured) finished sixth-, seventh- and 10th-worst in the rankings. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIn cities like Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, prices per square foot exceed $1,000, so even smaller homes come with a very high price tag,\u201d Edens said.<\/p>\n
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At the same time, a shortage of available homes has created fierce competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Santa Clara, almost 65% of homes are selling above the asking price,\u201d Edens said.<\/p>\n
For those looking for a to buy a home and stay in California, a recent a study identified Fresno as one of the best bangs for the buck<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buying a home is hell in California. A recent report by Consumer Affairs found the Golden State doesn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,3665,234,11853,3586],"class_list":{"0":"post-261675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-homeowners","12":"tag-prices","13":"tag-residential-real-estate","14":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}