{"id":341431,"date":"2026-07-15T22:26:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T22:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/341431\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T22:26:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T22:26:22","slug":"tampa-ranks-top-5-in-wallethubs-list-for-first-time-home-buyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/341431\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Ranks Top 5 in WalletHub’s List for First-Time Home Buyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Palm Bay ranked No. 1 in the United States as the best city for first-time home buyers. WalletHub<\/a> released their report Monday. The personal finance company examined 300 cities across 22 metrics measuring housing affordability, market attractiveness and quality of life.<\/p>\n

Florida claimed three of the top 10 cities. Tampa came in at No. 4. Orlando landed at No. 9.<\/p>\n

The Brevard County city earned top marks thanks to its plentiful housing inventory, boasting one of the nation’s highest rates of active home listings per capita, and new building permits. Palm Bay also posted the fourth-highest millennial homeownership rate among the 300 cities studied.<\/p>\n

Home values there increased 107% between 2018 and 2024. That’s the fourth-highest appreciation rate in the country. Property-crime rates stay low.<\/p>\n

“Buying a home for the first time is a very stressful and difficult process, especially when housing prices are through the roof and interest rates have risen sharply in the past few years,” said Chip Lupo, a WalletHub analyst, according to Florida Today<\/a>. “The best cities for first-time home buyers not only are affordable, both in terms of buying a house and living there afterward, but they also have a lot of housing choices as well as low crime rates and good schools.”<\/p>\n

Surprise, Arizona, and Gilbert, Arizona, rounded out the top three spots. Surprise ranked second with a strong supply of new homes and the 10th-lowest violent crime rate. Gilbert stood out for its low real estate tax rate and strong pace of new residential construction.<\/p>\n

First-time purchasers now make up just 21% of the market \u2014 the lowest share since the National Association of Realtors began tracking in 1981. Before 2008, they accounted for about 40% of home sales.<\/p>\n

The median age of first-time buyers has climbed to a record 40, up from the late 20s in the 1980s. High rents and student loan debt make saving for a down payment difficult.<\/p>\n

Down payments reached levels not seen in decades. The median down payment among all buyers was 19% in 2025, with 10% for first-time buyers and 23% for repeat buyers.<\/p>\n

Florida cities struggled with affordability, though. Jacksonville ranked highest among Florida locations at No. 113 out of 300 for affordability. Palm Bay came in at No. 118 on that metric.<\/p>\n

Tampa topped the list for large cities, while Orlando came in second. Among small cities, Palm Bay led the rankings.<\/p>\n

Twenty-six Florida cities appeared in the overall rankings. Cape Coral landed at No. 11. Boca Raton came in at No. 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Palm Bay ranked No. 1 in the United States as the best city for first-time home buyers. WalletHub…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-341431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}