First-time home buyers: These are the best spots to move

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Looking for the best place to buy your first home?

• Tampa, Florida, was recently named the best place for first-time home buyers, taking into account housing inventory, home price, and competition levels.
• Indianapolis has the second spot on the list, and the remaining top five are all in the south: Houston, Orlando, and San Antonio.
• A separate report recently evaluated states for health care, education, economy, and infrastructure, and ranked Iowa as the top state for new home buyers.

Tampa takes tops

Love sunshine and oranges? Ready to buy your first home? Then you might want to pack your bags and head to Tampa, Florida. According to a new ranking, it’s the No. 1 spot in the nation for first-time home buyers.

Primed for first-time buyers

A new ranking names Tampa as the best place for first-time home buyers, taking into account its housing inventory, median home price and competition levels.

Tampa came in tops, with a median value of $195K, sluggish price growth of just 4.1 percent and an inventory of nearly 14,000 homes.

First-time home buyers’ guide: The basics of a mortgage

Indianapolis claimed the No. 2. Spot, with a home value of $143,200, 6,400 homes up for sale and meager projected population growth of 0.7 percent.

The remaining top five cities all hailed from the south: Houston, Orlando and San Antonio took third, fourth and fifth, respectively. Likely an effect of Hurricane Harvey, Houston boasts the highest current inventory, with 26,275 homes on the market.

Selecting the right state

If these top cities aren’t calling your name, U.S. News and World Report recently ranked the nation’s top states in terms of health care, education, economy, infrastructure and other factors.

Coming out on top was Iowa, which ranked first in infrastructure, third in health care, fourth in opportunity and fifth in education. Minnesota, Utah, North Dakota and New Hampshire rounded out the top five.

Do some states have cheaper mortgage rates?

At the bottom of the list were Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, West Virginia and Alabama. Louisiana ranked dead-last in opportunity, while Mississippi was the worst in the nation for health care.

Get today’s mortgage rates

Are you considering buying your first home in one of these in-demand cities or states? Shop around and see what mortgage rates you qualify for today.