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Financial adviser ranks Indianapolis 8th best for affordable home buying

Indianapolis ranks top in home affordability

News 8's Sierra Hignite reports.

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Buying a home can be stressful especially when you are shopping in a big-city market with big-city price tags.

By comparing closing costs, real estate taxes, home insurance prices and mortgage rates to average household income, Smart Asset ranks Indianapolis as the eighth-most-affordable big city to live. The New York City-based company provides personal finance advice on the web.

Financial adviser ranks Indianapolis 8th best for affordable home buying

Financial adviser ranks Indianapolis 8th best for affordable home buying

“My husband and I have purchased a house and we have friends that have not (bought a house) at the same age or even older than us in those larger cities. So, housing is definitely affordable both in Indianapolis and surrounding areas,” Indianapolis resident Alex Bova said.

The study compared cities that have a population of at last 200,000. The city’s population at 2018 was estimated at 867,125.

Indianapolis resident Dan Mochel said, when he talks with friends from Chicago, “The first comment I always get is they’re like ‘You’re paying how much to live downtown?’ and I’m like ‘Yeah.’ So, it’s probably a third of what they pay to live downtown Chicago compared to downtown Indy.”

 “I paid $15,000 for a one-bedroom in Brooklyn, so I wasn’t even in Manhattan. Now I live in downtown Indianapolis and I pay a lot less than that,” said Lexi Ochowa, who grew up in New York.

People who have lived in other big cities on the list said they chose Indianapolis based on more than just the bottom line.

“Your quality of life is just so much higher, and what you can do and the standard of living you can have here is so much higher than you can have in other cities, and you don’t really know what that’s like until you experience it,” Ochowa said.

MIBOR Realtor Association said a diverse group of buyers has created a large demand for homes in Indianapolis.

“Well, we have a mix of folks that are trying to move here and looking for homes, but what we know from our recent study is that we have a lot of folks who aren’t currently homeowners that desire to be,” said Chris Pryor, vice president of government and community relations with the association.

To stay at the top of that list, Pryor said, Indianapolis will need to continue to evolve in what kind of houses are put on the market.

“We need to make sure we have the appropriate products to make that available to them,” Pryor said.