A new analysis of the “Best Real Estate Markets” in 2024 does not include any location in Michigan in the top 50.
The personal finance website WalletHub compared 300 cities of varying sizes across 17 key indicators of housing market attractiveness and economic strength to determine the best local real estate markets in the U.S.
The rankings, released Wednesday, take into consideration home value forecasts, median home price appreciation, days on the market, underwater mortgages, ratio of rent price to sale price, foreclosure rate, vacancy rates, unemployment, job growth, credit scores, maintenance affordability and other metrics from the federal government, real estate researchers, trade groups and economics studies.
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“Current home prices are extremely important, but there’s much more that you need to look at when determining the health of a city’s real estate market,” WalletHub analyst Cassandra Happe said. “Factors like the cost of living, the potential for the value of homes to increase, the availability of recently built homes and the quality of the city’s job market are all important to consider in conjunction with asking prices and interest rates.
“The best cities may not always be the cheapest, but they offer excellent housing options and long-term stability,” she said.
Researchers issued each city an overall rank, and individual ranks for real estate market, and affordability and economic environment.
No Michigan cities finished in the top 50 in any of those rankings.
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Grand Rapids ranked the highest among Michigan cities at 53rd overall, with ranks of 57th for real estate market, and 113th for affordability and economic development.
The next closest was Sterling Heights in 75th, with ranks of 93rd for the market, and 54th for affordability.
Other Michigan cities on the list included Ann Arbor in 102nd, Dearborn ranked 131st, Livonia in 150th, Warren at 155, Lansing at 171, and Detroit at 256, and Flint at 262.
A breakdown of some of the metrics shows Livonia has the fifth lowest number of median days houses are on the market, Ann Arbor tied for third for the lowest mortgage delinquency rate, and Flint and Detroit had the lowest home prices as a percentage of income, in first and second, respectively.
Detroit also had the fourth highest maintenance costs as a percentage of income, while Flint had the highest.
Researchers separated the overall ranking into rankings by city size, yet no Michigan cities cracked the top 20 for small, midsize or large cities. Michigan’s highest ranked large city, defined as more than 300,000 residents, is Detroit, which ranked 58th out of 68. It was also the only large Michigan city on the list.
For midsize Michigan cities with populations between 150,000 and 300,000 residents, Grand Rapids ranked highest in 25th. It was also the only midsize Michigan city ranked.
Sterling Heights ranked 23rd among small cities with under 150,000 residents, followed by Ann Arbor in 32nd, Dearborn in 44th, Livonia in 54th, Warren in 56th, Lansing in 69th, and Flint in 119th.
The rankings are among the latest to illustrate how Democratic policies from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her allies in the Democratic controlled legislature have turned out for Michiganders.
Other research has found Michiganders are “the most financially distressed people in the country,” the state has more underprivileged children than most in the Midwest, Michigan ranks 47th out of 50 states for quality of life, the unemployment rate is increasing faster than the national average, folks are fleeing cities across the state, roads are crumbling faster than agencies can fix them, and 41% of residents are living paycheck to paycheck.
In terms of real estate, plans from the Whitmer administration to increase taxes on real estate transfers are only expected to make matters worse.
The Michigan State Housing Development Authority is considering an increase in the current .75% rate to .85%, prompting backlash from the real estate industry, Republican lawmakers, and free market think tanks who are warning of the consequences.
The plan, according to the MSHDA, is aimed at raising $50 million the authority can pump into affordable housing.
“Michigan’s real estate industry is trying to head off a plan floated by a state authority to raise taxes on home sales in the name of making housing more affordable,” The Detroit News noted in a March editorial. “If the idea sounds contradictory, that’s because it is.”
“But it fits into the Whitmer administration’s agenda to raise a variety of taxes to generate revenue for new spending programs, instead of reprioritizing existing resources,” the editorial read.