When it comes to deciding where to live (if you have the luxury to decide), you probably are drawn to a few core features: reasonable home prices, low crime rates and easy access to essentials like healthcare and groceries. You may be especially drawn to these features if you have a family.
But when deciding, you must know where to look. Many big and well-known cities don’t check off all these boxes. Housing is often super expensive and low crime rates are hard to come by in a bustling metro. It’s useful to expand your search and consider looking into affordable cities that may, until now, be totally unfamiliar. You might just find a nice life for a lot less money than you’d find in a more popular place.
Methodology: For this study, GOBankingRates analyzed cities with a small population and high livability to find cheap places to live that you may not have heard of before. First, GOBankingRates found the highest livability cities as sourced from AreaVibes.com. Each city had to have a livability index of at least 85, representing the highest quality of life locations. For each location, a number of factors were found including; total population, population ages 65 and over, total households, and household median income all sourced from the U.S. Census American Community Survey. Using this data, the percentage of the population ages 65 and over can be calculated. The cost of living indexes were sourced from Sperlings BestPlaces and include the grocery, healthcare, housing, utilities, transportation and miscellaneous cost of living indexes. Using the cost of living indexes and the national average expenditure costs, as sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, the expenditure cost for each location can be calculated. The average single-family home value was sourced from Zillow Home Value Index for September 2024. Using the average single-family home value, assuming a 10% down payment, and using the national average 30-year fixed mortgage rate, as sourced from the Federal Reserve Economic Data, the average mortgage can be calculated. The average mortgage and expenditure costs can be used to calculate the total cost of living. To qualify for this study the city had to have a livability of at least 85 and a population of under 15,000. The cities were sorted to show the cheapest cost of living within these high livability locations, representing the cheapest places to live with a high quality of life that you may not have heard of before. All data was collected on and is up to date as of Oct. 15, 2024.
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