Zillow Just Named This City the Best Market for First-Time Homebuyers

If one of your life goals is owning a home of your own, you might be trying to stash a bit of down payment money. But if you’re comparing your nest egg to the real estate listings in your area and notice things seem too spendy, you may want to consider where else you could afford that first house.

Real estate resource Zillow provided just that, with its ranking of the best U.S. cities for first-time buyers. Here are the top ten:

1. Jacksonville
2. Birmingham
3. San Antonio
4. Atlanta
5. Houston
6. St. Louis
7. Detroit
8. Raleigh
9. Baltimore
10. Louisville

How did Zillow determine the best markets for first-time homebuyers?

According to Zillow, the top markets “offer a more workable balance of lower rent burdens, more homes within budget and less anticipated competition from other first-time buyers.” So, it’s not just about how much homes cost, but also how affordable the city is to live in while buyers save up. Zillow also factored in the price of homes on the market when compared with a city’s median household income, as well as the number of such affordable listings per 100 renter households.

Why is Jacksonville, Florida ranked as the best market for first-time homebuyers?

Population also played a major role in determining where younger adults buying their first house might want to put down roots. For that reason, Zillow also took into account the percentage of a city’s residents falling between the ages of 29 and 43, “to measure a market's appeal to buyers looking to build a community among their peers.”

So, while Jacksonville didn’t top any of the individual categories — cheapest rent, most affordable listings, highest inventory-to-renter ratio or youngest-skewing population — all told, its combined score placed it at the top of the heap.

Where are other good markets for first-time homebuyers?

Sun Belt cities seem to be friendly for first-time homebuyers. Only a pair of Midwest outliers (St. Louis and Detroit), along with Baltimore and Louisville, broke into Zillow's top ten list — the rest are in the South.

However, while the Southern United States has seen inventory increase after recent periods of high demand, it’s not the only region of the country offering opportunities for buyers shopping on the lower end of the home value spectrum. Zillow says the Midwest offers “relative affordability, allowing first-time buyers to more easily compete with deeper-pocketed repeat buyers.” Earlier this year it ranked Indianapolis as its most buyer-friendly market of 2026 — a report that projected gains in home values as an investment. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jacksonville landed on that list as well, at #4, and there was other overlap in cities throughout the Southeast.

"First-time buyers are finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel," Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow, said. "Affordability is still a challenge, but rising incomes, stabilizing prices and improving inventory are creating real opportunities in parts of the country."

To see how all 50 cities analyzed in this report fared in each column, you can read Zillow’s full ranking.