10 Best Housing Markets for First-Time Homebuyers

By Andrea V. Brambila

As a group, first-time homebuyers are a bellwether of the real estate industry and the economy as a whole.

"What helps a first-time homebuyer is having a job and a good income to buy a home -- having hope for the future," said Mark Fleming, chief economist for data aggregator CoreLogic.

In order to identify 10 markets that are likely to have a higher-than-average share of first-time buyers, Inman News requested data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on first-time homebuyers with loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration.

The following are the 10 most popular areas in the U.S. for these first-time buyers. Four of the markets are in California's Central Valley, three are in the South, two are divisions of the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metropolitan area in the Northeast, and one is in the Midwest.

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See also:
First-Time Homebuyer's Guide
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