California's 10 Most Affordable Cities: Report

LOS ANGELES, CA — When the California Dream costs a mountain of debt and 60-hour work-weeks, it can start to seem more like a nightmare. Fortunately, there are still parts of the Golden State that qualify as affordable, according to a new study of the Most Affordable Places to Live in California.

The consumer financial data company SmartAsset concluded that California City, appropriately enough, is the most affordable place to own a home in all of California. The company crunched the numbers on taxes, homeowners’ insurance, and home costs relative to the local median income to come up with the ten most affordable places to buy a home in the Golden State. Not surprisingly, none of the ten most affordable cities in California are coastal or all that close to a major metropolitan area.

However, the pandemic changed the way Americans think about where to live, and the nation saw a mass migration of remote workers looking for space to spread out during the pandemic without busting the budget.

According to a Bankrate/YouGov poll, more than 10 percent of Americans moved during the pandemic — mostly to smaller and less dense cities. Roughly a quarter of those who moved said they made their decision because of the pandemic.

Though the Golden State has a reputation for being one of the least affordable states in the nation, there are still pockets of the state where a person can own a home without spending more than a quarter of their income on housing. However, such places are vanishing. In 2021, a WalletHub study ranked California as the most expensive state. A study by SmartAsset ranked the top 11 cities where residents spend the most on housing, and more than half of those cities are in California.

“They include Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Beach, Oakland, San Jose and Sacramento,” SmartAsset concluded. “Of those six cities, San Jose has the highest median monthly housing costs (about $2,300) and Los Angeles has the highest housing costs as a percentage of income (more than 30%).”

Still, SmartAsset managed to find ten smaller cities where the California Dream meets affordability. These are places where homeownership costs were lowest relative to the median income in each location. California City came in as the Golden State’s most affordable place to live thanks to a low average annual mortgage payment of just over $5,000. With a median income of $49,000, the average California City resident could easily afford to buy a home.

Not surprisingly, the further you get from the Bay Area, the more affordable housing becomes. SmartAsset's list of affordable cities are largely in Southern California or the San Joaquin Valley. Average annual mortgage payments in the San Francisco Bay area were twice the state average.

According to SmartAsset, the top 10 most affordable cities in California are:

1. California City
2. Madera Acres
3. Imperial
4. Ridgecrest
5. Coalinga
6. Barstow
7. Homeland
8. Spring Valley Lake
9. Orosi
10. Taft

The full report, including the methodology, key findings and additional infographics, can be found here.