This Is The Cheapest Place In CT To Buy A House, Study Says

CONNECTICUT — Could you live in Hartford, Connecticut's capital city?

Would your answer change if moving to Hartford meant you could shave tens of thousands of dollars off the price of a home?

The personal finance website GOBankingRates used data from the Zillow Home Value Index and U.S. Census Bureau population data to find the places in all 50 states where houses are a steal.

According to Zillow, the average single-family home in the United States is valued at about $367,711. Compare that to $261,785 in Hartford.

Hartford is a bit of an outlier in the finance site's data, inasmuch as residents of other states are likely to have at least heard of it. The same can't be said of most of the other players, such as War, West Virginia, and Lemmon, South Dakota.

It's easy to see how Hartford bends the averages to its will. Just $34,900 will score you a 2-bedroom condo on Capen Street, and a 3-bed, 2-bath house on Guilford Street is going for $169,900, according to Zillow.com. A 6-bed, 3-bath home on Newton Street recently sold for a startling $950, but we're sure there's got to be a great story that goes along with that sale.

The houses may be cheap, but what’s the community of Hartford like? U.S. News ranked the city No. 828 on its list of Best Places to Live and No. 149 in Best Places to Retire — neither standing not much of a compliment.

Life is just a little bit harder in Hartford than the rest of the country, according to U.S. News: The job market's worse than the national average, and unemployment is higher than the national average of 4.5 percent. The median household income in Hartford is $49,263, compared with the national median household income of $79,466.

The smallest place on the list is Brian Head, Utah. Originally known as Monument Peak, a town of 49 with a history rooted in exploration and logging. Also with populations under 100 are a pair of former mining towns often described as "living ghost towns:" Austin, Nevada, population 47, and Johannesburg, California, population 77.

Other specks on the map with populations under 500 include Bly, Oregon (population 123); Davidson, Oklahoma (159); Medicine Lake, Montana (190); Kitzmiller, Maryland (192); Lyon Mountain, New York (240); Drake North Dakota (245); Mystic, Iowa (257); Roxobel, North Carolina (347); Whiteface, Texas (390); Bowie, Arizona (399); Elmore, Minnesota (442); Pierce, Idaho (465); and Lind, Washington (491).