Pittsburgh may be the land of opportunity for first-time homebuyers, providing a silver lining at a time when housing prices nationwide fall out of reach for many people.
The Pennsylvania metropolitan area ranked at the top of American Enterprise Institute's list of the 10 most affordable communities in the country.
Pittsburgh presents the most opportunities for first-time homebuyers, given that its median household income is enough to cover the median residential sales price of $240,000, according to the Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan nonprofit and research institution. The median household income is $66,219 per year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
AEI compared 6 million first-time homebuyer sales from 2013 to 2024 among the 60 most populated U.S. metropolitan areas to determine its ranking.
The findings provide good news at a time when the typical age of a first-time homebuyer is 40 years old, nearly double what it was in the 1980s.
"Pittsburgh has a substantial stock of affordable housing," said Edward Pinto, AEI's senior fellow and director of the organization's housing center, adding that its median sales prices are "affordable to a wide range of middle- and working-class occupations."
Here are the top 10 metros for affordability — and the top 10 least affordable, according to the institute:
| Rank | Most affordable | Rank | Least affordable | |
| 1. | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | 51. | Denver, Colorado | |
| 2. | Cleveland, Ohio | 52. | Boston, Massachusetts | |
| 3. | Oklahoma City, Oklahoma | 53. | Las Vegas, Nevada | |
| 4. | Detroit, Michigan | 54. | Boise City, Idaho | |
| 5. | Omaha, Nebraska | 55. | Seattle, Washington | |
| 6. | St. Louis, Missouri | 56. | San Diego, California | |
| 7. | New Orleans, Louisiana | 57. | Los Angeles, California | |
| 8. | Cincinnati, Ohio | 58. | San Francisco, California | |
| 9. | Milwaukee, Wisconsin | 59. | Salt Lake City, Utah | |
| 10. | Birmingham, Alabama | 60. | San Jose, California |
Source: American Enterprise Institute