Northwest Arkansas tops the nation when it comes to affordability, a new ranking published by U.S. News & World Report shows.
The magazine’s real estate section put Northwest Arkansas in the No. 1 spot in its list of 20 Best Affordable Places to Live in the U.S.
Regions across Middle America were right behind Northwest Arkansas, including Des Moines (No. 2), Baton Rouge (No. 3), Little Rock (No. 4) and Indianapolis (No. 5).
Like many other publications, the magazine lists Fayetteville as the recipient of the distinction because its the first city listed for the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers Metropolitan Statistical Area, but the statistics used to determine the rankings were regional. Factors to determine which regions are most affordable included such things as housing prices, household salaries and the percentage of families’ income spent on living expenses.
U.S. News & World Report has placed Northwest Arkansas among the very best places twice in 2016. In February, the publication’s Best Places to Live in 2016 list ranked Northwest Arkansas at No. 3, right behind top-ranked Denver and Austin.
