The prospect of buying your first home is both exciting and daunting, and those dipping their toes into the real estate market for the first time may not know exactly what to consider before settling down and planting roots.
Of course, one major consideration when purchasing a home is the cost and availability of homeowners insurance. According to Bankrate, the states where homeowners see the highest average insurance premiums as of August 2025 are:
- Nebraska: $6,366 per year
- Louisiana: $6,184 per year
- Florida: $5,728 per year
- Oklahoma: $4,623 per year
- Kansas: $4,414 per year
Recently, WalletHub compared 300 cities of varying sizes across the U.S. to determine which offered the best environments for folks purchasing their first home. These cities were ranked based on affordability, the local real estate market and the residents' quality of life using data points including: housing affordability, cost of homeowners insurance, active real estate listings per capita, the area’s foreclosure rate, local weather, the quality of school systems, driver-friendliness, crime rates and the area’s job market.
The seven cities that ranked lowest for first-time home buyers according to WalletHub’s research were all in California: Berkley, Santa Monica, Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and Costa Mesa. Rounding out the bottom ten cities were Anchorage, Alaska; New Orleans, Louisiana; and San Mateo, California.
In the slideshow above, we’ll look at the five cities WalletHub determined to be the best prospects for first-time home buyers in 2025.
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