Back to School: Best Metros for Teachers to Buy a Home

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Ah, the elementary school teacher’s life. All those adorable little kids waiting to be molded into future leaders and geniuses! The bell rings at 2:30 p.m. (or earlier), you have summers off, maybe you even get to snag a free apple or two … so what the heck are those unions all complaining about?

How about the helicopter parents. The hyperactive and/or overmedicated kids. The weird politics in the teachers lounge. The endless threat of budget cuts. And worst of all, the long overall hours for what adds up notoriously paltry pay—often making a home purchase in the same nice school districts where teachers work an increasingly Sisyphean task.

Indeed, public school teachers nationally earned about 17% less than their peers with similar education levels and experience last year, according to a recent study from the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, DC–based think tank. And those financial woes are only getting worse: Public school teachers made $30 less a week—or about $1,560 annually—than they did in 1996 when adjusted for inflation, according to the report. During the same period, median existing-home prices surged nearly 104%, according to National Association of Realtors® data.

So what is an educator who wants to become a homeowner do? For starters, these teachers may want to consider moving. And we’re here to help!

The education-loving data team at realtor.com® looked at the median salaries of elementary school teachers around the nation using U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics information. (We looked only at elementary school teachers due to how BLS broke down the data into different categories.) We then figured out the most affordable metropolitan markets for them—assuming they had already amassed the 20% down payment. The rankings also factored in the homeowners insurance rates and local taxes in those markets. To give a good selection of choices from across the country, we chose no more than one top metro in any state.

“We’ve got places where a teacher, who is a key part of the local community, can become a homeowner,” says our chief economist, Jonathan Smoke. But there are also a long list of places “where a teacher faces a challenge of being able to own a home in the market where they teach. In order to be able to afford it, they’re going to need another income … or they’re going to have to live somewhere else and commute.”

So where can elementary school teachers get the most bang for the buck?

Top 10 metros for elementary school teachers who want to buy a home

1. Fairbanks, AK

2. Kokomo, IN

3. Weirton, WV

4. Hinesville, GA

5. Cumberland, MD

6. Rockford, IL

7. El Centro, CA

8. Saginaw, MI

9. Mansfield, OH

10. Johnstown, PA

Fairbanks, AK, is the most affordable metro for elementary school teachers.

Robert Lype/iStock

Yes, you read that right. Fairbanks, Alaska’s second-largest city, topped the list as the best place for teachers to become homeowners.

Educators in the rural metro could afford about 97% of the properties on the market on their annual salaries. The median list price for residences in the city is just $102,000, according to realtor.com.

“It’s a great place to raise your children,” says Fairbanks Realtor® Wes Madden of Madden Real Estate. “We’re devoid of a lot of the distractions you can find elsewhere.”

The main industries in the area are oil and gas, mining, and the military with Fort Wainwright and the Eielson Air Force Base.

There are downsides, of course. In addition to very likely being thousands of miles from everything and everyone you’ve ever known, the city can get fewer than four hours of daylight in the winter. And temperatures can plummet down to more than 40 degrees below zero. Brrr!!

In addition, the 34 public schools in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District received only six out of 10 stars on GreatSchools.org. The schools were ranked on their test scores.

But teachers don’t have to move all the way to Alaska to score a deal. Elementary school educators in Kokomo, IN, the second city on the list, can afford roughly 91% of the homes on the market in the blue-collar, factory town. The median list price in Kokomo, about an hour outside of the city of Indianapolis, is just $69,000, according to realtor.com.

“It’s small-town living,” says Gina Key, a local Realtor at the Hardie Group. “We’re a lot more affordable than pretty much anywhere else in the country to live.”

Now, residents may get what they pay for as the city’s public school system received only four out of 10 stars on GreatSchools.org. The area also suffered periods of high unemployment over the past 10 years. But the percentage of residents without jobs is now down to 4.8% as of June, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

OK, so what’s the worst place to attempt becoming a homeowner on a teacher’s salary? Look nor further than San Jose, CA, in the heart of booming Silicon Valley—just 1% of the elementary educators there can afford to buy a home (unless they run a lucrative tech startup on the side, or married someone who did). The median list price of a home in the city limits is $750,000, according to realtor.com.

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