Denver ranks as a more challenging housing market than New York City and San Francisco in LendingTree's new list of the best and worst cities for first-time homebuyers in 2018.
While Denver's tight inventory and resulting high home prices make it one of the worst metros on the site's list, Little Rock, Arkansas ranked as the best city for first-time homebuyers this year. Little Rock homes have an average down payment of $24,896, 12 percent of a home's price, while in Denver, the average down payment would be 18 percent of the home's price, $66,806, per Realtor.com.
LendingTree researchers ranked the 100 largest U.S. cities not only by the price of homes, but also by other criteria such as the average down payment, the percentage of buyers who have a credit score below 680, and the number of homes sold that the median-income family can afford.
