On May 20, personal finance website WalletHub released a list of 300 U.S. cities ranked by housing affordability. Using 10 metrics — including average home price, typical income in the city, overall cost of living, taxes and the cost of maintenance — the site created an overall housing affordability score.
Source: WalletHub
Six Arizona cities landed in the list’s top 50, and two of them cracked the top 10. Surprise ranked fourth nationally and was the top-ranked city in Arizona. It also ranked as the second most affordable small city to buy a home in the country. (The study defines small cities as having 150,000 or fewer residents, though Surprise actually comes in just above that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.)
Here are all the Arizona cities that made the top 50.
1. Surprise
National rank: 4th
Population: 158,285
Average home value, per Zillow: $435,090
2. Yuma
National rank: 6th
Population: 100,858
Average home value: $294,246
3. Mesa
National rank: 28th
Population: 511,648
Average home value: $445,815
4. Gilbert
National rank: 30th
Population: 275,411
Average home value: $585,900
5. Peoria
National rank: 36th
Population: 198,750
Average home value: $500,583
6. Tucson
National rank: 44th
Population: 547,239
Average home value: $333,857
While Tucson and Yuma are in Southern Arizona and homes there are notably cheaper, though the median household income is also lower in those areas. The other four cities are in the Valley, which saw a 37% increase in housing costs since 2021, another study found. That’s about 50% higher than the national average.
The WalletHub survey found that housing costs have boomed since 2019 across the United States, with the median sales price jumping from $313,000 in 2019 to $416,900 in 2025. Even while home prices are dropping now, interest rates are still high, making it more expensive to purchase a home. According to WalletHub, a 30-year fixed mortgage rate shot up from 2.65% in January 2021 to 6.8% in May 2025.
