A South Dakota City Is among the Best for First-Time Home Buyers

Under ordinary circumstances, buying your first house presents a series of challenges, but now with a shrinking supply of existing homes for sale and a historically low number of newly constructed homes on the market, it's pretty close to impossible in some places

But not in one South Dakota city.

Realtor.com has Rapid City in its top ten of the best markets for first-time homebuyers in America.

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Six different criteria were used to rate markets around the country and South Dakota's second-largest city scored highly in two of them.

Rapid City's unemployment rate of 3.2 percent was second-lowest among the top ten cities and their average commute time of 18 minutes ranked number-two as well.

The median home listing price to 25 to 34-year-old's income ratio in Rapid City (4.8%) is among the top five on the list.

On the other end of the spectrum, Rapid City's percentage of 25 to 34-year-olds (13.2%) was the second-fewest among the top ten cities. The National Association of Realtors says that age group accounts for nearly one-third of all home sales and now makes up the largest population age group, at more than 45 million.

Rapid City also had the fewest number of food and drink establishments per 1,000 households (5.5).

BEST CITIES FOR FIRST-TIME HOME BUYERS