As high housing costs nationwide continue to reshape buyer decisions, many house hunters, including first-time buyers, are turning to relatively affordable inland college towns, pushing home prices in some of those markets up at double-digit rates, according to a July 15 Redfin report.
The national real estate brokerage defines a “college town” as one in which at least 10 percent of the population is made up of students at a four-year accredited college and is located at least 30 miles from a metro area that has a population of more than a million people.
Ranking the most and least expensive college towns, Redfin noted that many of the most affordable markets were in the Midwest and South, attributing their lower median home prices to more abundant land and lower homebuilding costs. …