Most affordable cities in US

America’s most affordable cities – Morgan Brennan, Forbes

#		Asking Price	Salary	Cost of Living	Unemployment
1	Omaha, NB	#9	#43	#5	#1
2	Buffalo, NY	#2	#47	#1	#12
3	Detroit, MI	#1	#15	#2	#48
4	Indianapolis, IN	#7	#31	#4	#24
5	Cincinnati, OH	#4	#25	#6	#32
6	Pittsburgh, PA	#5	#41	#9	#13
7	Minneapolis, MN	#28	#17	#19	#5
8	Cleveland, OH	#6	#34	#3	#27
9	Oklahoma City, OK	#8	#50	#10	#4
10	Houston, TX	#20	#5	#29	#19
11	Raleigh, NC	#29	#11	#24	#14
12	Columbus, OH	#13	#37	#8	#21
13	Kansas City, MO	#12	#30	#13	#25
14	Dallas, TX	#22	#13	#30	#17
15	Tulsa, OK	#11	#44	#12	#16

Behind The NumbersWhat do we mean by a bargain? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as an "advantageous deal." On that score Omaha qualifies, thanks to a list-leading combination of affordable real estate and a healthy ratio of income to living costs.

To compile our bargain city list, we started with the 50 largest U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and then compiled a mix of data aimed at handicapping the overall affordability of living in each.

We looked at the current median asking price of homes on the market in each city, using data from Altos Research, a San Francisco-based real estate research firm. We got the median salaries of workers with bachelor's degrees or higher from PayScale.com and compared it to a cost-of-living index from Moody's Economy.com (the cost-of-living index factors in transportation, insurance, food, utilities and other factors). Finally, we factored in the latest unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to reflect the relative strength of local economies