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Nashville is a hotbed for millennials.
- U.S. News released its 2018 best places to live in America ranking.
- The list was based on factors like cost of living, salary, and job opportunities.
- We narrowed down the list to find the best places to live where home prices and rent are lower than the national median.
The best places to live are the cities where people are happy, job opportunities are abundant, pay is good, and housing is affordable.
So says U.S. News & World Report, which recently released its annual ranking of the best places to live in America. To rank the cities, U.S. News considered the job market, value, quality of life, desirability, and net migration of the 125 most populous cities (you can read the full methodology here).
Austin, Texas, came out on top for the second consecutive year, while Colorado Springs, Colorado, jumped from No. 11 to take the No. 2 spot, edging out the state's capital, Denver, which rounded out the top three. But when it comes to housing prices, Colorado Springs is the winner.
Real-estate site Zillow reports the median price of homes currently on the market in the US is $261,500, while the median monthly rent is $1,600. We filtered U.S. News top-50 best places to live ranking to highlight the cities where home and rental prices fall below the median.
Below, check out 19 cities where housing is cheaper than half the country. We've also included the "value" score -a comparison of annual household income and cost of living - for each city, out of a possible 10. The cities are ranked in order of appearance on the best places to live ranking.