The best places to live in the US may not be popular boomtowns like Austin and Miami.
Many, at least according to neighborhood and school ranking website Niche, are more obscure cities that fly mostly under the radar.
Each year, Niche identifies the best places to live across America — spots where, among other qualities, residents can relatively easily afford housing, send kids to good schools, and find great jobs. Each location is graded using both statistics and resident surveys. In its ranking, Niche also considers crime, outdoor activities, commute length, nightlife, weather, and racial diversity.
Insider took Niche's overall list of best places to live as of April 12 and filtered it by the most affordable cities. The top spots are scattered throughout the South and Midwest.
Most of the urban areas that made the cut have a major theme in common: They seem to have avoided the robust buyer migration and rapid home price growth that made housing unaffordable in home buying hotspots like Austin, Miami, Phoenix, and Bozeman, Montana.
Take lesser-known cities like Evansville, Indiana, a city that sits along the banks of the Ohio River in the southwestern corner of Indiana. There, buyers can purchase a typical home for just $103,300 — a fraction of the national median home price of $244,900.
However, just because a city has affordable home prices does not mean it will be the right place for you. It's important to consider that lower living costs sometimes come at the expense of other city features like safety, healthcare, and recreation.
Read on to learn more about 11 of the best and most affordable cities to live in 2023, including what they're known for, how much people make, how much homes cost, and what residents say about them.
They're listed in reverse order, with No. 1 being the best and cheapest place to live.