The most and least affordable states for millennials to buy homes

Millennials’ financial picture today is a mixed bag. Yes, unemployment is low across the country, but wage growth hasn’t picked up. Young workers have to contend with billions of dollars’ worth of student loan debt. On top of that, millennials are now reaching the age where they’re considering buying a home — at least that’s what their parents did a generation ago.

In order to help today’s generation find affordable housing, GOBankingRates evaluated median home prices for each state in the country (except North Dakota, where data was unavailable, and including Washington, D.C.).

We started with the national median income for people ages 25 to 34, which is $60,932. We assumed each person would be putting away 20 percent of their salary each month to save for a down payment — in other words, as much as possible. We calculated the amount of time it would take to afford a 20 percent down payment based on each state’s median listing price as well as the estimated monthly mortgage payment, based on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage. We scored each of those two numbers — time to down payment and mortgage payment — to develop our final state affordability ranking.

Click through to learn where millennials can expect to find the best prices when it comes to buying a home.