Here Are the Best Places in America to Live in 2022! (Trust Us, You’ll Never Guess No. 1)

Most Americans probably have never heard of the best place to live in the nation.

The Huntsville, AL, metropolitan area topped the annual list of the best places in the country to live, according to the recent ranking from U.S. News & World Report. The affordability of the aerospace hub, about 90 minutes north of Birmingham, and its variety of good-paying jobs helped it rise to the top.

“The biggest priorities for consumers and for people looking to move to a different part of the country were housing affordability and quality of life, says Devon Thorsby, real estate editor at U.S. News & World Report. “The last couple of years during the [COVID-19] pandemic really changed how people view their homes and where they want to live.”

The report looked at the 150 largest metropolitan areas and then ranked them based on affordability, desirability, and quality of life. The rankings took into account local job markets, crime, and the quality of local high schools and hospitals. (Metros include the main city and surrounding towns, suburbs, and smaller urban areas.)

Huntsville displaced Boulder, CO, as the top spot. The Huntsville area is home to a Meta (formerly Facebook) data center and an IBM outpost, and soon it will be the headquarters of the new U.S. Space Command, which will oversee military operations in space.

The median home list price in the metro was $400,000 in April—about $25,000 less than the national price tag, according to the most recent Realtor.com® data. In 2018, Realtor.com found that Huntsville had one of the best commutes in the nation.

“Even with the run-up in prices, we’re still very affordable,” says local real estate broker Matt Curtis, of Matt Curtis Real Estate. “There are a lot of restaurants and entertainment venues coming to the area.”

The sweet spot for buyers are four-bedroom, three-bathroom homes in the area typically on about a quarter of an acre or less. These 2,000- to 2,600-square-foot homes, built within the past six to 10 years, are often priced at $320,000 or so.

However, even with builders putting up homes as fast as possible, there is still a shortage of homes for sale. That’s meant properties are receiving anywhere from five to 30 offers, says Curtis. And many are selling for over the asking price in just a few days. This has made it challenging for first-time buyers even as higher mortgage interest rates are cooling the market a bit.

“That window of opportunity is quickly closing for first-time homebuyers because of rising [mortgage] interest rates and rising home prices,” says Curtis.

Not every metro on the best places list was inexpensive.

Two of the nation’s most expensive housing markets, Silicon Valley’s San Jose, CA, and San Francisco, made the top 10. Real estate editor Thorsby attributed this to salaries generally being higher in these areas, which offset some of the higher home prices. They have plenty of cultural attractions, strong job markets, and lots of things to do.

“They have a lot of the things that people are looking for,” says Thorsby.