A more than $35,000 drop in the median price of homes for sale in Fresno from March to April helped improve the city’s ranking in home affordability compared to other major U.S. cities.

Fresno’s ranking shifted from 38th in March among the 100 most populous U.S. cities to 48th in April, with the higher rank signifying better home affordability, according to the report put out today by RealtyHop.com.

Fresno was the only market on the list to see a double-digit change in its month-over-month ranking for April.

The website lists homes for sale and puts out a monthly Housing Affordability Index based on the asking prices of homes for sale listed on the website and U.S. census data that includes estimated household income in each city.

Ranked first as the most “cost burdened” city for housing in April was Los Angeles, where the median home price in April was $875,000, according to the report. “Given standard mortgage and tax rates, a median property requires monthly payments of $4040.29, meaning that the average household would have to spend 89 percent of their monthly income to own a home,” it continues.

In comparison, in Fresno the median home price in April was $247,400, which would require monthly mortgage payments and taxes of $1,188 a month, or 31.79 percent of household income, RealtyHop’s researchers concluded.

Other Valley cities, including Visalia, Madera and Hanford, aren’t among the 100 largest cities in the country, so they didn’t make the list.

Bakersfield was ranked 80th^, making it the most affordable major California city, with Fresno second.

This despite the median price for a home in Bakersfield in April being $1,500 more than in Fresno, but the researchers concluded the city at the south end of the Valley has a higher median household income than here, and buyers of new homes there would spend only 24.75 percent of their income on mortgage payments and taxes.

Ranking 100th on the list — the most affordable major U.S. city to buy a home in — was Detroit, where the median household income was a little more than half of Fresno’s, but the median home price was only $45,000.

“In fact, due to a slight dip in home sales prices this past month, the city got even cheaper, requiring only 11.73 percent median income to afford a home,” according to the report, adding that average mortgage payment plus taxes in Detroit came out to just $272 a month.

April’s least affordable cities in the U.S.

1. Los Angeles
2. Miami
3. New York
4. San Francisco
5. Oakland

 

April’s most affordable cities in the U.S.

1. Detroit
2. Fort Wayne, Ind.
3. Wichita, Kan.
4. Cleveland, Ohio
5. Buffalo, N.Y.

 

Source: RealtyHop Housing Affordability Index: April 2019