Iowa ranked ‘most affordable’ state

A California-based online real estate brokerage has ranked Iowa the most affordable state in the nation.

Movato.com of San Mateo, Calif., considered a number of criteria, including adjusted income, cost of food, cost of utilities, median home price, and unemployment rate. The brokerage relied on data from Sperling's Best Places, the 2010 U.S. Census, and the Census' American Community Survey for 2008 through 2012.

Using that data, Movato ranked the states in each category from 1 to 50, and then averaged each state's rankings into an overall 'Big Deal Score.” The place with the lowest number for the averaged score was ranked the most affordable state.

Iowa's adjusted income of $57,448 was ranked sixth best in the nation. The state's cost of food index at 96 was ranked 12th best and the cost of utilities index of 91 was ranked 8th in the nation.

Iowa's median home price of $123,000 was ranked 7th most inexpensive housing in the nation and the state's unemployment rate of 5.56 percent ranked 4th lowest in the United States.

Oklahoma was ranked the second most affordable state, followed by Kansas. Nebraska and Texas were tied for the fourth most affordable state.

California was ranked the least affordable state with its best ranking - 38th - being for cost of utilities. Other rankings were 49th for adjusted income of $40,662 and median home price of $383,900.