- When it comes to home prices, two factors make a major difference: size and location.
- GOBankingRates analyzed how much could be bought for $300,000 in different US states.
- Here are the top 11 states they found, led by West Virginia with 2,185 square feet.
US housing prices continue to be high, but two factors make more of a difference than most: a home's size and location.
Where overall costs are higher, home prices are higher, too. And where home prices are lower, buyers can stretch their dollars farther on a larger house.
To get a picture of how this plays out across the US, GOBankingRates analyzed how much home could be had for the same price in different states.
The personal finance website sourced each state's median listing price per square foot from the Federal Reserve and used that figure to calculate the size of a home that could be bought for $300,000.
Here are the top 11 states they found where that budget can get more than 1,700 square feet.
1. West Virginia — 2,185 square feet
West Virginia has the lowest cost of living in the US and was the only state in the GOBankingRate analysis to have a home larger than 2,000 square feet.
While that is a good deal smaller than the modern average newly built home size of 2,500 square feet, it's about as large as homes were back in the 1990s, according to Huts.com.
2. Kansas — 1,894 square feet
Kansas placed second in the rankings, with a low price per square foot of $158 and a relatively low cost of living.
3. Alabama — 1,876 square feet
Alabama and Mississippi ranked right next to one another in the rankings, thanks in part to similar costs of living.
4. Mississippi — 1,855 square feet
Mississippi has a comparatively low median price per square foot of $162.
5. Oklahoma — 1,793 square feet
Oklahoma and its neighbor Arkansas also share several similarities, which result in their placement next to one another in the ranking.
6. Arkansas — 1,781 square feet
With 1,781 square feet, the $300,000 Arkansas home is just about the size that newly built homes were in the 1980's.
7. Iowa — 1,776 square feet
A $300,000 home in Iowa would start to feel snug for the modern family, but it's still quite a bit larger than typical homes were in the 1970s.
8. Indiana — 1,733 square feet
Another pair of neighbors join the list — Indiana and Kentucky, clocking in with remarkably similar prices and living costs.
9. Kentucky — 1,721 square feet
Kentucky's median price per square foot of $174 still offers a fair amount of living space for $300,000.
10. Michigan — 1,706 square feet
Michigan is the northernmost state to make it into the top ten, with a median price per square foot of $176.
11. Missouri — 1,704 square feet
At 1,704 square feet, a household of four would have 426 square feet per person. That's quite cozy by modern standards, but still more spacious than was the norm in the 1960's.
Beyond these top 11, the other 39 US states come in below 1,700 square feet at $300,000, so buyers would likely need to up their budgets to get the same space.
