Dive Brief:

• The East Coast and Midwest offer an attractive mix of housing affordability and earning potential for recent college graduates ages 22 to 27, according to MarketWatch, citing a joint study by Trulia and Indeed.com.

• The report put Hartford, CT, Baltimore and Pittsburgh among the nation’s most affordable housing markets with solid job prospects. Markets with the greatest employment opportunities, such as the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City, were among the least-affordable for housing.

• None of the 10 metros where income for recent grads is the highest reported significant housing affordability. Only 3% of Trulia listings in the New York region between Jan. 1 and April 17, 2017, were deemed affordable relative to the area's median income for recent graduates.

Dive Insight:

Whether millennials are willing to pick up and move for a better housing cost-to-income ratio is only beginning to shake out. A recent study from the Pew Research Center found that millennials today are changing addresses less often than previous generations did when they were the same age.

Home- and rent-price growth are two factors holding today’s young adults back, as well as slow recovery in the job market that would have otherwise encouraged them to move for employment, tight lending that’s keeping them from homeownership, and student debt levels that have them risk-averse.

While big coastal cities may be attractive to recent graduates looking for access to strong employment prospects, public transportation, nightlife and other entertainment options, the optimal balance of housing affordability and income potential today is occurring inland. Recent corporate relocations to the Midwest are likely to drive homebuying activity there, too. Additionally, cities like Salt Lake City, Houston and Buffalo, NY, lead among millennials in their late 20s and early 30s who are buying homes today, according to Realtor.com.

Though Seattle cracked the Indeed/Trulia study's top five when it came to the confluence of job opportunities and affordable housing, the metro is also home to some of the most competitive neighborhoods for housing in the U.S. Continued growth in the region’s tech sector is spurring rapid development that is drawing in new residents and leading to lower available housing inventory and higher prices for that stock. Home prices there are already on the rise, with the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index showing a 12.2% year-over-year increase in February.

For more housing news, sign up for our daily residential construction newsletter.