By Jorge Casuso

May 21, 2025 -- Santa Monica is the second least affordable city to buy a home, according to WalletHub, a personal finance company that sampled 300 cities of varying sizes nationwide.

Only Santa Barbara was less affordable based on a number of factors that range from the costs of homes and their maintenance to tax and insurance rates.

Santa Monica ranked last in rent to price ratio (which estimates whether it's cheaper to rent or own property) and had the third highest cost per square foot.

The beach city of some 93,000 also scored low on housing affordability (which reflects the median house price, and median annual household income) and cost of living.

However, it fared among the top 50 cities of any size in real estate tax rate and maintenance affordability as a share of income

Seven of the least affordable small cities -- those, like Santa Monica, with fewer than 150,000 residents -- are in California, with Berkeley, Costa Mesa and Burbank ranking in the top five.

Also in California are the five most expensive mid-sized cities (those with populations of between 150,000 and 300,000) with Glendale as the least affordable in the nation.

In addition two California cities -- Irvine and Los Angeles -- were the most expensive cities with more than 300,000 residents, followed by New York City.

The median home sales price has "skyrocketed" from $313,000 in the first quarter of 2019 to $416,900 this year, according to the report.

“When deciding where to buy a home, home prices alone aren’t a good enough indicator of how affordable things will be," said Chip Lupo, a WalletHub analyst.

"You also have to consider how the average price compares to a typical income in the area, plus things like the overall cost of living and the costs of maintenance and taxes, Lupo said.

The three most affordable cities of any size in the nation -- Flint and Detroit Michigan and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -- "have low costs across several of these different metrics,” he said.

The metrics used in the rankings were housing affordability (which was given triple weight), maintenance affordability, average cost of homeowner’s insurance, cost of living and cost per square foot (double weight).

The other metrics were real estate tax rate, rent-to-price-ratio, median home-price appreciation, quarterly active listings per capital and vacancy rate (both given half weight).