Pensacola is the second-most affordable beach town in America, with nearby Fort Walton Beach ranking at #7, according to a survey by personal finance technology company SmartAsset.
Gulfport, Mississippi topped the survey as America’s most affordable beach town for the second year in a row.
For the analysis, SmartAsset used five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey, excluding cities with a population of over 150,000 and those without a beach. The four factors analyzed by SmartAsset included median home value, median annual property taxes, median annual housing costs. This is another metric that we considered to show the yearly cost of owning a home in a beach town, and median number of rooms per house.
All ten of the most affordable beach towns are located in the Southeast, with eight of ten located on the Gulf of Mexico.
According to the company, housing costs for the typical Pensacola resident are around $10,164, just a little more than in Gulfport, where the average is about $10,008. Pensacola has both a higher median home value and higher property taxes.
The full list is as follows:
1. Gulfport, Miss.
2. Pensacola, Fla.
3. Biloxi, Miss. (tie)
3. Port Arthur, Tex. (tie)
5. Freeport, Tex.
6. Fort Pierce, Fla.
7. Fort Walton Beach, Fla. (tie)
7. Ocean Springs, Miss. (tie)
9. Bay St. Louis, Miss.
10. Daytona Beach, Fla.
