2020's Top 100 Metros to Live In

Nowadays, homebuyers want to live in metros with strong economies, outdoor attractions, cultural amenities, and lots of space at a decent price. Sounds almost too good to be true, but Livability.com identified 100 metros it says are the best places to live and that meet most of these buyer demands. Realtor.com says Livability looked at 1,000 small to midsize cities and evaluated home prices, education labels, healthcare, infrastructure, and transportation. Taking the top spot for best place to live in 2020 is Fort Collins, Colo.—which has a median home list price of $470,000. Read more to see if your city made the list.

"Things that were a given before, such as 'I have to live in a certain city because of my job' or 'Paying an exorbitant amount of rent is worth it to live in a big, expensive city,' are coming into question," says Winona Dimeo-Ediger, editor of Livability.com.

"People have always been interested in these smaller cities, but that wasn't an option that was available to them," she says. "Because of the pandemic, [they became] a very real option [thanks to] remote work."

In Fort Collins, the median home list price within the city limits isn't cheap, at about $470,000 in September, according to realtor.com data. But the city is still more affordable than Denver, which has a $540,000 price tag. And it boasts a lower unemployment rate than much of the rest of the country—5.6% in August, compared with 8.4% nationally, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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