Laurens ranked among most affordable cities

A website that ranks locations in different categories has put Laurens near the top of a list of most affordable places to live in South Carolina.

Laurens came in at No. 5 on the list, which also included neighboring Newberry (No. 6) and Fountain Inn, which is partially located in Laurens County, at No. 2.

“It’s always good when we see that more and more people are realizing that Laurens offers a great quality of life at an affordable price,” said Laurens Mayor Nathan Senn. “Our value is only going to increase.”

The website homesnacks.net compiled the rankings. The site claims to combine “data from dozens of sources into bite-sized articles to help you understand what it’s like to live in different places across America.”

According to the website, that data comes from census, FBI, OpenStreetMaps and other sources to create its studies.

The data used to create the list of cheapest places to live in South Carolina included median home price compared with median income or median rent with median income to create a cost of living index. The 61-city list is composed of municipalities of more than 5,000 people.

Dillon topped the list, followed by Fountain Inn, Bennettsville, Mauldin, Laurens, Newberry, Irmo, Clover, North Augusta and Union.

Laurens moved up five spots from No. 10 from the 2018 rankings. This year’s ranking says the city’s median income is $34,517 and the average home value is $85,900.

In contrast, the most expensive cities to reside in South Carolina are Port Royal, Clemson and Myrtle Beach.

Here is a link to the story on HomeSnacks.com: https://www.homesnacks.net/most-affordable-places-in-south-carolina-126835/