Buying a home for the first time can be stressful and intimidating. It requires carefully considering a number of factors, including interest rates, market prices, mortgage types and qualifying.

The location where a first-time home buyer wants to live is almost just as important as what features the neighborhood has. WalletHub compared 300 cities of varying sizes across 22 key indicators of market attractiveness, affordability and quality of life. The data set also spans cost of living to real-estate taxes to property-crime rate.

Below are 8 of the top cities for first-time home buyers.