Midland Named the ‘Healthiest Place Financially’ in the Lone Star State

Personal finance website SmartAsset has placed Midland County as “…the most financially healthy place in Texas and the 10th healthiest place nationally,” according to the Midland Reporter-Telegram. SmartAsset looked at personal bankruptcy information, unemployment, poverty levels, debt levels, and income amount to build their lists. Midland County had an impressively low rate of unemployment at 4.4 percent, and only one out of every 2,000 people had filed for bankruptcy.

Interestingly, the top five financially healthiest counties were in the Central Texas area (Gillespie at number two, Williamson was the number three, and Lavaca at number four) except for Midland at the number one spot and Andrews in fifth place, which sits right next to Midland County.

But perhaps the praise for Midland isn’t much of a surprise since earlier this year, the Midland Reporter-Telegram reported that Midland ranked in the top five areas to buy a new home. This data was also put together by SmartAsset using 25 years of information from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The Austin-Round Rock area took the number two spot, but Midland came right in at number five, boasting nearly a 50 percent increase in the average home price from 2011 to 2016 (from $208,986 to $308,551).

Could these numbers convince you to move out to West Texas?