Lending Tree, the nation’s leading online loan marketplace, today released a study on which cities use the most home improvement loans.
To find out where homeowners are taking out home improvement loans the most, LendingTree analysts ranked the 50 largest U.S. cities by the volume of home improvement loans as a percentage of the total housing units in a city, using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data for 2017, which covers 7.3 million loans. The study also includes the median loan amounts to gauge where buyers are putting the most money into their homes.
| Rank | City | Home Improvement
Loans as a Share of Housing Units |
Median Loan Amount | Median Income |
| 1 | Oklahoma City | 0.77% | $ 15,000 | $ 64,000 |
| 2 | San Jose, Calif. | 0.75% | $ 374,000 | $ 144,000 |
| 3 | Salt Lake City | 0.72% | $ 130,000 | $ 77,000 |
| 4 | Pittsburgh | 0.70% | $ 28,000 | $ 69,000 |
| 5 | Boston | 0.65% | $ 70,000 | $ 104,000 |
| 6 | Portland, Ore. | 0.64% | $ 199,000 | $ 83,000 |
| 7 | Denver | 0.60% | $ 184,000 | $ 81,000 |
| 8 | Minneapolis | 0.59% | $ 60,000 | $ 86,000 |
| 9 | Virginia Beach, Va. | 0.56% | $ 16,000 | $ 67,000 |
| 10 | Sacramento, Calif. | 0.55% | $ 173,000 | $ 89,000 |
| 11 | Washington | 0.54% | $ 40,000 | $ 95,000 |
| 12 | Riverside, Calif. | 0.53% | $ 135,000 | $ 80,000 |
| 13 | Seattle | 0.48% | $ 212,000 | $ 97,000 |
| 14 | Detroit | 0.48% | $ 25,000 | $ 69,000 |
| 15 | Nashville, Tenn. | 0.46% | $ 66,000 | $ 65,000 |
| 16 | Providence, R.I. | 0.46% | $ 36,000 | $ 80,000 |
| 17 | Indianapolis | 0.45% | $ 38,000 | $ 72,000 |
| 18 | San Diego | 0.45% | $ 250,000 | $ 99,000 |
| 19 | Philadelphia | 0.44% | $ 30,000 | $ 75,000 |
| 20 | Austin, Texas | 0.41% | $ 79,000 | $ 94,000 |
| 21 | Cincinnati | 0.40% | $ 35,000 | $ 70,000 |
| 22 | St.Louis | 0.40% | $ 45,000 | $ 73,000 |
| 23 | Los Angeles | 0.39% | $ 263,000 | $ 96,000 |
| 24 | Buffalo, N.Y. | 0.39% | $ 20,000 | $ 59,000 |
| 25 | Kansas City, Mo. | 0.39% | $ 60,000 | $ 74,000 |
| 26 | Richmond, Va. | 0.39% | $ 25,000 | $ 63,000 |
| 27 | Phoenix | 0.38% | $ 85,000 | $ 80,000 |
| 28 | Columbus, Ohio | 0.38% | $ 45,000 | $ 71,000 |
| 29 | Atlanta | 0.38% | $ 35,000 | $ 73,000 |
| 30 | Hartford, Conn. | 0.38% | $ 35,000 | $ 89,000 |
| 31 | Baltimore | 0.37% | $ 28,000 | $ 80,000 |
| 32 | Dallas | 0.37% | $ 55,000 | $ 92,000 |
| 33 | Louisville, Ky. | 0.37% | $ 37,000 | $ 60,000 |
| 34 | Las Vegas | 0.36% | $ 100,000 | $ 70,000 |
| 35 | Jacksonville, Fla. | 0.35% | $ 30,000 | $ 71,000 |
| 36 | Tampa, Fla. | 0.35% | $ 25,000 | $ 60,000 |
| 37 | Milwaukee | 0.34% | $ 30,000 | $ 77,000 |
| 38 | Cleveland | 0.33% | $ 25,000 | $ 64,000 |
| 39 | Raleigh, N.C. | 0.33% | $ 50,000 | $ 78,000 |
| 40 | Orlando, Fla. | 0.33% | $ 31,000 | $ 63,000 |
| 41 | Charlotte, N.C. | 0.31% | $ 50,000 | $ 69,000 |
| 42 | Memphis, Tenn. | 0.30% | $ 10,000 | $ 52,000 |
| 43 | Birmingham, Ala. | 0.30% | $ 25,000 | $ 57,000 |
| 44 | San Antonio | 0.29% | $ 37,000 | $ 71,000 |
| 45 | New Orleans | 0.28% | $ 40,000 | $ 65,000 |
| 46 | Chicago | 0.28% | $ 50,000 | $ 78,000 |
| 47 | San Francisco | 0.28% | $ 291,000 | $ 117,000 |
| 48 | Houston | 0.27% | $ 47,000 | $ 87,000 |
| 49 | Miami | 0.22% | $ 50,000 | $ 72,000 |
| 50 | New York | 0.18% | $ 60,000 | $ 99,000 |