The most affordable college town? Try Muncie, Ind.

Want to live in a college town? Maybe you should consider Muncie, Ind.

That town, home to Ball State University, ranks as the most affordable large college football town for housing in the United States, according to the Coldwell Banker College Home Price Comparison.

Home prices in Muncie average $150,000 for a 2,200-square-foot single-family house with four bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms. It’s the college football town where your housing dollar stretches the most.

Each year, Coldwell Banker ranks all 119 Division 1-A college football towns according to how much it would cost to purchase a 2,200-square-foot single-family home. It’s a fascinating survey, and one that’s fun to pore through. Search for your college town to see how expensive – or affordable – it’d be to purchase a single-family home there.

By the way, the most expensive college town, to no one’s surprise, is based in California. The same type of home that costs under $160,000 in Muncie costs $1.67 million in Palo Alto, Calif., home to Stanford University. Second most expensive is Chestnut Hill, Mass., home to Boston State University, where the same type of home costs an average of $1.38 million.

As far as conferences go, the Mid-American Conference ranks as the most affordable league, with 220,000-square-foot homes with four bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms averaging $230,272 in the conference’s 12 hometowns. The PAC-10 is the most expensive conference for the third year in a row, with the same homes averaging $737,040.