Methodology

Data sources

Every score in IsThisHome traces back to one of eight federal or open data sources. We don’t run proprietary surveys, we don’t take affiliate fees from cities, and we don’t use crowd-sourced opinions as inputs.

U.S. Census Bureau — American Community Survey (5-year)
Federal Housing Finance Agency — House Price Index
National Center for Education Statistics — EdFacts
FBI — Uniform Crime Reporting / Crime Data API
NOAA — Climate Normals
FEMA — National Flood Hazard Layer
OpenStreetMap — Points of interest (ODbL license)
Hand-compiled state tax tables (income, sales, property)

Scoring approach

Each city is scored 0–100 on eight dimensions: budget, climate, schools, safety, daily life convenience, community & culture, faith, and outdoor lifestyle. Your quiz answers produce a personal weight vector. Your final fit score is a weighted average across the dimensions you care about most.

Limitations & honesty

No model captures everything. Federal data lags 1–2 years. School quality is measured by available metrics, not by visiting classrooms. Crime statistics are reported inconsistently across jurisdictions. Climate normals don’t predict individual years.

We show “as of” dates on every data point so you know exactly how fresh the numbers are. When data is sparse or unreliable for a city, we say so rather than interpolating.

Attribution

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