By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

A trio of Shelby County cities have some of the strongest housing markets in the state, according to a list recently released by a national financial website.

Smartasset.com recently published its list of the best home markets in each state for 2016, which looked at a variety of factors related to home buying.

“A healthy housing market is both stable and affordable; homeowners in a healthy market should be able to easily sell their homes, with a low risk of losing money over the long run,” read the list. “So, in order to find the healthiest housing markets in the country, we considered the following four factors: Stability, affordability, fluidity and risk of loss.

“Affordability accounted for 40 percent of the housing health index, while each of the other three factors accounted for 20 percent,” read the list.

Helena was the highest-ranking Shelby County city on the list, which came in a No. 5. Helena residents live in their homes for an average of 10.3 years, and about 11.4 percent of the homes in the city have negative equity. About 25.8 percent of Helena’s homes are decreasing in value, and homes in the city stay on the market for about 93.2 days.

Helena’s homes cost about 19.4 percent of its residents’ income, according to the list.

Pelham came in at No. 8 on the list. Pelham residents spend about 12.9 years, on average, living in their homes, about 13.1 percent of the city’s homes have negative equity and about 28.5 percent of its homes are decreasing in value.

Pelham homes spend an average of about 102.4 days on the market, and home costs equal about 19.5 percent of its residents’ income.

Following closely behind Pelham, Alabaster came in at No. 9 on the list. Its residents spend about 12.7 years in their homes, about 11.6 percent of the city’s homes have negative equity and 28.2 percent of the city’s homes are decreasing in value, according to the website.

Alabaster homes spend about 90.3 days on the market, and home costs equal about 20.8 percent of its residents’ income.

To view the entire list, visit Smartasset.com/mortgage/mortgage-calculator?year=2016#alabama.