The typical house sold in each the fifty states is out of the affordable reach of the typical American household.
That's the main takeaway from Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld's infographic displaying the relative affordability of the median home sold in each state for a household earning the median income in each state. Here's the infographic:
Among all the states in this snapshot, Iowa comes closest to being affordable, while Montana, which has seen home prices rise rapidly in recent years, qualifies as the least affordable:
Iowa ranks as the most affordable state in the nation, with a median listing price of $294,600.
Overall, its home price to income ratio is among the lowest nationally, at 3.0. Despite single family home prices rising by 40% since 2020, prices remain affordable. Not only that, local jurisdictions in the state have issued more than 10,000 new housing permits annually since 2022.
By contrast, states with the lowest affordability scores included Montana, Idaho, and California.
In Montana, home prices have shot up 66% in the past four years—surpassing the 50% national average. As many have flocked to the state, it has drove up prices higher while wage increases have stagnated leading to a growing affordability crisis.
Neufeld is relying on the National Association of Realtors' analysis of home affordability, which is somewhat quirky. Their scale runs from 0 to 2, where a score of 1 represents the situation where a median income earning household can afford to buy the median priced home within the state. Scores below 1, as they are for all states by this measure, indicates the median income earning family cannot afford their state's median priced home. Here's how they describe the findings of their analysis:
We consider two correlated but distinct metrics for homeownership affordability in each state. The first is our REALTORS® Affordability Score, which can be explored here for data at a metro level. We calculate the score at the state level for the entire year of 2024, identifying what percentage of for-sale inventory in each state is affordable to households at varying points along the income distribution in that same state. The benefit of using the REALTORS® Affordability Score is that it measures housing affordability across the income spectrum. The score can range from 0 to 2, and a higher value indicates a more affordable market. Unfortunately, all 50 states and Washington, DC, score lower than 1 in this metric; Iowa comes in on top, at 0.92, and Montana is in last place, at 0.4.
We'll update our picture for the relative affordability of new homes at the national level within the next two weeks, but we anticipate the affordability crisis for new homes will enter its 38th consecutive month. Until then, it's interesting to see that every state is affected by that situation.
Image credit: Dorothy Neufeld. Mapped: U.S. Housing Afforability by State. Visual Capitalist. 29 May 2025.
Labels: real estate
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