The 26 US counties where homeownership is now unaffordable: report
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(NEXSTAR) – Over the past few years, many people around the country have watched home prices in their humble hometowns quickly grow out-of-reach.
A report by MoneyGeek identified 26 U.S. counties that have made that shift since 2019. To compile its list, MoneyGeek said it looked at counties with more than 250,000 people that are seeing population growth. From there, analysts looked at how much home prices have gone up since 2019 and compared the cost of owning a home to the area’s median income.
Counties like San Francisco County and New York County didn’t make the list because they’ve been considered “unaffordable” for longer than just a few years, a MoneyGeek analyst told Nexstar. The same goes for King County (home to Seattle) in Washington, Los Angeles County, and Santa Clara County (the heart of Silicon Valley).
In three of those counties – New York, San Francisco and Santa Clara – the median home price tops $1.1 million.
On the list of 26 counties where home ownership costs have skyrocketed more recently, you’ll notice cheaper median home prices – but these places also have lower median incomes. In Davis County, Utah, for example, the median income is $36,597. The median home price, meanwhile, is $428,765. MoneyGeek says home prices have gone up 34% the last three years in this county north of Salt Lake City.
The counties where home ownership has grown unaffordable since 2019, according to MoneyGeek, are:
- Ada County, Idaho
- Collier County, Idaho
- Travis County, Texas
- Williamson County, Texas
- Washoe County, Nevada
- Douglas County, Colorado
- Davis County, Utah
- Larimer County, Colorado
- Salt Lake County, Utah
- Kitsap County, Washington
- St. Johns County, Florida
- Sacramento County, California
- Spokane County, Washington
- Snohomish County, Washington
- Merced County, California
- Clark County, Nevada
- Pierce County, Washington
- Sarasota County, Florida
- Charleston County, South Carolina
- Thurston County, Washington
- Jefferson County, Colorado
- Marion County, Oregon
- Collin County, Texas
- Maricopa County, Arizona
- Buncombe County, North Carolina
- Clark County, Washington
In many of these counties, the price of homes have grown far faster than incomes, making home ownership more and more out of reach for the average resident. See the median income and median home price of each county in MoneyGeek’s full report.
