The number of US cities where first-time homebuyers are faced with at least a $1 million price tag on the average entry-level home has nearly tripled in the past five years, according to new research.
A Thursday report from Zillow indicates that a typical starter home is now worth $1 million or more in 237 cities, up from 84 cities in 2019, underscoring America’s ongoing home affordability crisis.
“Affordability has been strained across the board,” Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow, said. “We see the largest number of million-dollar starter homes in expensive coastal markets. We see them in markets with very low homeownership rates and we see them in markets with more building regulations.”
America is deeply obsessed with single family homes.
Most homes are 90 m² or larger. I’m in a medium sized city in the midwest and I have a 3 bedroom 130 m² home I got for 115€ but it’s already inflated in value in the last 15 months to 138€. I wouldn’t be able to afford the house I purchased 15 months ago, if I was house shopping now. And homes currently cost nearly double what they did in 2019.