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.”
Yep. I’m about as smack-in-the-middle as you can get and our home has doubled in value since 2016.
I bought my house a year ago and its estimated value has gone up 50% since then (and the estimate isn’t even aware of all the renovations I’ve been doing). It’s meaningless since I bought it for cash and I’m not going to sell it (mainly because I then wouldn’t be able to find any other house to live in for a reasonable price), but it’s kind of nice to know personally even if it is a symptom of an ongoing social calamity.