Data & Visuals

Here are the three metros where homeownership is still affordable

The rapid rise in home prices and housing costs over the past five years has strained affordability in every part of the country, but a new study seeks to put a finer point on which metropolitan areas are getting hit the hardest. Realtor.com calculated the share of income a typical household spends on housing by […]

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The pandemic made housing less affordable, but not in the obvious places

The housing affordability crisis often conjures images of coastal urban cities with acute housing supply shortages and heavy land-use regulations. While these places do tend to have the highest home prices, it’s not where costs are rising the most. That’s according to a sprawling new study from JPMorgan Chase that examines affordability from a number

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How to think about home prices for the rest of 2025

The story for the housing market over the past three years has been, “Home sales are down, home prices are up.” Because inventory was so restricted after the pandemic, prices pushed higher even as demand weakened. That story may finally be inverting as unsold inventory of homes is now great enough that home prices are

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Seattle housing market wrestles with crippling affordability concerns

On the surface, Seattle’s housing market looks like any other in the country. The inventory of single-family homes for sale is up substantially year over year. New listings are up slightly, sales remain subdued and home prices aren’t moving much. That’s the story in the majority of housing markets. But Seattle is wrestling with a

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First American: Rising costs squeeze homeownership for millions

The cost of owning a home in the U.S. has jumped sharply in recent years, reaching an average of more than $1,700 per month in 2023 — a 17% increase since 2020 — according to an analysis by First American senior economist Sam Williamson. Using the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, Williamson found that

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These suburbs saw the largest increases in renters during the pandemic

The wave of migration set off by the COVID-19 pandemic pushed home prices through the roof in towns that had previously been relatively sleepy. While data shows that some narratives at the time proved to be a bit overstated, there’s no question that it reshaped housing markets across the country. A recent study from Point2Homes

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Where does the housing market stand 5 years after the ‘flight to the suburbs’?

The onset of COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 set off a wave of domestic migration that reoriented housing markets across the country, turning some metro areas into boomtowns and sinking a number of others. The prevailing narrative around this phenomenon took on a life of its own — a mass exodus from urban cities in

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Two maps that show where the housing market is struggling

Industry professionals were full of optimism heading into the spring that the housing market could pick up after a sluggish start to 2025. But heading into the summer, that optimism has largely faded. Existing-home sales are hovering around 4 million and many markets that are typically fruitful for homebuilders have stalled. In its midyear housing

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Sun Belt holds long-term housing edge even as pandemic boomtowns struggle

The U.S. housing market is telling two very different stories as pandemic-era boomtowns are cooling rapidly while the Sun Belt’s long-term growth outlook remains strong, according to John Burns Research & Consulting. A surge in available homes is reshaping the market in regions that saw the fastest growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nationally, the number

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Zillow: Northeast housing competition heats up while Sun Belt offers breathing room

As the spring homebuying season ramps up, prospective buyers in the Northeast are facing fierce competition, while shoppers in the Sun Belt are finding more negotiating power, according to new data from Zillow. The analysis released Thursday shows a stark contrast between markets. In cities like Buffalo, New York; Boston; Hartford, Connecticut; and Providence, Rhode

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