Texas near top in nation for housing affordability, report shows
A "for sale by owner" sign stands outside a home in LaSalle, Illinois, U.S., on Friday, June 7, 2013. (Credit: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
AUSTIN - A new report on housing affordability ranks Texas in the top three states in the nation.
The Realtor.com report considers new construction efforts as well as affordable housing. Overall, Texas scored an A- for this balance, landing it third place in the United States.
The champions in comparison
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Dig deeper:
The report ranks states by a total score, which is reached by weighing the balance of the construction and housing affordability factors. Texas achieved its high rank by maintaining an equal balance of these metrics, which reflects well against its high share of the nation's population.
According to the report, the median listing price for a home in Texas was $370,633.
In comparison, the second-place state, Iowa, scored 0.01 point higher than Texas with about a $75,000 lower median home listing price. This contrasts with Iowa's much higher construction premium (58.8 percent versus Texas's 7.5 percent).
South Carolina, in the first-place spot, has numbers more similar to Texas. However, while they edge out Texas in construction efforts, their share of the population and permits are dwarfed by the Lone Star State.
Both sides of the curve
While states like South Carolina, Iowa and Texas dominate the top of the list, the bottom is populated by historically higher-priced and highly populated states.
The bottom three states include Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York. Those also in the F category are California, Hawaii, Connecticut and Oregon.
Where the front-runners in the report have a high balance of affordability and construction, these low-ranked states have high prices and low building efforts. The outlier is California, with construction efforts in competition with South Carolina, though a median home price of over $750,000 offsets this metric.
By the numbers:
Those lower-ranked states trend toward the west coast and New England areas, while the top-ranked states are concentrated in the south and mid-west.
According to the Realtor.com report, "ample available land and relatively low listing prices" are the main contributors to the success of the leading states.
Full report:
To read more and see the full rankings, click here.
Housing affordability
Big picture view:
While Texas and others score highly in comparison to other areas of the country, housing prices remain higher than in past years.
Housing affordability improved in half of the largest US markets last year; see the list
Home affordability slightly improved in 2024, with Texas metros seeing the most gains.
A study by real estate company Redfin shows that housing affordability was marginally better in 2024 than 2023, but it's still much higher than numbers recorded in the 2010's.
The Source: Information in the article came from Realtor.com and previous FOX Local reporting.