I’ve been hearing about how US housing is getting crazy expensive, and living in Canada we’re no stranger to that: detachedToronto houses will sell for +$1.5 million and Vancouver is even worse. Even cheap places, like PEI, have seen house prices increase by an average of $250k in 9 years. Needless to say, I’m losing hope in ever owning a home in Canada.
Is there still any hope of owning one in the US or are they getting equally crazy expensive? (I’m a US Expat btw)
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Very
The average 3BR house in my city was maybe $325,000 two years ago. That same house is $400,000 today.
In my neighborhood which is a little on the lower end of average, they went from $225,000 to $260,000 in that same time frame.
Very expensive. High demand, low supply, even really crappy apartments/homes go for exorbitant prices. Last I remember, I think the average price for a house in Honolulu was $675,000. But, I’d be floored if you were looking for a place here as an expat in the US. Other places in the United States can be much more affordable. From what I’ve heard and seen, the South and Midwest will trend more affordable, and very well could be more affordable than the average in Canada.
Very expensive.
You may think a $290-350k price in my neck of the woods sounds like a bargain, but when you consider the median household income, it really isn’t. And with so many out of state and international investors swooping in with cash offers to turn houses into rental properties, its tough. Even if you are in a place to make a house purchase, its hard to compete against some faceless company offering cash over asking price.
I don’t think I can say compared to other states too much. It’s a bit less pricy than NH near my same area but that is as far as I can speculate.
What I can say is that it is crazy expensive right now. My home is valued at like 50% higher than what we bought it for just 4 years ago.
Houses that were in the 325k range 4-5 years ago are selling for 450-500k.
It isn’t real value I don’t think. We just bought low and the market is nuts at this moment.
Aside from a handful of major urban areas with skyrocketing prices driving up averages, most of the US is still [pretty affordable](https://metrocosm.com/us-housing-markets-map.html) all things considered.
It’s bad where I am. I live in rural Wyoming but holy hell, if I was trying to buy a house now I would have to settle for a meth trailer.
Depends entirely on where you are in the state. I just bought a 1300sq ft townhouse in Raleigh for an ungodly amount of money. An hour away in Goldsboro I could have gotten 2600-3000 for the same amount.
I live 20 miles from San Francisco. Housing and COL is very high
Austin and Dallas: very
Fort Worth and Houston: less so
San Angelo and Greenville: even less so
Philly? it’s getting expensive but there is still a supply of old row-houses in decent but not trendy neighborhoods available. Two people working $15/hr jobs full time can afford one if they’re frugal etc. Don’t think it’ll stay like this for much longer though.
Philly is pretty expensive and Pittsburgh is always going up. The Western side of the state is pretty cheap nowadays being as economically dead as it is. Central PA has always been sparsely populated, so it’s also fairly cheap. The Northeast I’ve heard has spiked in the last decade due to being up towards NYC and working from home being a viable choice nowadays.
I live in rural Appalachian Georgia. It got *bad* there for a little while, during the height of covid then on into 2021. A house that would’ve cost $225k jumped to $500k. Thankfully, prices have started to even out as the market slows down- the aforementioned $225k house is still probably going for $300k, which is ridiculous, but not as bad as it was. I tend toward optimism so I’ll just hope the downward trend continues, ahah. Good luck to you if you’re looking to buy in the future!
Still affordable. Four years ago a 3 bed/2 bath house was $280,000. Before the pandemic it was $290,000. Now you can usually get it for $315,000.
ETA: Median household income is $70,000.
I live in an area historically considered “cheap for California” but that just means your average 3 br is $500k instead of $1m.
At a certain point, unaffordable is just unaffordable.
Bought my house, 3 bed 1 bathroom, detached small garage on 4 lots for 70k 2 years ago. Currently it would cost 90ish k if I were to buy it today. So things have gone up but not to crazy. Living in the sticks has its benefits.
Bay Area is mind-boggling expensive. In San Diego, an unremarkable 3 bed 2 bath in an OK neighborhood is easily 1.2M.
Expensive in 2022 since prices haven’t gone down with rates going up. But, it varies a lot by area and isn’t as crazy as Canada’s pricey markets.
States are big places. The market in different regions of most states varies greatly. Seattle and Yakima are wildly different markets.
Depends on where you are looking in the United States.
Los Angeles? [$1.7 million gets you a nice 1500 square foot (141 m²) house in a nice area.](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3233-Castle-Heights-Ave-Los-Angeles-CA-90034/20495068_zpid/)
West Virginia? Depending on where you are in that state, you may get… well, [a bit bigger.](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/226-Woodcrest-Fayetteville-WV-25840/22426231_zpid/)
Nation-wide, the average home price [shot up from $255k to nearly $350k in the past 2 years alone.](https://www.zillow.com/research/may-2022-market-report-31157/), and here in Raleigh the average home went up from $291k to $456k–an increase of $165k–again, in the past two years. (The bottom of the market in Raleigh was in 2012–where the average home price was just over $200k–meaning we saw prices more than double in just a decade.)
However, note that housing price increases skipped some parts of our country. Charleston, West Virginia’s housing prices remained flat until 2021, where the average price of a home went from $98k to around $101K over a 9 year period–only increasing to $123k in the past year. (Essentially houses in Charleston failed to keep up with the rate of inflation.)
You can’t really answer this at the state level. NY is expensive near NYC, but has affordable homes upstate.
I live near some homes that are several million dollars, that are near homes that are $600k, and not far from those that are $300k. It really depends on the location.
I can say that because of a major decrease in new home construction since 2010, and a shift to more expensive homes by builders, affordable entry level homes are hard to find.
Its probably declined a bit. But the median home price in my area is 20x the GDP per capita, and 9x the median household income. An entry level apartment, like a small studio place, requires you to make well over double minimum wage, the vast majority of jobs pay less than this.
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Buying an entry level home will require a household income of $140k per year. This is entry level. Not some fancy place. This was the type of home that 30+ years ago you would see a single worker afford. Its very common to see people in their 60s berate younger people for not working hard enough to buy a home but at no point in their working life did they ever make enough money to afford the home they live in at its current price.
In nominal prices, homes are 3 times the price they were 10 years ago.
Ranges from “moderately expensive” to “who the fuck can even afford something like that?”
Dallas Texas, no longer on the cheaper end of the us.
Still cheap compared to places like Cali, but it no longer meets the reputation it once held.
Urban coastal areas like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego are very expensive. The further you go from those areas it gets cheaper. But still more expensive than many parts of the country.