Residential
No State Offers an Affordable Median Home for a Median-Income Household
By Real Estate Wire Staff, . Real Estate Wire.
The income required to buy a typical American home remains near a record high, and no state offers relief for a median-earning household. That is the finding shared across four separate analyses published this month by Realtor.com, Redfin, National Mortgage News, and Inman.
What the numbers show
Realtor.com's analysis puts the national median household income at $84,780 in 2025, up roughly 3.8% from the prior year, based on new American Community Survey data from the US Census Bureau. With the national median listing price at $419,250 in September 2026, and a model built on a 7.32% mortgage rate, a 10% down payment, and combined annual property taxes and insurance of 1.7%, the typical household comes up roughly 27%, or $31,136, short of the income the 30% rule demands. A year earlier, that shortfall was roughly 24%, meaning affordability deteriorated even as incomes rose.
Redfin calculates that buying the typical home requires an annual income of $109,796, barely 0.5% below the all-time peak of $110,382 reached a year earlier. That figure leaves the typical household about $22,000 short, Redfin reports, an improvement from the $26,000 deficit recorded twelve months prior. The reason affordability has barely moved, according to Redfin, is that housing costs and incomes are rising at roughly the same pace, leaving buyers no closer to the threshold.
Inman, citing ATTOM data for the third quarter, reports that home affordability lagged historical norms in 98% of US counties. A household needed $90,191 annually to cover the national median-priced home in that period, against a national average wage of $79,534. Coastal counties dominate the least-affordable end of the list: Kings County, New York, tops it, with homeownership costs consuming 114.1% of median wages there.
Where the divergence is sharpest
National Mortgage News identifies Hawaii, California, and Utah as the states where the gap between median sale prices and personal incomes is widest. On wages, the picture is mixed: nominal average weekly earnings grew 3.7% between May 2025 and May 2026, but inflation ran 4.2% over the same stretch, meaning real purchasing power fell for many workers. In Mid-Atlantic and Southeast states including Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, income growth came in just over 1% in the first quarter of 2026, well below the national pace.
Realtor.com's state-by-state breakdown shows Rhode Island, Virginia, and Wyoming leading nominal income gains at 9%, 7.9%, and 7.1% respectively. Alaska was the only state where nominal income fell, by 0.47%. After adjusting for inflation, only 37 states recorded real gains at all. Realtor.com senior economist Hannah Jones attributed the deterioration to mortgage rates: "States have moved further from affordability on average, driven by higher mortgage rates," she said, noting that the average rate on 30-year fixed loans rose more than a percentage point from a year ago.
What it means for buyers and the market
The four analyses use different methodologies and produce different headline figures, but they agree on the direction: affordability is at or near its worst point on record, and income growth alone is not closing the gap. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics put overall consumer price inflation at 3.7% year on year as of September 2026, which helps explain why nominal wage gains that look healthy on paper are not translating into greater buying power.
For buyers, the practical consequence is that the 30% rule, the standard threshold at which housing costs are considered manageable, is out of reach on a median income in every state. For sellers and agents, the implication is that the pool of buyers who can qualify without becoming cost-burdened keeps shrinking. The one number worth watching is the mortgage rate: at 7.32%, it is the single largest variable in every model here, and any sustained move lower would shift the affordability picture faster than wage growth alone could.
Sources
1. Mapped: Where Incomes Rose the Fastest in 2026, and What You Need To Afford the Typical Home in Every State, realtor.com
2. The Income Needed to Afford Typical American Home Holds Steady Near Record High of $110,000, redfin.com
3. Where home prices and income diverge the most and least, nationalmortgagenews.com
4. Home Affordability By County Lags Norms In 98 Percent Of Markets, inman.com
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