How Much You Need To Make To Afford The Average U.S. Home

A homebuyer would need to earn nearly $115-thousand a year ($114,627) to be able to afford the cost of the typical U.S. home, according to Newsweek and new research from Redfin. The real estate company notes that income is up 15% from last year and up more than 50% since the start of the pandemic. It’s now the highest annual income needed to afford a home on record.

“In a homebuyer’s ideal world, rising mortgage rates would push demand and home prices down enough to make up for high interest payments,” explains Redfin Economics Research Lead Chen Zhao. “But that’s not what’s happening now: Although new listings are ticking up slightly, inventory is still near record lows as homeowners hang onto their low mortgage rates—and that’s propping up prices.”

The Redfin research reveals:

According to Zillow’s latest data, as of September 30th, the average U.S. home value is $348,539

Everywhere you look it seems like new homes are popping up. They take a lot that had one home on it and suddenly there is a whole new street and neighborhood. Take a drive around Charlotte in Southend and it's incessant with new apartments being built. While this growth is obviously wonderful for the economy, it's not great for traffic! And as many as they are building it's still not enough. The real estate market in Charlotte is showing no signs of slowing down. The experts at Construction Coverage recently conducted research on the cities that are showing building the most new homes. And two North Carolina cities made the top 10 with the most new homes nationwide. These rankings are among major metros.

So how were these rankings compiled? According to Construction Coverage, researchers first analyzed the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Zillow. From there researchers ranked metro areas "according to the number of new housing units authorized per 1,000 existing homes in 2022." If there was a tie, "the metro with higher total new housing units authorized in 2022 was ranked higher."

In addition to North Carolina, Florida and Texas were well represented on this list. A city that's growth has seemingly paralleled Charlotte (but in a neighboring state) also ranked in the top 5.  This research also was applied to small and medium metro areas as well and a few North and South Carolina metros made those lists. Below you'll find the top large metros and some details about why they ranked where they did. And the end you can find a list of the other North and South Carolina small/medium metros and where they ranked for new homes built. The research also went deeper into trends, shortages, and more. You can read the full study and rankings here.

Charlotte ranks number 8 on this list with 23.9 new housing units authorized per existing 1,000 homes. In 2022 the Charlotte Metro Area built 27,212 new homes. The median home price in the region is $369,590.

The median home price in Orlando is $388,191. In 2022 28,638 new homes were constructed. And 25.7 new housing units were authorized per 1,000 existing homes.

Coming in at number 6 with a whopping 77,894 new housing units authorized in 2022 is the Dallas region. There were 25.8 new units authorized per 1,000 existing homes. And the median price? $376,026.

Staying in Texas to crack the top 5 with the Houston Metro. A much lower median home price of just $306,423. 75,728 new housing units were approved with is 66.8 per 1,000 existing units.

Our second Florida city on this list is Jacksonville with a median home price of $355,024. There were 32.6 new housing units approved per 1,000 existing which comes to a total of 23,169.

Coming in at number three is a city that's growth has seemed to parallel Charlotte's a lot. Nashville has one of the highest median home prices at $436,866. 28,192 new units were authorized in 2022, which is 32.8 per 1,000 existing,

If it wasn't Charlotte, well you knew it had to be our state's capital city. The median home price in this area is surprisingly higher than Charlotte at $433,469. 36.2 new units were approved in 2022 per 1,000 existing which equated to 21,568 new units.

And Austin Texas takes the title with 42,364 new homes approved which is 42.5 per 1,000 existing. These homes will run buyers a median price of $487,537. Is it too late to get involved in the Austin real estate market?

Small Metros

Median Metros