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Map Reveals Top 10 Most Expensive Housing Markets Across US
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. Even as this year was supposed to bring more affordability to American would-be buyers, nothing so far has stopped the rise of home prices across the country, which increased in 80 percent of metropolitan areas between April and June, according to the latest data.
It is overall not as bad as it used to be during the pandemic homebuying frenzy, when a surge in demand clashed with historically low inventory levels, forcing buyers to bidding wars that brought prices through the roof.
The national median single-family existing-home price rose 1.5 percent year-over-year to $434,900, up from 0.5 percent annual growth in the first quarter, according to the latest quarterly report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), a trade association with over 1.5 million members.
Only five percent of metros recorded double-digit price gains of the kind that was somewhat ‘normal’ during the pandemic years.
But it is a far cry from the improvement in affordability many Americans were hoping for this spring after years of rising prices and stubbornly high borrowing costs.
Not only have home prices not declined at the national level, but the number of markets where they have been rising has been steadily increasing. In the first quarter of the year, 71 percent of metro markets reported price hikes; in the second quarter, that number had risen to 188 out of the 235 markets analyzed by NAR.
As the U.S. housing market remains deeply divided, two regions drove up the national average home price—the Northeast and the Midwest. Both markets are still facing acute inventory shortages—unlike the South—while still reporting high levels of demand.
These are essentially the same dynamics that led to the crazy price increases of the pandemic years—too many people want to buy and not enough homes are available on the market, especially at the right price.
In the Northeast, the median home price rose by 3.8 percent to $547,200. In the Midwest, it climbed by 3.6 percent to a significantly lower $340,800.
In the South, especially in states like Florida and Texas, where developers flooded the market with new homes and demand dwindled after the end of the pandemic boom, the median home price rose by just 1 percent year-over-year to $380,000.
The West was an exception, as existing-home prices actually fell by a modest 0.8 percent to $637,900. Here, affordability has been so strained that inventory is sitting in the market unsold for months, forcing sellers to negotiate with buyers and lower their asking prices.
Newsweek contacted NAR for comment by email on Wednesday morning.
Only three metros reported year-over-year increases above ten percent—and they are all, coincidentally, coastal markets. These include:
In the top ten for the biggest home price hikes in the country were also:
The markets that saw the biggest home price increases are not the most expensive in the country overall—a title that is still being held by the usual culprits on the West Coast.
NAR’s list of the top ten most expensive markets in the second quarter of 2026 is dominated by California. These were the most expensive markets this spring:
Many of these markets have long been the most expensive in the country due to a combination of consistent high demand, limited inventory, and generally high prices. Thriving job markets often prop up prices in many of these cities—and are keeping demand up.
“Home sales increased despite mortgage rates rising,” NAR Chief Economist Dr. Lawrence Yun said in a statement.
“This testifies to the potential housing demand building up from steady job and income gains,” he added. “Sales rose in three of the four major regions, with the South leading the way due to faster job growth. The Northeast was the exception, held back partly by slower job growth and faster-appreciating home prices, which hurt affordability.”
And there is more silver linings to be found in the latest data. Despite price gains, 20 percent of metro markets experienced declining median home prices, down from 27 percent in the first quarter and down from 24 percent a year ago. The average monthly mortgage payment on a typical existing single-family home with a 20 percent down payment was $2,199, down $52 from last year though up $219 from last quarter.
And the average share of income that typical families spent on mortgage payments was 23.8 percent, up from 21.8 percent last quarter but down from 25.5 percent last year.
“It is welcoming to see incomes rising faster than home prices, which has helped boost affordability—but the big short-term challenge to affordability is coming from rising mortgage rates,” Yun said.
As of the week ending on July 30, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.66 percent, down from 6.72 percent a year earlier but still double the pandemic lows of 2-3 percent.
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