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Posted on 06/20/2026 11:07:15 AM PDT by Kaiser8408a
The bar for entry-level homeownership has never been higher. While the typical starter home nationwide is worth $198,649, a record 242 cities now have starter homes valued at $1 million or more,
A record 242 US cities now have starter homes that cost $1 million, according to Zillow A typical “starter home” is defined for this analysis as a home in the lowest third of home values in a given region. The count of cities with million-dollar starter homes has grown from 226 cities a year ago, even as affordability pressures have begun to ease in parts of the country.
The effects of the pandemic housing boom have proven durable. A housing shortage, a decade in the making, ran headlong into intense demand amid historic lows in mortgage rates, driving up home values at a record pace. While plenty of markets are still feeling the pinch of this price reset, conditions are slowly becoming friendlier for buyers: The typical home buyer now breaks even relative to renting after roughly six years, down from more than eight years in late 2023.
The New York City metro area, which includes parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, leads all metro areas with 63 cities where a typical starter home costs $1 million or more. The San Francisco metro follows with 37, then Los Angeles (33), San Jose (13), Miami (8) and Seattle (8).
(Excerpt) Read more at confoundedinterest.net ...
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It seems we have a fundamental misunderstanding of what “starter” home means. $1million dollars...is not one.
A starter home in Reno NV is very different than a starter home in Scottsdale, AZ
A blanket comment assuming all starter homes are the same is stupid.
Primary is the land value the home sits on.
I had a 1200sqft home in Santa Clara valued at 800k.
Burn it to the ground and it was STILL valued at 800k.
Home is probably valued at 1.5M right now.
“The same goes for milk. A gallon cost $1.32 in 1970, which equals $11.04 in 2025 dollars. Today’s actual price of $3.98 means milk is 64% cheaper than it was back then. Modern farming, better transportation, and economy of scale made this possible.”
“Housing is where things get painful. The median home value in 1970 was $17,000. Accounting for inflation, that’s $142,000 in today’s dollars. But the actual median home price in 2025 is $417,700—almost three times what inflation alone would predict.”
This is an excellent webpage:
https://whatshouldispend.com/inflation-calculator/
https://www.zillow.com/homes/12447_rid/
went to zillow.com, several ,, 1m, one sold recently $3000.00.
“One couple made so much on the sale of their home they were actually able to purchase a home in a country club here.”
In 2010, we sold our 2500-sq-ft house in a nice Simi Valley,CA, subdivision. Six years old, on a typical subdivision lot.
A month later we moved to TN. We bought with cash a 5,000-sq-ft home, on 2.5 acres that looked like a park, on a river, and had $350,000 left over.
I paid 179000 for my starter home right outside Boston in 2000. I still live there, its worth about 3x what I paid at this point. Where are these homes at 189000? Corn fields? Flood zones? Old nuke sites?
Casa Griffin is a concrete block house. The front wall is 48 feet long, the longest side wall is 32 feet long. The concrete block walls are 160 feet long.
An 8”x8”x16” concrete block was $2.17 at Lowe’s when I checked.
My Florida house would be built on a slab with integrated poured footings nowadays. That means stacking those blocks 12 high for 8’-foot ceilings.
To run 16” blocks 160 feet means 120 of them.
Leaving out windows which are more costly than blocks, that would mean 12x120 blocks or 1,440 blocks which at $2.17 each would cost $3,124.80 for concrete blocks to build Casa Griffin.
Casa Griffin is L-shaped and its front wall is 48 feet long and its longest side wall is 32 feet long and the shortest side wall is about 27-feet long.
Its slab areas are a 10’x10’ lanai slab plus the main slab of 48’x32’[1,532 sq. ft.] less roughly 34’x5’[170 sq. ft.], with the garage being on a lower slab, for a total of 1,452 sq. ft., for about 18 cu. yds. of concrete 4” deep.
Adding in concrete of about 1.5 cu. ft./linear foot to form a footing for what would be the main slab would add about 240 cu. ft.
Adding in concrete of about .75 cu. ft./linear foot to form a footing for what would be the lanai slab would add about 30 cu. ft.
Together, the slab concrete if Casa Griffin was to be built in 2025 would be about 28 cu. yds.
To add in footing concrete for a lower garage slab would add about 60 cu. ft., for about 30 cu. yds.
To fill an 8”x8”x16” concrete block would take about 1/3th of a cubic foot of concrete. To fill 1,440 of them would take about 480 cu. ft. or about 18 cu. yds.
That’s about 48 cu. yds. of concrete to build Casa Griffin. At $180 per cu. yd., the concrete would come to $8,640.
Its driveway is 10 feet wide and 60 feet long. Its sidewalk is 3 feet wide and 25 feet long. At 4” thick, that would come to 8⅓ cu. yds. of concrete and about $1,500.
The cost of the concrete would sum to about $10,140.
[That would not include the webs, reinforcing bars or their supports.]
“Where are these homes at 189000?”
Wichita and probably other Midwestern cities.
I live in a so-called starter home - bought 35 years ago.
That home (California) now lists for $1.3 million. Homes in my neighborhood are snapped up within a day or two - bought up by developers who have the cash to pay - two or more more ADUs (up to four units are legal on any given property) are added onto each lot now and then each one rented out separately.
Ditto for Altadena, once a city of single family homes now:
“Developers and corporate entities are acquiring the majority of burned lots in Altadena following the Eaton Fire.”
You can be sure those developers will legally put up mult-unit apartment buildings on those properties - claiming there is “transit” nearby. Good-bye single family home neighborhoods!
Most European families raise their kiddies in apartments.
I like a large lot, except when I have to mow it.
Italy has some very nice apartment houses.
The apartment I stayed in Seville had mahogany doors.
Where would that be?
I'm being serious here tell me HOW can a politician lower prices?
Lowering prices by making the homes worth less because no one wants t live there? Dumping zoning and moving in a rendering plant? Wat DO YOU SUGGEST to lower housing prices.
Move a bunch of illegal criminals into the neighborhood?
Bid for companies to move to YOUR city so wages go up and housing 'seems' cheaper?? Invite foreign companies into the US so there are more jobs and wages go up??
Keep the fed rate the same so inflation is controlled? And the prices of homes doesn't go up with increased prices?
“includes parts of New Jersey”
The last time I checked one could get a fairly nice house in a nice NJ commuter town for about $800,000.
The houses in the New York State suburbs of NYC are often in poorer condition as high property taxes often make paying for fixups impractical for many overtaxed owners.
It is my understanding that flight from NYC has sent suburban houses upward.
So the 50th percentile is $417,700, and the 33rd percentile is $198,649?
“Tell me - what’s YOUR solution?”
Trash the zoning.
Prior to zoning mortgages were limited to 50% of value, if obtainable.
I’m starting to see ultra-dense, wood frame apartment complexes about seven miles north of where I live in Florida.
About 110 years ago New Yorkers fed up with the rapid deterioration of NYC neighborhoods started to build in the NYC commuter towns.
I sold a second home a few years ago - the buyer wanted the land and tore down the houses a week after the deal was signed - - then put up a two story much larger home on the land.
“So the 50th percentile is $417,700, and the 33rd percentile is $198,649?”
It does seem off.
The figures were computed by others and probably not done so on the same basis.
Fewer people were able to own homes back then. My grandfather bought a home in the 1920's and had to pay cash for the house. Thank God banks woke up and started offering 20 and 30 year mortgages, And the VA after World War II assisted with loans Neither choice had anything to do with zoning. Zoning's been overdone, but it does protect value from outrageous choices by lowlife types.
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