The starter-home glow-up nobody asked for
A home that used to be a first-rung-on-the-ladder kind of purchase now comes with a seven-figure price tag in a record 242 U.S. cities. That’s nearly triple the 80 cities that crossed that line back in February 2020 — basically, the pandemic housing boom didn’t just inflate prices, it rewrote the whole “starter home” script.
Where the pain is getting pricier
California still wears the crown for the most million-dollar starter-home cities, because of course it does. But the faster-growing hotspots are now New York and New Jersey, which are catching up in the affordability olympics nobody wants to win.
Why investors should care
This isn’t just a depressing Zillow scroll. It’s a read on the broader housing market: higher barriers to entry can slow first-time buyer demand, keep renters renting longer, and support home values in already-expensive markets. On the flip side, it can also pressure anything tied to affordability-sensitive home sales.
Big picture
The market may have moved on from the pandemic-era housing frenzy, but the price reset stuck. If you’re waiting for the “starter” in starter home to mean cheap again, the data says: not in a lot of places.