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Homes Worth $1 Million or More Are Now the Standard in 550 Cities
By Pete Grieve MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
Home values keep rising, especially in some big metro areas.
The typical home is now worth over $1 million in 550 U.S. cities — a figure that’s grown 12% in the last year, Zillow reports.
Many of the country’s most expensive real estate markets are in the largest metro areas. The New York City area alone has 106 cities with home values above $1 million, up from 82 a year ago. (This metro includes parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.)
According to the new data from Zillow, which estimates what existing homes are worth to create an index of home values, 210 of the cities with $1 million-plus homes are in California, up from 198 last year.
After New York City, the San Francisco and Los Angeles metro areas have the next most $1 million cities, with 69 and 63, respectively. The count is unchanged for San Francisco compared to a year ago, while the Los Angeles area gained seven.
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View RatesOverall, the number of cities where the typical home is worth at least $1 million increased by 59 from a year ago, when the count was 491.
The typical home value in the U.S. is up 4.2% in the past year, rising from $335,200 to $349,200. While the increase in values means that many homeowners have gained home equity, it also means that mortgages are unaffordable for many potential buyers — especially considering that current mortgage rates are still nearly 7%.
“The housing market is tight with few homes available, and competition is still high for attractive homes,” Zillow said in a report. “That competitive pressure is pushing home values higher across the U.S.”
States with the most $1 million cities
Here’s a list of the states that have the most cities where the typical home is worth $1 million or more:
- California: 210 cities (+12 in the last year)
- New York: 66 cities (+8)
- New Jersey: 49 cities (+14)
- Florida: 32 cities (-2)
- Massachusetts: 31 cities (+4)
- Colorado: 21 cities (unchanged)
- Washington: 18 cities (+2)
- Hawaii: 17 cities (+1)
- Texas: 14 cities (-1)
- Maryland: 10 cities (+2)
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Pete Grieve is a New York-based reporter who covers personal finance news. At Money, Pete covers trending stories that affect Americans’ wallets on topics including car buying, insurance, housing, credit cards, retirement and taxes. He studied political science and photography at the University of Chicago, where he was editor-in-chief of The Chicago Maroon. Pete began his career as a professional journalist in 2019. Prior to joining Money, he was a health reporter for Spectrum News in Ohio, where he wrote digital stories and appeared on TV to provide coverage to a statewide audience. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times and CNN Politics. Pete received extensive journalism training through Report for America, a nonprofit organization that places reporters in newsrooms to cover underreported issues and communities, and he attended the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in 2021. Pete has discussed his reporting in interviews with outlets including the Columbia Journalism Review and WBEZ (Chicago's NPR station). He’s been a panelist at the Chicago Headline Club’s FOIA Fest and he received the Institute on Political Journalism’s $2,500 Award for Excellence in Collegiate Reporting in 2017. An essay he wrote for Grey City magazine was published in a 2020 book, Remembering J. Z. Smith: A Career and its Consequence.