20 least affordable US cities are in California: study (2024)

The top 20 most unaffordable cities to buy a home in the United States are all in California, according to a new study.

The real estate tracking agency Construction Coverage looked at cities of all sizes when coming up with its list. The report focused on the ratio of home prices to income as the basis for determining the affordability of a city.

Topping the list for least affordable was Newport Beach in Orange County where the median home price is $3.23 million and the median income is $127,353. That is a home price-to-income ratio of 25.4.

Palo Alto in Santa Clara County was second on the list. The median home in the quintessential Silicon Valley city is $3.41 million while the median income is $179,707, creating a ratio of 19.

The third least affordable city in the U.S. was Glendale in Los Angeles County. Home buyers there face a median home price of $1.17 million while residents have a median income of $77,483 for a home price-to-income ratio of 15.2.

The California cities in the top 20 of the report are:

  1. Newport Beach
  2. Palo Alto
  3. Glendale
  4. Los Angeles
  5. El Monte
  6. Costa Mesa
  7. El Cajon
  8. Inglewood
  9. Hawthorne
  10. Sunnyvale
  11. Irvine
  12. Huntington Beach
  13. Torrance
  14. Garden Grove
  15. San Jose
  16. Anaheim
  17. Long Beach
  18. East Los Angeles
  19. Carlsbad
  20. Tustin

To see the complete report, including city rankings, click here.

'Tiny' home with no appliances listed for $1.7m

Just when you thought the Bay Area real estate market could not get any crazier than it is already, a house in Cupertino, basically the size of a hotel room, sold on Friday after just six days on the market.

20 least affordable US cities are in California: study (2024)
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