Wondering if you’ll be able to afford a starter home in Seattle? Redfin just released an analysis of the cost of typical starter homes—and the income needed to comfortably afford them—across the U.S. Unsurprisingly, Seattle’s numbers are higher than the national average. But how much higher?
Read on for all the details.
Nationally the median cost of a starter home is at $250,000. That price has increased 4% year over year, but thanks to falling mortgage rates it is now cheaper to buy a starter home than it was a year ago. This represents the first annual decline in the cost of buying a home since 2020. You would need to earn $77,000 to afford the typical U.S. starter home.
That’s the median across the nation, however. If you take a look at Redfin’s data on the Seattle housing market, the median price of a Seattle home in general is $875,000. But wait—we’re talking about starter homes. The cost of a “typical starter home” in the Seattle metro area, according to Redfin, is $564,450—and the income needed to afford that is $178,000.
That makes Seattle one of 21 major U.S. metros where buyers need to be making six figures in order to be able to afford a starter home there. Unfortunately, the median household income in Seattle is estimated to be at about $126,000 according to Axios, which falls short of the income needed for a Seattle starter home.
The five metros that saw the biggest increase of income needed to afford a starter home in 2024 are Chicago (up 15.4% year over year), Los Angeles, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh. The cost of starter homes rose the most in Detroit, at 22.8% year over year. In Seattle, home prices are up 9.4% compared to last year, according to Redfin’s data.
Meanwhile, the only four metros where starter homes went from unaffordable in 2023 to affordable in 2024 are located in Texas and Florida.
Wondering about Redfin’s methods for this analysis? They consider a home affordable if the buyer spends 30% or less of their income on their monthly housing payment. You can see all the data on Redfin.