Can You Afford to Live Here? The U.S. Housing Crisis Exposed

0:00 A ranking of the most and least affordable places to live in every US state based on the price-to-income ratio. 4:05 California 4:46 Delaware 6:45 Kentucky 8:32 Flint, Michigan 8:55 Nebraska 10:33 New York 11:22 Oregon 11:54 Tennessee 13:23 West Virginia I rank every state’s most and least affordable places—and the results can overturn what home prices seem to tell us. I use Census Bureau American Community Survey five-year estimates from 2020 through 2024 to compare median owner-occupied home values with median household income across 1,822 qualifying places. I explain the price-to-income ratio and why a more expensive home can sometimes be more affordable when local incomes are much higher. I look at extremes from Flint, Michigan, and Danville, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, Monsey, New York, and Jackson, Wyoming. I also explain the effects of student populations, renter-heavy cities, local wages, and the limits of using this ratio as a comparison rather than a mortgage calculator.