Affordability and Homebuilding: State-by-State Report Cards

By Joel Berner

April 24, 2025

Highlighted findings

• States in the South and Midwest lead the nation in terms of current housing affordability.
• Southern and Western states are building the most homes, with just seven states from these two regions accounting for over half of the permits issued for new-home construction in 2024.
• We assigned letter grades to measure housing provision based on current affordability and current construction, as a proxy for future affordability. With this approach, no state received an A+, and only one A and two A- final grades were given out, as all 50 states and DC have room for improvement.
• States in the South and Midwest received all of the good grades given out (A’s and B’s) on the basis of affordability and homebuilding; states in the West and Northeast, with generally stricter zoning and land use regulations, received all of the bad grades (D’s and F’s).

Realtor.com is committed to expanding the national conversation about affordable housing. Our Let America Build campaign is designed to showcase the problems facing prospective homebuyers and encourage leaders of governments and communities to address these challenges by facilitating the building of affordable homes. It will be a long, uphill battle to close the 4 million home supply gap the United States is currently facing, and we showed that the size of the challenge and progress toward closing the gap vary across different regions of the United States. Thus, we know it’s important to check in on how states and locales are performing. Is your state top of the class? Find out: Read More

More great articles below:

• Commissions and Omissions: Trends in Real Estate Broker Compensation
• Housing market shift: 60 major markets are now seeing falling home prices