11 Most Expensive Cities to Buy a Home in the US

Whether a young couple, lone wanderer, or family finally able to afford their dream house, all must wonder which are the 11 most expensive cities to buy a home in the US. If nothing else, then at least for curiosity’s sake. If you yet don’t know the answer, our list should be able to finally clarify that question – at least for the time being. Things do tend to change year in, year out and our main source Altos Research do their job every single year in their quest to bring us the most expensive US housing markets.

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Altos’ research is based on US zip codes and asking prices for single-family homes and condominiums that are currently listed for sale. By the time you’re reading this, some of these homes have probably already found their new owner, but that won’t affect the list since asking prices and closing prices are rarely the same thing. With this in mind, it’s easily noticeable that the research could have gone the other way. Closing prices are a better indicator, like the estimated outcome for an auction versus the real outcome. However, because most properties linger on the market for considerable time, this means that there’s a sample of much smaller scale for the closing prices – especially in smaller communities. Furthermore, all prices are showcased in median value and include all properties for sale. Naturally, larger towns and especially large cities have a number of zip codes that represent their respective districts. We, however, will only list the most expensive zip codes in such instances so that one city doesn’t take half of our list of 11 most expensive cities to buy a home in the US (looking at you, New York). As mentioned above, things do tend to change on a daily basis, not just yearly. That’s why we’ve used the asking prices of available properties for 2014 and for 2015 through the end of September (last available data).

If we had chosen to go with the closing prices, averages would have been lower in most instances. Property Shark compiles such a list which would rate the zip codes differently – no doubt about it. We won’t fail to mention which spot each city would have taken on Property Shark’s list, however. Finally, if the U.S. isn’t the only market that interests you, feel free to take a look at our list of 10 most expensive cities in the world to buy real estate as well.