U.S. States with the Most Expensive Home Prices

Meaning that although they would get above market value for their existing house, it might not be enough to rebuy a house in the same state. A very likely occurrence for owner's of older properties.

@Quizmaster: not necessarily. You can always reverse mortgage your expensive house and use the proceeds for other purposes without selling your home.

wuq is right and I think that's what the vast majority of homeowners in the USA tend to do, as the average American buys a house well above what they can really afford at the time, planning on earning more money later to pay for it, and in the meantime they are house poor unless they take out a mortgage. Which becomes a huge problem when the housing market collapses as it did in 2008 and suddenly your mortgage is worth more than whatever equity you have in your house. But... as long as you don't lose your job and housing prices keep moving up, it works out fine.

On the other hand, to my way of thinking, what's wrong with guapo's plan? That sounds like a great plan to me. If I was sitting on a million dollar home in Seattle or California or anywhere else I would sell it in a day, take the proceeds, move to Thailand or Costa Rica and live like a king the rest of my life.

According to your user profile, you are homeless so I'm not sure if we should be taking real estate advice from you but it sounds good anyway.

homeless because of what I said above... if I owned a home in the US I would just sell it. It's a half-million dollar albatross around your neck.

To keep the cheaters who read the comments from getting the answer.

Even less shocking if you live there. There's a chronic housing shortage in northern communities, in both the USA and Canada. Can't speak to Greenland, but I suspect it's similar.

Hawaii is at the top for many reasons: 1. It's a tropical paradise, 2. It's an island chain with limited land available for building houses and the land itself is extremely expensive, 3. Everything has to be imported and from a great distance, 4. Houses might need to be built to code to withstand earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis and volcanoes. The more housing codes you have, the more expensive the final product is.

it's not a shortage of land, though. Even if you buy land, it is expensive to hire the labor to build something. Don't forget you might also have to build a road and pay for electric poles if you want to be on the grid.

jamed is correct. It's not about the land, it's about materials and labour, and thinking about hookups if you're not in town. Not to mention that the terrain and weather means you can't build all year round and permafrost is a logistical consideration.

Yeah but ya don't have to shovel the snow...

Land use restrictions have very little to do with it. I live in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Chicago, where a two-bedroom condo costs around $550,000. It has nothing to do with land use restrictions. In fact, there are new high-rise condos popping up on every corner. The high price is a result of basic supply-and-demand. I live in a beautiful neighborhood, close to downtown, with parks every block and Lake Michigan ten minutes' walk away. So a lot of people want to live here. So the cost goes way up. It's the same in the New York City suburb where I grew up. There just isn't as much land to develop because it's so densely populated, and people want to be near New York City and in a nice suburb. I don't think land use restrictions matter.

Liberal States would also tend to have better education, services, etc... along with higher property taxes to provide those items. There is a quiz on highest taxes per state that would make a good comparison.

Wait, so you were making a joke out of your argument that seemed to be thought out in a serious way? or do you just misunderstand r/woooosh. I thought you made 2 good points in your argument, one about how these are all theories, and another about how these places may be blue, but they're also places of great beauty.

Yes, of course. California doesn't have any agriculture and Florida and Texas really need to get themselves some cities so they can provide some "software and brands".

I assume it is based on sale prices that Zillow has compiled (a statistic they track), rather then "Zestimates." So these numbers should be fairly accurate.

2022 update: Utah would be here by virtually any measure now. Home prices are through the roof...

This all started during Washington- it's been getting worse ever since. Back in the Washington administration, you could buy a house for like $100.