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The starter home is disappearing across America. These cities still have them

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The starter home is disappearing across America. These cities still have them

Even with stubborn market forces working against them, savvy first-time home buyers are figuring out ways to get a foot in the door – and into their first home. 

Smaller, more affordable starter homes are scarcer these days and cost more too, particularly compared to the pre-pandemic real estate days. According to a new report from Realtor.com, the starter home price threshold swelled from $260,000 to $340,000 between 2019 and 2026, boxing budget-conscious first-time buyers in.

The real estate resource defines starter homes as homes priced at or below 80% of the local median list price. In 2026, starter homes made up 36.2% of the market in the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, down from 38.1% in 2019. The lack of starter home inventory is most pronounced in the Southeast and the Sunbelt, shrinking the most in Columbia, South Carolina and Winston-Salem, North Carolina since 2019. 

With a shrinking pool of options when it comes to affordable single-family homes, condos and townhomes are emerging as a compelling alternative. Homes in those categories now make up 27% of the starter home market. Compare that to 2019, when condos and townhomes only made up 18% of starter home inventory, next to a relative glut of traditional single-family homes.

com Senior Economist Hannah Jones said. “That does not erase the broader affordability challenge, but it does show that the starter-home market is adapting as single-family homes become less accessible to first-time buyers.



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