There's a wide disparity in 2026 between how much homeowners in the U.S. spend on housing, according to recent findings published by WalletHub.
While residents in the country's most expensive states spend nearly half their income on housing, people in the most affordable states spend a fraction of that. "Homeowners and home buyers have faced whiplash over the past few years, with housing prices soaring and interest rates fluctuating from historic lows back up to the highest rates in more than a decade," WalletHub Analyst Chip Lupo said of the findings.
The study ranks states based on housing affordability, measuring the share of median household income spent on housing costs such as mortgage or rent, utilities, taxes, and insurance. Researchers also highlight how high housing costs are often driven by a combination of limited housing supply, high demand, and elevated property values, particularly in urban and coastal markets.
To arrive at these findings, WalletHub analyzed publicly available data from sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau.
The slideshow above illustrates the most expensive states in the U.S. to be a homeowner, according to WalletHub.
Overall, the analysis underscores a growing affordability divide across the U.S., where location plays a major role in determining how much of a household's budget is consumed by housing.
(Featured image credit: iStock)
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