What’s the average house price in the USA

Article Brief

Average U.S. home prices vary by source and method: July 2025 medians are ~$404K for new single-family homes, ~$369K for typical values across all homes, and ~$443K across all home types. Overall, prices are roughly flat year over year and slipping month to month, with rising inventory and nearly half of homes selling below list price. Regional differences are huge, and features plus small, high-ROI updates (think curb appeal, minor kitchen work) can nudge value more than big renovations, while interest rates remain the key market driver. Bottom line: use national figures as a starting point, but local comps and your home's condition tell the real story.

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Some property market questions have simple answers, others have complex ones. Defining the average house price in the USA involves a combination of both, as the answer can be concise or detailed, providing a clear understanding of the market.

Whichever solution you're looking for, this is the right place to find it. The Offerpad team has compiled all the information on average American property prices you could possibly need, from current data to the underlying factors influencing the market at present.

Cutting to the Chase

Rather than holding out on the main info you've come here to discover, here's a quick overview of top-level average house prices in the USA, broken down across a number of different sources.

Data is from several reputable sources because each one uses different metrics to calculate their average, and thus their results often diverge.

US Census Bureau

The latest data published by the US Census Bureau, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, examines sales of new single-family homes in July 2025. It shows that:

• The median sale price for the month was $403,800.
• A total of 652,000 new houses were sold in this period.
• An estimated 499,000 new homes were on the market by the end of the month.

What's most significant about the average cited here is that it's actually down 0.8% month on month and is 5.9% below the $429,000 median sale price for new single-family homes recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau in July 2024.

Moreover, the mean sales price for new houses sold was $487,300 in July 2025, a 5% decrease from the same month in the previous year. So whether you take the exact midpoint of the data set (median) or the average based on the cumulative price of all domestic property transactions, divided by the total number of transactions, the downward trend is consistent and conspicuous.

Zillow

As a leading presence in the market for buying, selling, and renting properties online, Zillow has its own vast datasets to draw upon when calculating average prices. With this information, the company publishes the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), which is updated monthly to track the market as a whole, with more granular detail available for those who want it.

From the most recent update, you can see that:

• Average home values in the USA sit at $368,581.
• Prices are currently 0.3% higher than they were one year ago.
• The market has actually declined since the beginning of 2025, with average prices peaking at $371,168 in February and dropping monthly since then.

Another detail worth noting from Zillow's crop of analytics is that in June 2025, 49.6% of the sales tracked were for properties that changed hands for less than the original list price. This means that most people who sold did so without achieving price parity with the original valuation.

Coupled with the fact that almost 1.4 million homes were listed for sale on Zillow at the end of July, it's easy to see why buyers can afford to offer less than the asking price in many instances, and be in with a decent chance of having this offer accepted.

The most considerable distinction between Zillow's average price data and that of the U.S. Census Bureau is that the latter only looks at new homes, whereas the former covers single-family homes of all kinds, from 100-year-old rural cottages to freshly built urban developments.

Redfin

An even broader overview of the property market is available courtesy of Redfin's data set. Here, you can see average sales prices across all home types, rather than focusing on single-family setups. The main takeaways include:

• The median sale price in July 2025 was $443,471, up by 1.2% year on year.
• The number of homes sold in the month was actually down by 2.1% YoY, totaling 473,987 properties.
• Just over 2 million homes were on the market in July, representing a 7.2% rise compared with the same month in 2024.

In terms of whether properties sold were going above or below their list price, Redfin found that just 29% of those that changed hands in July did so for more than they were marketed as. This represents a long-term downtrend, a stark contrast to the peak in May 2022, when nearly 60% of sales exceeded their list price.

The mechanisms of supply and demand are transparently holding sway over the market in 2025. Average house prices in the U.S. are dropping month on month while only just managing to stay above water from a YoY perspective.

The Reasons Average House Prices Matter and Why They're Unhelpful

However you decide to calculate average U.S. home prices, and whichever source you use, the data derived from this process has varying degrees of usefulness, depending on your needs and circumstances.

Economists are a clear target audience for average pricing information, not just in the property market but across every sphere of consumer purchases. Long-term trends can be extrapolated and short-term conclusions drawn, depending on where prices stand now, how they compare to previous months in a given year, and how they have changed annually.

While drawing direct parallels between the housing market and the entire U.S. economy is not always wise, there are some interesting overlaps. Data from Deloitte shows that the real personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index increased by just 1.2% in Q1 of 2025, matching the 1.2% rise in median home sale prices reported by Redfin. Meanwhile, real GDP growth this year is projected to be 1.4%, indicating a correlation, if not direct causation.

Equally, if you're a homeowner and you want to know how your property compares with the rest of the country in terms of pricing, these averages are a solid, if blunt, indicator.

The problems arise when you consider that even averages that look specifically at single-family home sales don't give you information that's usefully applicable to your particular situation. They don't account for:

• Location, as national averages overlook the significant disparities in pricing between the most expensive and affordable parts of the U.S. There can even be major variations in price from neighborhood to neighborhood, or from one end of a residential street to the other.
• Condition, because a well-maintained property is more saleable than a rundown one, regardless of the location.
• Average time on the market, which is another factor that varies wildly from place to play and across different price brackets. The nation's most expensive homes can take much longer to sell than their most budget-friendly counterparts, in spite of the fact that they also skew the median and mean average sales prices showcased in most data sets. For instance, the costliest residential property listed at the moment, located in Florida, is available for $295 million, while it's possible to pay less than $50,000 for a single-family home in other parts of the country.

In short, knowing the average house price in the USA is not enough to base any of your own property-related decisions on. You'll have to pull back the curtains on even more data to make choices with any confidence.

What About Regional Averages?

There's even more info and analysis on average home prices in the USA, all of which is updated monthly, quarterly, and annually, depending on the source.

As with the national average breakdown, we'll take this on a source-by-source basis to provide you with the broadest possible overview, along with some local insights that may be relevant to you.

National Association of Realtors

The NAR provides a useful county-by-county breakdown of median home prices on its website, with data sourced from both the American Community Survey and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Currently, it focuses on Q1 of 2025, and there are some eye-opening statistics on both the macro and micro levels.

Specifically:

• 26.9% of homes nationally are worth less than $150,000.
• 56.6% of homes are worth between $150,000 and $350,000.
• 12.1% of homes are worth between $350,000 and $550,000.
• 0.5% of homes are worth over $1 million.

In terms of the locations with the most expensive median house price, there are just 10 nationally that sit in this exclusive club. This includes:

• Marin County, California, with an average valuation of $1,630,017.
• Teton County, Wyoming, where values sit at $1,535,581.
• Maui County, Hawai'i, with 1,040,382 being the pricing midpoint.

Keep in mind that all of these prices are based on value estimates, not actual home sale prices. So, whether a seller today can achieve the expected price extrapolated from the data in this case is a different question. Since it's been established that close to 50% of homes are selling below list price right now, this is doubtful.

The NAR's research also calculates average mortgage payments, which in the top five locations in terms of home value all exceed $8,000 a month.

At the other end of the spectrum, the lowest median home prices can be found in:

• Todd County, South Dakota, where values sit at $49,050.
• Apache County, Arizona, where $56,520 is the going rate for a home.
• Cottle County, West Virginia, where $59,970 will get you a typical property.

Zillow

Turning once more to the ZHVI, this time with the data extracted and interpreted by the Motley Fool, you can look at state-level trends for typical home values. At the moment, the coverage is for prices estimated between April and June 2025.

The highest typical value commanded by a home can be found in:

• Hawai'i, which leads the pack with a $977,538 value estimate.
• California, where $813,110 is the norm.
• Massachusetts, where prices hover around $687,004.

Flipping the table in ascending order, there are a few outliers at the lower end of the price scale:

• West Virginia's $170,514 puts it at the bottom of the pile, which is good for those looking to escape the cost-of-living crunch experienced on either coast.
• Mississippi's $190,755 is only a little higher.
• Louisiana's $214,187 is still well below the national average, whether you take that to be in the $300,000 or $400,000 range.

Redfin

Again, you can compare state-level average price differences via Redfin's extensive database, and for the sake of completeness, here's a breakdown of where it currently ranks the places already cited from Zillow:

• Hawai'i's average is currently $733,800, which is down 4.9% year on year.
• California's average is $831,300, down less than a single percent annually, and very close to Zillow's own estimate.
• Massachusetts sits at $686,100, which is actually 2.9% above where prices were at the same point in 2024.

Then, when looking at the places deemed to be most affordable by Zillow, you get similar results from Redfin:

• West Virginia's median price sits at $248,800.
• Mississippi boasts $264,800 as an average.
• Louisiana sits pretty with $252,700 as its midpoint price.

With all of these comparatively affordable locations, a unifying factor is that they have actually seen modest price growth in the past 12 months. During the same period, California and Hawai'i experienced price contraction. This is not necessarily a direct result of the pricing disparity, but it's nevertheless an intriguing talking point for those with their noses to the ground.

Another aspect of Redfin's market analysis that bears discussion is the overview of metro areas where sales prices are increasing the quickest. At the moment, the top five include:

• Macon, Georgia, with a 20.9% annual uptick.
• Chattanooga, Tennessee, with its 18.6% yearly rise.
• Detroit, Michigan, where homes are 12.9% pricier on average than they were 12 months ago.
• Alexandria, Virginia, where sellers can expect to achieve 12.8% more if they list today than in July 2024.
• Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with a healthy 11.9% average sale price boost.

Similar conclusions can be drawn from this, in that the regions where average home prices are growing fastest are also those where values have a lower starting point from which to increase. Places where typical properties are already worth $1 million or more have smaller percentage-based increases to report, particularly in the current market conditions.

Ultimately, this is just a sample of the depth of data available. If you want to get the lowdown on how things look in your town, city, county, or state, then a quick web search will pull up what you need in seconds. You also need not be too concerned with differences between figures supplied by sources, as methodology is the culprit here, rather than a major disagreement over the realities of the market in a given region.

What Pushes a Home's Asking Price Above the Average?

Anyone who is further along in their next property move, and especially if you're looking to sell at some point in the future, should carefully consider average prices with a view to ensuring that their home stands out for the right reasons.

This is also handy from the buyer's perspective, as you may adjust your search criteria if you know that certain features add value, while others do not.

Given that the national real estate market is valued at over $136 trillion, a substantial amount of research and data exists on this topic, along with considerable debate. So, what can help a home achieve or exceed the market average?

In the Kitchen

The importance of the kitchen cannot be overstated, as evidenced by Redfin's most recent report on U.S. home trends, and in particular the breakdown of the features that buyers deem to be the most valuable.

Of the top 10 examples in this category, four are associated with the kitchen, including:

• Stainless steel appliances, which are associated with a median home listing price of $495,000 and appear in just 1.5% of homes on the market right now, ranking as the most valuable feature of them all.
• Granite counters, present in 1.8% of properties for sale, and sitting in the median price bracket of $529,900.
• A washer and dryer, which just 1% of homes boast.
• A laundry area, equipped in 2.2% of properties and again at the median price point of $495,000.

The way that value is defined here is according to the sale-to-list ratio, which indicates how much above or below the asking price a seller was able to achieve. For the top-ranked stainless steel appliances category, this ratio is 99.6%.

So, what if your home currently lacks any or all of these features, or your kitchen is a little outdated and needs revamping? Is it actually worth splashing out on upgrades or an all-out remodeling of this part of your home in order to go above and beyond the average real estate price in your area?

There's data on this, too, via the Journal of Light Construction, which published its latest Cost vs Value Report last year. This covers average costs for a variety of remodeling projects, and the impact that each has on a home's resale value.

This data shows:

• A minor kitchen remodel using midrange equipment and materials costs $27,492 on average, and will add $26,406 to the resale value, for a 96% recoup on the initial outlay.
• A major kitchen remodel, again with a midrange target, costs $158,530 and only returns $60,176 at the point of sale, for a far less appealing 38% return on investment.

This points to a trend that's apparent throughout the entire market, in which the most minor, most affordable changes provide the best opportunities for pushing your home's value in the right direction without leaving you out of pocket.

Outside

Look into a home's most saleable features and you'll hear endless advice relating to 'curb appeal,' but not a lot of actual detail regarding what exterior beautification actually does for the value of an average property. As you've probably guessed by now, there's a deluge of data available on this aspect as well.

First, let's revisit the Journal of Light Construction's findings. Here, the best job in terms of cost-to-return ratio is garage door replacement. This costs $4,513 on average, but it will add $8,751 to the resale value of any home that undergoes the work. That's a 194% ROI. Similarly impressive is the replacement of an entry door, which will recoup 188% of the costs involved.

If you think replacing the siding of your home is a good idea to improve its appearance and increase its value, be warned: The material you choose is the deciding factor in this context. Manufactured stone veneer is the only material that pays off more than you put in, with 153% of costs recouped. Conversely, if you opt for a vinyl siding replacement, this drops to 80%.

Lastly, be wary of adding a deck to the exterior of your property. If made from wood, this will recoup 83% of the installation price when you go to sell, while in composite this drops to 68%.

The best guidance is clear; fixing minor aesthetic issues like tired-looking doors or flaking paintwork will pay dividends in terms of your home's value, while big projects will rarely, if ever, be worth it if you intend to sell in the short-to-medium term. If you want to jazz up your home's interior or exterior and aren't expecting to move, or don't mind the financial repercussions, go ahead. It's best to approach this process with your eyes open.

Practical Spaces

The usability of a home is what savvy buyers focus on more than aesthetics, and this is reflected in the popularity of a few key features, again identified from Redfin's listing data.

The top spot here is held by the home office, which has become a necessity for many people over the past five years, as the rise of remote and flexible working has pushed it to prominence. 9.1% of homes for sale have a home office, and the sale-to-list ratio is 98.2%. In terms of median listing price, $389,900 is the current figure.

More saleable still, though less widely features, is the family room. This crops up in 5.4% of listings, with a higher sale-to-list ratio of 99% and a median price of $464,950. Redfin even cites this feature as the one that attracts more eyes to listings with it, with an average of 758 views, compared to the 645 achieved by homes with office spaces.

A basement is another functional yet important part of a typical family home, found in approximately 5% of properties listed, with a median price of $440,000. Meanwhile, an attached garage is also appealing, with only 4.4% of homes featuring one, and the sale-to-list ratio for those that do sitting at 99%.

These top-level averages again need to be taken with a pinch of salt, because, of course, different features will have a greater or lesser influence over average home price depending on where the property is located. In suburban areas, expect a family room to be a higher priority. In urban areas, having a home office will give a home more clout.

Upstairs

Many people filter properties based entirely on the number of bedrooms they include, because, of course, if there's not sufficient room to sleep every member of the household, even an otherwise perfect listing is entirely unsuitable.

The U.S. Census Bureau published a report last year that found 64% of American households are made up of families. This is down from 79% in 1974, although it still shows that the majority of buyers will be seeking out homes with their spouse and kids in tow, which in turn influences pricing for properties that cater to this demographic.

Redfin's analysis of the most valuable features of a home ranked having four bedrooms as the sixth most prominent, with just 1.2% of listings featuring this. The sale-to-list ratio of 99.4% speaks for itself, as does the median home listing price of $499,900. And if a property ad goes live with four bedrooms, it can expect to receive an average of 720 views. That's just below the 761 views achieved by homes with stainless steel appliances, which was touched on earlier.

Bathrooms

Unlike the other areas that determine the sale price of homes, and whether they exceed or fall short of regional averages, bathrooms are a bit of an outlier in terms of their popularity and the ROI you receive from having, improving, or adding them.

Across the entirety of Redfin's data on U.S. home trends in 2025, the only mention of a bathroom-related feature is in the section dedicated to those assets of a property that are becoming more searched-for by buyers at the moment. Specifically, homes with two sinks are gaining more attention, accounting for just 1.6% of all listings, with a median price of $549,900, which is well above the national average and surpasses the averages in the majority of states.

However, if you are exploring the possibility of remodeling your bathroom to boost your home's value, or you are thinking about adding a new bathroom to the property, perhaps in the form of an en suite in the master bedroom, it is almost certainly not financially sensible. The Journal of Light Construction's report found the following:

• A bathroom remodel using off-the-shelf materials, fixtures, and design elements will cost $40,750 to complete on average, but will only add $20,148 to the resale value. That's just 49% of the costs recouped when it hits the market.
• An upscale bathroom remodel comes in at $78,840, while the added value at the point of selling the property will be only $35,591. It's grim reading for people who've paid a premium in this part of their homes recently.

Equally, if you add a bathroom to your home, the costs start at around $58,000 and rise to over $100,000, while recouped costs will sit at roughly 33% for this even more complex and costly project category.

In short, homes with sparkling, newly installed, expensively appointed bathrooms are unlikely to be significantly above or below the average home price in their area. It's another functional space, and people have very specific tastes, so playing it safe is the wisest route. A well-maintained and functional bathroom will do much more for your home's value than one with all the bells and whistles.

Floor Area

Among the focal points of property listings that are the easiest to digest in isolation, without necessarily being that useful in practice, is the total internal area, typically expressed in square feet.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has extensive data on this, and its current median as of July 2025 is 1,852 square feet. This is down from the peak of 1,997 square feet recorded in 2019, indicating that newer homes tend to be more modest in size than those completed even five or six years earlier.

This is relevant from an average house price perspective because there are many markets in which this is conveyed not as a per-property figure, but on the basis of cost per square foot.

New York City is the epitome of this trend, and data from Realtor.com highlights how it's not just the list price that matters to buyers and sellers. Specifically, the different in the dollar price per square foot varies significantly between neighborhoods, and is a useful yardstick for affordability in the Big Apple, as well as elsewhere nationally.

The costliest NYC neighborhoods right now, based on this metric, include:

• The Upper East Side, where property sets you back $1,400 per square foot, and the median listing price for a home is $1.6 million.
• The Upper West Side, which has the same average home price but a higher $1,600 per square foot figure to brag about.
• The West Village, with a frankly mind-bending $2,400-per-square-foot figure that's currently the highest in the entire city, in spite of the median listing price of homes here being $1.5 million. This indicates that the average property is smaller, but no less expensive, than elsewhere.

There are many more down-to-earth parts of NYC, as evidenced by the price per square foot that homes within these neighborhoods can achieve. Namely:

• Riverdale, where properties in the median band cost $350,000, and you'll expect to pay $359 per square foot as a result.
• Rego Park, with its $450-per-square-foot average and median listing price of $390,000.
• Jackson Heights, priced at $467 per square foot, coupled with a $399,000 listing price.

Essentially, there are parts of New York City that fall below the national average home prices quoted by everyone from Zillow and Redfin to the U.S. Census Bureau. Likewise, there are neighborhoods and individual homes in places with the lowest mean and median property prices that go well beyond what you'd expect for the area.

What About Interest Rates?

The elephant in the room at this point in this discussion is the impact that interest rates have on average property prices, both in the U.S. and in every other country where property can be bought and sold (read: all of them).

In simple terms, when it's cheaper for people to get home loans, property prices tend to increase. The affordability of lending is closely tied to interest rates, and this was particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Demonstrating this is easiest when looking at one source, so for simplicity, we'll talk about Statista's overview of new home sales prices. Between 2017 and 2020, the average wavered around the $385,000 mark. Then, in 2021, this figure jumped to $464,000, and again in 2022, it rose further to $521,000.

Such leaps would not have been possible without the concerted effort to keep the wider economy afloat at a time of crisis, and the subsequent impact on borrowing costs that this resulted in. Conversely, as the pandemic's effects subsided and other economic and political realities hit home, interest rates rose in 2023 and 2024, resulting in average sales prices for new homes falling rather than rising. This has not occurred to the same extent as it did in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, for which the subprime mortgage market was a primary catalyst. However, it's a useful point to grasp, as it continues to impact every homeowner and renter.

At the time of writing, borrowing rates set by the Fed sit at 4.33%, and it is expected that a cut will come in the next few weeks in response to weakening economic growth, concerns over the job outlook, and the fallout from tariffs imposed on imports, among other in-play factors.

It is not much of a stretch to assert that the month-on-month decline in average house prices seen in many parts of the U.S. has been spurred by a combination of higher rates and the uncertainty that faces consumers collectively.

This state of affairs is compounded by the fact that many people who took out home loans during the market boom period from mid-2020 to mid-2022 may be approaching the point at which they need to renew their mortgage deal, assuming they took a short-term fix on the rate offered. When monthly repayments rise significantly as higher rates are applied, there's the possibility that some homeowners will find that they simply cannot afford to stay put. In turn, the supply of homes to the market will rise while demand falls, potentially depressing average prices even further.

It's worth reiterating that this is a speculative look at what might happen to the market in the weeks and months to come, rather than an assertion of immutable fact. Circumstances change rapidly, and rate shifts could well improve the affordability of home loans to the point that house prices begin to head upwards once more.

Long-term predictions made by Statista still indicate that the real estate market will continue to grow year on year between now and 2029, with an average annual increase of 3.31% projected. In comparison, J.P. Morgan is less optimistic, with analysts anticipating that a sub-3% growth rate for 2025 is possible.

The roughly 3% growth for the market is essentially in line with how real estate has fared over the entirety of the market's existence in the U.S. It is unlikely there will be as much tumultuousness as occurred either in 2008 or 2020 for some time, which makes having a handle on average house prices merely important rather than absolutely fundamental to the buying and selling process.

The Bottom Line

If you've stuck around to the final paragraphs of this look into the average house price in the USA, hopefully you now have a sense of the duality of this question.

On the one hand, a rough national average of $400,000 is a reasonable starting point to settle on, even if sources vary based on what they're measuring and how they measure it. On the other hand, there's much to be gained from getting stuck into the minutiae of your local market, even if it's just out of curiosity, and seeing how this compares with other parts of the country.

Another clear takeaway is that house price data is constantly in flux, and the same applies to the external factors that influence whether prices rise or fall. Interest rates are always at the heart of the market, but there's also a lot to learn from housing trends that stem from the most sought-after features, whether that's home offices or new garage doors.

And for people who are trying to justify that bathroom remodel or kitchen refit based on the expectation it will pay for itself when you come to sell, it's worth double-checking your figures before committing. If you do the work to make your home a more enjoyable place to live, that's justification enough.