One Quarter of U.S. Homes are Valued at Less than $200,000

The United States is in the throes of a housing supply crisis. Policymakers estimate that we are roughly four million units short, with significantly more affordable units needed.

America’s housing crisis is widely framed as a new supply problem: we need to build more homes, faster. But the crisis is also a financing problem: one that quietly keeps millions of working families from purchasing, repairing, and transferring affordable homes that already exist.

Today, roughly a quarter of homes nationwide are valued at under $200k. These homes exist in every state, though they are more prevalent in the South and Midwest. But working families rarely get the chance to buy them. That’s not because these homes are unpopular. It’s because financing systems make small-dollar mortgages and repair loans harder to access, more expensive to administer, or simply unavailable. As a result, buyers who rely on traditional financing are quietly locked out, even when homes are technically “affordable."

Some communities are beginning to address this gap, for example by pairing small-dollar mortgage pilots with repair financing to allow existing homes to re-enter the market. Where these programs work, they expand who can purchase a home today, even as we build more new supply for tomorrow.

Read more of our work on affordable homeownership and strategies to bridge the gap here.