How IL Ranks For Housing Affordability And Availability

ILLINOIS — The housing market in the Prairie State gets a C for affordability and availability, according to Realtor.com.

The online real estate platform assigned letter grades to tell potential homebuyers what markets are best for affordability and housing availability now and in the future, the latter based on an analysis of new construction permits and population.

No state received an A+, and only one A and two A- final grades were assigned in the analysis of the housing markets in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The sprinkling of A’s “says a lot about how far we still have to go to make homeownership truly attainable,” the real estate platform said in a news release.

Illinois received an affordability score of 95 and a score of 5.2 for home building, resulting in the final grade of C.

The median value of a home in Illinois is $316,613 and the median household income is $79,180.

According to a recent study from WalletHub, Illinois residents spend among the least in the country on housing costs when compared to their median monthly household income. Illinois ranked 45th out of all 50 states, with housing costs making up only 20.56 percent of residents' median income.

South Carolina scored the highest of any state with a final grade of A, mostly due to its high home-building score. Iowa and Texas both got A- grades, with Iowa’s high marks stemming mainly from affordability, while Texas owes its ranking to the pace of new housing construction.

States in the Midwest and South stand out as the most affordable regions, but Realtor.com said a few Southern states are sliding toward the bottom of the affordability range, although there are some exceptions. Overall, B grades, including B+ and B-, were concentrated in these regions.

B grades were distributed exclusively to states in the South and Midwest, where construction activity and stronger affordability scores are concentrated

D’s and F’s went only to Western and Northeastern states. Affordability remains a major challenge on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and in states like Montana, which are seeing a major influx of migration from more expensive coastal markets, the platform said.