The U.S. median home sale price in 2026 stands at about $400,000, up by more than 20% since 2020, according to a new report from PropertyShark, an online real estate database and property research tool.
How much space can the median sale price buy? To find out, researchers identified the 100 largest U.S. cities based on Census 2024, the latest data available. Their analysis considered single-family homes, condos and townhouses.
For sales datapoints, they leveraged the platform's proprietary sales information and verified it through local Multiple Listing Service databases to ensure accuracy and reliability.
Researchers divided a $400,000 budget by the median sale price per square foot in each city to find out how much space could be bought with the national median sale price.
PropertyShark's exercise is a mathematical analysis, the study noted, and in some cities may not fully reflect the actual available housing stock. In theory, it said, $400,000 could buy a certain amount of square footage; in practice, units of that size and at that price could be limited or nonexistent.
Overall, it said, buyers may discover that being open to different locations can have a bigger influence on how much space they can get than small shifts in home prices.
See the accompanying gallery for the 12 cities where homebuyers can obtain the most space for $400,000.
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