Over the last 50 years, America’s housing market has split sharply between booming coastal metros and slower-growing industrial cities. A new Realtor.com® analysis of Federal Housing Finance Agency data from 1975 to 2024 found that home values have increased in every one of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas, but by wildly varying degrees.
The biggest gains came where technology and finance reshaped local economies. On the West Coast, San Jose led the nation with a 396% inflation-adjusted increase in home values, accounting for the steepest rise among all metros. The Bay Area city, at the heart of Silicon Valley’s tech boom, became the first U.S. metro where the median single-family home topped $2 million in 2024. It remains the country’s most expensive housing market, with a September 2025 median list price of $1.36 million.
San Francisco and Los Angeles followed close behind, with 300% and 292% gains since 1975, while Seattle (bolstered by major employers like Microsoft) saw values rise 280%. Senior economist Jake Krimmel explained that these areas flourished as the U.S. shifted “from a manufacturing to a service and information economy.” Cities that became technology or finance hubs, he noted, were the “huge winners” of that transition.
On the East Coast, Boston ranked sixth for long-term growth, with home values up 196%. New York landed in eighth place, tied with Denver, at 161%. These metros benefited from financial and professional services expansion during the late 20th century, Krimmel said, but limited housing supply made price pressures even stronger. He noted that demand increased, “but supply was not able to keep pace.”
Meanwhile, much of the country’s former industrial heartland saw little change. Memphis and Cleveland had the smallest gains of any large metros, with home values up just 2% since 1975. Birmingham rose only 9%, and Pittsburgh climbed 26% (a modest increase for a city once synonymous with steel).
Many of these regions struggled to replace lost factory jobs and lacked the resources to reinvent themselves as modern economic centers. Currently, homes in Pittsburgh and Cleveland remain among the most affordable nationwide, with typical listings below $260,000, representing a sharp contrast to the million-dollar markets that now dominate the coasts.
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