Montana's Home Price-to-Income Ratio Among Worst in U.S.

It's looking like things are still really challenging for potential homeowners in Montana.

Earlier this year, we wrote about the salary needed to afford a typical home in Montana because, according to a CNN article, the figure had jumped almost 80% since 2020.

We also found that as of March 2024, there were only two states where it was harder to buy a house than Montana. In that study, Hawaii and California had high home values which made it difficult for residents to purchase a home but it was Montana's income-to-home-value ratio that made it difficult for Montanans to buy homes.

Have things gotten better?

Now there's a study that compares apples to apples. Visualcapitalist.com looked at the "home-price to income ratios by state" using median home prices from Zillow and median incomes from the Census Bureau as of June 2024. Here's what they found:

Voronoi by Visual Capitalist.

Even when they're compared using the same metric, i.e. home value and income, Montana is still third on the list for states with the highest ratio.

Hawaii 9.1
California 8.4
Montana 6.6

Visualcapitalist points out that the national average is a ratio of 4.7, which Montana is still quite a bit higher than. There is a gap between Montana and California and Hawaii but it's surprising to see Montana ahead of New York and Colorado.

Having higher wages or lower home prices would of course affect these ratios, but will we see either of those metrics in Montana change in the near future? Montana historically has had low wages, and lower than much of the country, so we may not see a change there, and home prices have been consistently high since the pandemic.

We'll keep an eye on these ratios and hope that things improve for Montana.