Realtor.com® Metro Report Cards: Des Moines Earns Top Marks as Homebuilding and Affordability Divide America's Largest Metros

Ten metros earn A-range grades for balancing today's affordability with future supply; Los Angeles ranks last as the nation's least affordable major metro

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Realtor.com^® today released its first Metro Affordability & Homebuilding Report Cards, grading the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas on the two factors most critical to homebuyers: whether homes are affordable for local earners today and whether enough new homes are being built to meet future demand.

Ten metros earned grades in the A range by pairing strong affordability with healthy homebuilding activity. Des Moines, Iowa, ranked first with an A+ and a score of 83.4, followed by Raleigh, N.C., also with an A+ and a score of 82.8, and Columbia, S.C., with an A and a score of 75.3. At the other end of the rankings, 13 metros received F grades, with New York ranking No. 98, Providence, R.I, ranking No. 99, and Los Angeles ranking last at No. 100.

The report comes as the United States faces a housing supply gap of more than 4 million homes. That shortage has made it harder for households to form, delayed the path to homeownership and constrained a key avenue for long-term wealth building. The new metro-level analysis shows where local housing markets are creating better conditions for buyers—and where persistent supply constraints remain most acute.

"Homebuilding and affordability are inseparable, and if we want to improve affordability in a lasting way, we need to build more homes," said Danielle Hale, chief economist, Realtor.com^®. "The metros at the top of these rankings show that buyers benefit most when communities pair homes that are attainable for today's local earners with enough new construction to support tomorrow's demand. Des Moines, Iowa and Raleigh, N.C., offer different examples of that balanced approach, but the lesson is the same: sustained progress requires both affordability and supply."

Des Moines Takes the Top Spot
Des Moines earned the nation's highest grade by combining an affordability-component score of 88.3 with a homebuilding-component score of 78.4. The metro's median-priced home of $349,903 requires 27.5% of median household income for a monthly mortgage payment, below the commonly used 30% affordability threshold. Its REALTORS® Affordability Score of 0.894 also stands well above the national average of 0.675.

The metro's permit-to-population ratio of 1.85 means it permits 85% more new homes than would be expected based on its population share and the national average level of construction. Its main opportunity for improvement is the relative cost of new homes: the new-construction premium is 23.4%, placing it in the bottom half of the 100 metros studied.

Raleigh secured the No. 2 position on exceptional building activity. Its permit-to-population ratio of 2.51 and a new-construction premium of -1.3% indicate that builders are delivering homes at a rate well above the metro's population share—and at prices slightly below existing homes. Other A-range metros include Columbia, S.C.; Houston; Indianapolis; Austin; Jacksonville, Fla.; Oklahoma City; Palm Bay, Fla.; and Columbus, Ohio.

Los Angeles Ranks Last; 13 Metros Receive F Grades
Los Angeles received the lowest overall score, 12.0, driven by an affordability-component score of just 0.9 and a homebuilding-component score of 23.1. With a median listing price of $1,129,415, a median earner would need to spend 84.4% of income on the monthly mortgage payment for a typical home, assuming a 10% down payment and a 6.5% 30-year fixed mortgage. A buyer would need a down payment of roughly 68%, or about $768,000, to bring the monthly payment within the 30% affordability threshold.

Los Angeles' permit-to-population ratio of 0.47 indicates that the metro is permitting less than half the national average of homes per resident. The combination of extreme affordability pressure and limited new supply placed it at the bottom of the class.

The other F-grade metros are Providence, R.I; New York City; Honolulu; Boston; Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, Calif.; San Francisco; Worcester, Mass.; San Diego; Stockton, Calif.; San Jose; Miami; and Riverside, Calif. Several California metros in this group—notably Riverside, San Diego, San Jose and Stockton—posted comparatively stronger homebuilding scores, suggesting that continued construction could improve future affordability conditions.

Local Policy as a Lever
Local housing policy, especially zoning and permitting, helps explain the gap between the highest- and lowest-performing metros. For example, Boston has four times as many pages of zoning law as Austin, 79% of its land is zoned compared with 15% in Austin, and minimum parking mandates apply to 88% of Boston land versus 37% of Austin land. Boston also has fewer areas that allow unrestricted ADUs or smaller minimum lots, limiting the supply of compact, more affordable homes.

"Beyond land availability, the biggest difference between the "A" metros and the "F" metros is local housing policy, especially related to zoning and permitting," said Joel Berner, senior economist, Realtor.com^®.  "The "A"s share regulatory flexibility and streamlined approval processes, while the "F"s are locked in restrictive land-use frameworks. One common thread among the "A" metros is that they tend to be blue cities in red states, which is an important distinction in that builders often do not have to deal with the same kind of state-level environmental reviews that they do in many of the "F" metros, and the "A" metros have the latitude to enact pro-housing policy instead."

A Regional Divide Comes Into Focus
The metro results mirror the regional pattern seen in Realtor.com^®'s state report cards: the South and Midwest are home to the strongest performers, while the West and Northeast generally trail. Lower housing costs relative to incomes and higher levels of construction activity are more prevalent in the Midwest and South, where land is often more available and local zoning and permitting policies tend to be more flexible.

Several metros outperformed their state-level results. Raleigh, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, Palm Bay and Columbus each scored higher than their respective states. Columbus and Oklahoma City stand out in particular: both received A- grades despite Ohio and Oklahoma receiving C+ grades in the 2026 state report cards.

"Metros that make it easier to build—through more flexible zoning, streamlined permitting and policies that support competitively priced new homes—are better positioned to expand access to homeownership," said Berner. "The contrast between Austin and Boston makes clear that the rules governing what can be built can be just as consequential as the land available to build on."

How the Metro Report Cards Work
Each metro receives a 100-point score across two equally weighted dimensions:

• Affordability (50%) combines the median-median affordability measure—how much of a median earner's income is required for the mortgage payment on a median-priced home—with the REALTORS® Affordability Score, which measures the share of for-sale inventory affordable to households at different income levels.

• Homebuilding (50%) combines the permit-to-population ratio, weighted at 80% of the homebuilding score, with the new-construction premium, weighted at 20%. The latter measures how much more or less a newly built home costs than an existing home in the same metro.

Letter grades range from A+ for scores of 77.5 or above to F for scores below 30. The report is based primarily on 2025 data, including Realtor.com^® listing data, 2025 Claritas median household-income estimates, U.S. Census Bureau building-permit and population data, and the REALTORS® Affordability Distribution Curve developed in collaboration with the National Association of REALTORS®.

Methodology
The 2026 report cards are largely based on data with a 2025 reference period. The REALTORS® Affordability Score is derived from the REALTORS® Affordability Distribution Curve, a collaboration with the National Association of Realtors which examines how many listings are affordable to those in a particular income percentile. The Affordability Score varies between 0 and 2 and is a calculation that is equal to twice the area below the Affordability Distribution Curve on a graph. Median list price is calculated for each metro across Realtor.com listings active in 2025. Median Household Income comes from 2025 estimates by Claritas. Permit data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau's Building Permit Survey, and each metro's total is divided by the national total to compute the share. Population data comes from 2025 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, and each metro's total is divided by the national total to compute the share. The new-construction premium comes from comparing the median prices of Realtor.com listings grouped into new builds and existing homes for each metro.

About Realtor.com^®
For over 30 years, Realtor.com^® has connected buyers, sellers, and renters with trusted insights, professional guidance and powerful tools to help them find their perfect home. Recognized as the No. 1 real estate site REALTOR® agents recommend, Realtor.com® delivers consumer connections and a robust suite of marketing tools to support business growth. Realtor.com^® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc.

Media Contact: Mallory Micetich, [email protected]

 

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