CB: Niagara Falls Most Affordable

Newport Beach, Calif., led the list of most expensive U.S. real estate markets for the second year in a row, with an average home listing price of approximately $2.5 million for property listings meeting the subject home criteria.

By contrast, it only takes $61,000 to buy the average priced home for sale today in Niagara Falls, N.Y.,

The Coldwell Banker Home Listing Report compiles extensive information on real estate data from around the U.S. and Canada for home buyers and sellers. The Coldwell Banker HLR provides the average home listing price of four-bedroom, two-bathroom properties on coldwellbanker.com that were listed between September 2010 and March 2011 from more than 2,300 North American markets.

“This year’s home listing report is by far the most in-depth local market source of data that Coldwell Banker has ever released,” said Jim Gillespie, chief executive officer, Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. “We’ve included nearly ten times more markets than ever before, which gives us unmatched real estate insight into thousands of North American cities. For instance, we can see that there are 775 U.S. markets averaging $200,000 or less for these types of aspirational homes. We know that home buying remains a deeply personal lifestyle decision, and we believe that reports like this, along with trusted real estate agents, will help today’s buyers make smart decisions.”

In total, there are 24 U.S. markets in the Coldwell Banker HLR with average reported listing prices less than $100,000. There are 1,545 markets with average listing prices less than $300,000. Georgia has three markets on the most affordable housing list (Riverdale, College Park and Lithonia). Each of these markets has an average listing price of less than $80,000, and all are within a 20 mile commute to Atlanta, Ga., which has an average listing price of approximately $255,000.

Out of the 10 most expensive real estate markets, six come from California: Newport Beach, Pacific Palisades, Rancho Palos Verdes, Saratoga, Los Gatos and Cupertino. The survey included more than 50 housing markets where the average listing price for the subject home was more than $750,000, including 15 markets whose average listing price exceeded $1 million.