This House Is America’s Typical Home

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 7:36AM EST · Published May 25, 6:22AM EDT

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This House Is America’s Typical Home — © Thinkstock

$187,000 is the median home value in the United States. What does such a home look like?

According to Zillow, the current median home value in America is $187,000. After a peak of $196,000 in 2007, it dropped to $153,000 in late 2011. Even by 2017, it will not match the high set a decade earlier.

In some places, the median value of a home for sale is well above $600,000. Westchester, N.Y., is an example. In Detroit, on a comparable basis, the median value of a home for sales is less than $87,000.

1440 Janssen Dr. in Lincoln, Neb., is for sale for $187,500. It was built in 1975. It has been on the market a month, after being last sold for $154,000 in February 2013. The price change over the three or so years is similar to the recovery of the U.S. market.
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The Lincoln home is unspectacular. It has four tiny bedrooms and three bathrooms crammed into 1,556 square feet. It sits on a 0.23 acre lot, which is small for much of the United States, but large for condominiums and apartments. The house is in the mix of an urban and suburban area, not far enough from downtown Lincoln to be in a bedroom community.

The outside skin of the house is made of brick and steel. It has a deck and fenced-in yard. Based on photos of the 1440 Janssen Dr. home, it needs to be updated.

The listing:

Come check out this 4 bedroom, 3 bath area, Split Foyer home in the ever so popular Trendwood area for under $200,000. This house features 2,300 square feet of space and many updates in the last few years. Updates include newer windows, roof (2013), all brand new carpet throughout, all new paint, newer light fixtures, and refinished cabinets. Other features include brick/steel siding exterior, fenced yard, water softener, underground sprinklers, and beautiful landscaping.

For some reason, the real estate agent in charge of the sale has put square footage higher than that listed. Maybe the 2,300 square foot figure includes the deck.

For 20% down, the monthly payment for the home is $1,081, which includes principle, interest, insurance and taxes. Those numbers are near the median of the country, too.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.