This Is the American City with the Most Million-Dollar Housing Markets

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Mar 8, 2:00PM EST

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This Is the American City with the Most Million-Dollar Housing Markets — © dszc / Getty Images

Residential real estate prices have risen at an astonishing pace. The median value of a home in 2021 rose to $350,000, up almost 15% from 2020. And data from the first part of this year supports the forecast that 2022 could be another year of sharp home price jumps. Home prices in some places are two to three times, or more, the national median. In fact, New York and San Francisco are the American cities with the most million-dollar housing markets.

Home price increases have been driven by several factors. One is low mortgage rates, which have started to rise again. Another is a migration from America’s expensive coastal cities, such as New York and San Francisco, to less expensive cities and towns inland, though this has driven up prices in these cities as well. The migration was partly the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed millions of Americans to work from home, an option some companies have said could become permanent.

One of the byproducts of home price increases nationwide is that many more housing markets now have a median home value of $1 million or more. According to a new Zillow report titled “146 New U.S. Cities Gained Million-Dollar Status in 2021, the Most Ever in a Single Year,” the addition of the record 146 new million-dollar markets brings “the total to 481 cities nationwide in which the typical home value is at least $1 million.”

24/7 Wall St. reviewed the report to find the metro areas with the most cities in which the median value of a home is $1 million or more. A city in the report is measured as part of a larger metro area. So, in Los Angeles, for example, there are 57 million-dollar cities. (Some of these houses are now overpriced, according to some analyses. This is the most overpriced housing market in America.)

Two metros are tied for the most million-dollar cities. Both New York and San Francisco have 76 cities where the median value of homes is at least $1 million. Based on a large number of expensive homes in the city centers and expensive towns close by, this should not come as any surprise. (Find out if New York and San Francisco are among the 20 cities where the middle class can no longer afford housing.)

These are the 10 metros with the most million-dollar cities

10. Santa Maria-Santa Barbara
> Million-dollar markets: 9

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9. Santa Rosa
> Million-dollar markets: 9

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8. Washington
> Million-dollar markets: 11

7. Miami
> Million-dollar markets: 14

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6. Seattle
> Million-dollar markets: 16

5. Boston
> Million-dollar markets: 18

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4. San Jose
> Million-dollar markets: 22

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3. Los Angeles
> Million-dollar markets: 57

2. New York
> Million-dollar markets: 76

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1. San Francisco
> Million-dollar markets: 76

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.