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    Sad News for Singletons

    Here's how long single homebuyers in Houston have to save for a down payment

    Lindsey Wilson
    Feb 22, 2018 | 8:45 am
    Money stacked next to a house
    It's a longer road for single homebuyers.
    Photo by Sawitree Pamee/EyeEm, Getty Images

    It doesn't take a math genius to know that two incomes are better than one, especially when saving up to buy a house. A new report from Zillow confirms that single homebuyers have it really, really rough, with many living in cities where it takes two or three times as long to save for a down payment as it does for a couple. Even worse, less than half of all U.S. homes are affordable for a single homebuyer.

    In Texas, however, the numbers are a little less scary. While Zillow claims that the average single homebuyers would need to save for 11 years to a reach a 20 percent down payment on a typical U.S. home, in Houston the number is a slightly better 8.8. To reach this estimate, the real estate website combined home values and income data from the Census and assumed that 10 percent of the person's or couple's income was being saved every year.

    So if singles in Houston are having to wait nearly a decade to become homebuyers, how long does it take couples? Only four years. That's mainly because their combined median income ($85,000) is more than twice that of singles ($39,000), which also sets them up to afford a higher percentage of available housing stock: 91 percent versus 58 percent. So a couple in Houston could, at maximum, afford a home priced at $438,272. A single homebuyer is limited to $197,571 or less.

    The silver lining here is that Houstonians have it easier than both Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin residents, no matter their marital status. In Austin, single homebuyers are right in line with the U.S. average at 11.1 years, while couples actually have to wait a little longer than the nation as a whole: 5.1 years. Austin couples have a much higher combined median income ($99,000 versus $45,600) and can afford 87 percent of the homes on the market. Singles are only able to afford 42 percent, or the homes priced at $233,188 or less.

    Single homebuyers in Dallas-Fort Worth have to wait 9.6 years, while couples only scrimp and save for 4.4 years. The median income for DFW couples is $87,800, versus $40,000 for singles, and together they can afford 90 percent of the homes currently for-sale. Singles, meanwhile, are stuck with homes priced at $205,047 or less, or 54 percent of the available housing stock.

    Aspiring San Antonio homebuyers share space with Houston on the fast track to Texas homeownership. San Antonio gives couples a four-year wait time, while singles only need to save for 8.4 years. The majority of San Antonio homes are affordable for couples (91 percent), but dip a little more for single San Antonians (63 percent). Alamo City's median income is low for Texas, however, with couples making $76,000 (only $36,300 for singles).

    No matter how disappointing it might look for Texans, at least it's way better than the situation in California. In San Jose, it can take singles 30 years to save for a down payment — typically the life of a home loan itself. San Francisco and Los Angeles are only marginally better, at 27.8 and 26.8 years.

    Single and itching to sign the mortgage papers now? Go house-hunting in Indianapolis, which only demands 7.5 years of saving time from singles, or Detroit and Cleveland, which both clock in at eight years.

    zillowreports
    news/real-estate

    red-hot housing

    Houston boasts No. 20 hottest real estate market among big U.S. cities

    Amber Heckler
    Aug 20, 2026 | 9:00 am
    Houston neighborhood with skyline
    Getty Images
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    It doesn't get much hotter than the Houston housing market. A new report has ranked H-Town as the 20th best real estate market among America's biggest cities right now.

    WalletHub's annual study, "Best Real Estate Markets (2026)," compares the real estate markets in 300 U.S. cities based on 17 relevant metrics, such as "housing market attractiveness," home value forecasts, housing affordability, population growth, and many others. Cities were also ranked by size: large cities with over 300,000 residents; midsize cities with 150,000-300,000 residents; and small cities with fewer than 150,000 residents.

    In the overall ranking of the best housing markets in America, regardless of city size, Houston ranks 90th out of all 300 cities.

    WalletHub ranks Houston's real estate market No. 102 nationally, and its "affordability and economic environment" ranks 111th overall.

    This is how WalletHub ranks the "health" of Houston's housing market (where No. 1 is the best and No. 150 is average):

    • No. 51 – Job Growth Rate
    • No. 96 – Home Price as a Percentage of Income
    • No. 99 – Median Home-Price Appreciation
    • No. 128 – Foreclosure Rate
    • No. 159 – Share of Seriously Underwater Mortgages
    • No. 172 – Percentage of Delinquent Mortgage Holders
    • No. 173 – Median Days on the Market
    • No. 192 – Maintenance Costs as a Percentage of Income
    Despite Houston's good standing among the biggest cities in America, a separate WalletHub report claims Houston is one of the worst cities for first-time homebuyers. Instead, Houstonians are turning to popular ZIP codes in suburbs like Cypress and Katy, which rank among the hottest places to move to in the U.S.

    Other high-performing housing markets in Texas
    Two popular North Texas suburbs — Frisco and McKinney — topped WalletHub's overall list of the best real estate markets in the U.S. for 2026 at Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, and they locked in the top two spots in the midsize city ranking, too.

    Frisco tops the nationwide "affordability and economic environment" category, and ranks No. 2 nationally for its real estate market.

    "When you look at home prices as a percentage of income, [Frisco] is the 95th-cheapest among the 300 cities in our study," the report said. "But it’s the 11th-cheapest city for phone service and the 11th-cheapest for maintenance and energy."

    Frisco boasts the highest share of houses that were built between 2010 and 2024, at nearly 47 percent, which WalletHub says is "good news for people who want all the benefits of a recently-constructed home," without having to "put in a lot of work" to renovate an older or run down home.

    "If you aim to make a profit in the long run with your housing purchase, you’ll need to look beyond tangible factors like square footage and style," the report's author wrote. "Those factors certainly drive up property values. From an investor’s standpoint, though, they hold less significance than historical market trends and the economic health of residents."

    Nearby Denton and Allen also made the overall top 10, respectively ranking as the 5th and 8th best real estate markets in the U.S. for 2026. Denton similarly ranked 5th in the midsize city rankings, and Allen topped the list of small cities.

    The top 10 best real estate markets in America for 2026 are:

    • No. 1 – Frisco, Texas
    • No. 2 – McKinney, Texas
    • No. 3 – Murfreesboro, Tennessee
    • No. 4 – Durham, North Carolina
    • No. 5 – Denton, Texas
    • No. 6 – Cary, North Carolina
    • No. 7 – Madison, Wisconsin
    • No. 8 – Allen, Texas
    • No. 9 – Charlotte, North Carolina
    • No. 10 – Irvine, California
    wallethubhousing marketreal estatereportshouston
    news/real-estate

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