What the Average Home Price Today Could Buy the Year You Were Born
Find out the square footage you could have got in years past.
2019
- Median home price: $321,500
- Median square footage: 2,322
- Price per square foot: $138.46
- Square footage you could buy for the price of a 2020 home: 2,342
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Erica Corbin contributed to the reporting of this article.
Methodology: GOBankingRates determined what today's average home price could buy you, dating back to 1963, using in the following data points: (1) the average median home price per year from 1963-2020, found by taking the average of the monthly median prices of the year, sourced from the United States Census Bureau's new residential sales historical data (data only went as far back as January 1963); (2) median square footage of new residential homes, sourced from the United States Census Bureau's characteristics of new housing data from 1970 onward and the United States Housing and Urban Development's characteristics of new one-family homes for 1969 and before. These two factors were divided to get each year's (3) price per square foot, which was then divided by the 2020 median home sale price as sourced from the United States Census Bureau's new residential sales historical data, which in turn gave (4) the amount of square footage a 2020 home price could buy you for that year. All data was collected and up to date as of Oct. 7, 2020.
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