Report: Middle Class Americans in Swing States Disproportionately Face Unaffordable Home Prices

Since 2019, when former President Donald Trump was in office, unsustainable housing costs and rents have increasingly burdened Americans living in swing states like North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, the analysis finds.

The Washington Post reports:

Americans in swing states are far more likely to live in areas where housing has become disproportionately more costly since 2019, according to a Washington Post analysis of home-price data. Nationally, home prices have grown 48 percent since 2019. But in some counties across the seven most tightly-contested swing states — including Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — prices have more than doubled, an analysis of Zillow data shows.

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“This is no longer just a big coastal city problem,” said Dennis Shea, executive director of the J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “Housing affordability is poor everywhere, and home prices have gone up dramatically in all seven swing states since 2019.” 

In particular, almost 9 in 10 counties in North Carolina have seen home price increases surpass the national average since 2019, as well as 80 percent of counties in Arizona, nearly 80 percent of counties in Georgia, almost half of counties in Wisconsin, about 45 percent of counties in Michigan, roughly a quarter of counties in Pennsylvania, and more than 10 percent of counties in Nevada.