New York Ranks Last in 2026 Housing Report Card as Six States Fail

New York State finished dead last in a 51-jurisdiction housing ranking released June 19, 2026, scoring just 8.5 points out of 100 on the Realtor.com Housing Report Card — a grading system that measures both homebuilding activity and affordability across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Five other coastal states joined New York with failing grades: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Hawaii, California, and Connecticut. Four more — Oregon, Montana, New Jersey, and New Hampshire — landed in D-range territory.

At the opposite end, Indiana topped the rankings with 76.3 points out of 100, earning an A grade largely on the strength of its housing affordability for typical earners.

How the Grades Were Calculated — and Why They Matter

The report card splits its 100-point scale evenly: half of a state's score comes from housing affordability, measured by how much of a median household income is required to carry the cost of a median-priced home. The other half reflects homebuilding output, assessed through the ratio of new building permits to population and the price premium that new construction commands over existing homes.

New York failed on both counts. A household earning the state's median income would need to dedicate more than 55% of that income to afford a median-priced home of $668,173 — a threshold that housing economists widely consider severely cost-burdened. On the construction side, the state's permit-to-population ratio sits at just 0.45, meaning new permits are being issued at less than half the rate its population size would imply. And when new homes do get built, they carry a price premium of nearly 74% over existing homes — making new construction an ineffective pressure valve on overall housing costs.

Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner identified a common thread across all the bottom-ranked states: restrictive zoning, limited buildable land, and construction costs that price out middle-income buyers before a project even breaks ground.

What Chronically Undersupplied Markets Mean for Sellers Right Now

For homeowners in the failing or near-failing states, the supply crunch cuts two ways — and it's worth being clear-eyed about both sides.

The obvious upside: when new construction is this constrained, existing homes face less direct competition. Buyers who can't afford a new build — or can't find one — circle back to resale inventory. In markets where permits are being issued at half the rate population demands, your existing home carries genuine scarcity value that a healthier building market would erode.

The less comfortable reality: the same affordability crisis that limits competition from new builds also shrinks the pool of qualified buyers for your home. In New York, for example, a buyer needs to commit more than half their gross income just to meet the carrying cost of a median-priced property. That leaves a thinner slice of the buyer pool actually able to close — and it puts downward pressure on how aggressively buyers will compete, regardless of low inventory.

The net effect in these markets is not a simple seller's paradise. It's a market where pricing precision matters more than usual. Overpricing triggers prolonged days-on-market even when comparable inventory is scarce, because the buyers who are qualified are also acutely aware of how stretched they already are.

Sellers in D-Grade States Face a Subtler Version of the Same Problem

Oregon, Montana, New Jersey, and New Hampshire earned grades ranging from D- to D+, placing them in a middle zone that can mislead sellers into complacency. These states aren't in crisis the way New York is, but they share structural weaknesses — zoning friction, constrained buildable land, elevated construction costs — that keep supply from responding to demand in any meaningful short-term way.

For sellers in these states, the implication is similar: the market won't correct itself through new construction during your listing window. Supply relief isn't coming fast enough to change buyer behavior between now and your closing date. That's actually useful information. It means the competitive dynamics you see when you list are likely to hold through the transaction rather than shift abruptly because a new subdivision opened nearby.

Montana is a specific case worth noting — it ranks low despite a geographic profile that feels different from coastal markets. The constraint there is less about regulatory gridlock and more about land acquisition costs and the gap between construction premiums and what local incomes can support.

How to Use This Data Before You List

If you own property in any of the states flagged in this report, the ranking itself is a negotiating data point — not just a news story. Buyers in constrained markets are acutely aware that resale inventory is often the only inventory. That awareness can support your asking price when you frame your home accurately within local supply conditions.

At the same time, don't assume scarcity alone does your pricing work. The affordability squeeze that helps create scarcity also limits what buyers can actually pay. The sellers who do best in these markets are the ones who price sharply at the outset rather than testing high and chasing the market down.

If you're unsure what your home would fetch in today's market — particularly in a state where affordability constraints are compressing buyer pools — getting a data-backed offer estimate before committing to a list price is a reasonable first step. Local comparables alone may not tell the full story when the structural backdrop is shifting.