Since 1975, the U.S. has undergone sweeping changes in every aspect of life, from politics to technology and fashion (remember bell-bottom jeans ?)—and the housing market has been no exception.
A Realtor.com® analysis of 50 years of housing data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) found that, perhaps unsurprisingly, home values have risen across all 50 of the nation’s largest metros from 1975 to 2024.
But the differences in gains were striking, revealing a deeply divided housing market split between coastal cities where property values saw inflation-adjusted triple-digit increases and Sun Belt and Rust Belt metros where growth was limited to the single digits.
The reason for this glaring disparity between the housing haves and have-nots comes down to some key trends in modern American economic history, according to Realtor.com senior economist Jake Krimmel.
“In short, the U.S. moved from a manufacturing to a service and information economy and that evolution impacted different places through their labor and housing markets,” explains Krimmel. “Some areas were huge winners from that shift, while some got the short end of the stick.”
The winners were the coasts—but especially tech hubs in the West and financial hubs in the Northeast.
On the other side of the spectrum, metros where factories once powered the U.S. economy have struggled to transform themselves into high-tech powerhouses.
Memphis, TN, fared the worst, with home values in the Bluff City ticking up a mere 2% in a span of 50 years—the smallest increase across the top 50 metros.
Cleveland, a former hub of the steel and iron industries, ended up like Memphis, seeing local home values edged up just 2% during the same time period.
Birmingham, AL, another major iron and steel manufacturing center from a bygone era, saw the third-smallest inflation-adjusted gain in home values between 1975 and 2024, at 9%.
The housing market of Pittburgh—dubbed Steel City for its role at the center of the domestic steel industry at the turn of the last century—fared only marginally better, with home values rising 26%.
“Not only were manufacturing jobs offshored, resulting in job losses and economic plight, but many of these places did not have the capital—financial or human—to reinvent themselves as tech and finance forward hubs,” explains Krimmel.
As of last month, the typical home in Pittsburgh was listed at $254,950, the nation’s lowest median list price, with Cleveland in second place at $259,950.
