For the average price of a home in the United States — $400,000 — the typical homebuyer in Arlington is only able to get a 755-square-foot property, a new analysis found.
The county ranks 16th from the bottom in a new PropertyShark survey of 100 large urban areas, which examines how many square feet homeowners can purchase for the sales price of the average U.S. home.
While Arlington’s square-footage total equates to roughly a one-bedroom apartment, it would be positively spacious compared to the 267 square feet the same amount of money would buy in Manhattan.
That New York City borough is lowest on the list, followed by San Francisco (393 square feet for $400,000) and Irvine, Calif. (423 square feet).
Others with the lowest purchasing power include Honolulu, Brooklyn, Boston, San Jose, San Diego, Los Angeles and Long Beach.
At the other end of the spectrum, $400,000 would purchase a 4,918-square-foot home in Detroit; a 4,467-square-foot home in Cleveland; and a 3,088-square-foot home in Lubbock, Texas.
Closer to Arlington, that same $400,000 would purchase 927 square feet in D.C., 1,674 square feet in Virginia Beach, 1,727 square feet in Norfolk and 2,440 square feet in Baltimore.
The localities that come closest to Arlington’s 755 square feet are Seattle (731) and Staten Island (796).
PropertyShark acknowledges that its statistical review may not always equate to real-world conditions:
“This is a mathematical analysis and, in some cities, it may not fully reflect the actual available housing stock. For example, in theory, $400,000 could buy a certain amount of square feet. But, in practice, units of that size and at that price could be limited or even non-existent.”
In Arlington, the average single-family sales price currently tops $1.5 million. There were no detached homes or townhouses/rowhouses sold for $400,000 or less in February, according to figures from MarketStats by ShowingTime analyzed by ARLnow.
In the condo market, however, there were 16 condominium sales for less than that price, and 33 of the 81 condos on the market at the end of that month were priced in that category.
In the broader Northern Virginia market for February, no single-family homes sold for $400,000 or less, but five of 249 townhome transactions and 165 of 324 condo sales were in that price range, according to the MarketStats by ShowingTime data.
Founded in 2003, PropertyShark is an online real estate database and property research tool that provides building details, ownership information, comparable sales and foreclosure data.
Its survey of the 100 largest urban areas totals 104 locations, with the five boroughs of New York City analyzed individually.
