The Least Expensive Zip Code in Texas
The median home sale price in the U.S in 2020 was over a quarter-million dollars ($265,000), but in one Texas zip code homes are selling for a lot less than that.
The median home sale price in the Brownsville zip code 78521 is $97,000, and according to sales prices from ATTOM Data Solutions, that's the least expensive zip code in Texas. About 35% of people in that Brownsville zip code live below the poverty line. If you're curious, the median salary there is about $32,000 per year.
There are dozens of zip codes around the country that have home sales prices under six figures and houses that cost as much as a fancy car are still out there, but the Brownsville zip code is the only one in Texas with home sales prices under $100,000.
24/7 Wall Street posted the least expensive ZIP codes in America last week, based on the median sales price of condos and single-family homes in 2020. They only considered zip codes with at least 1,000 homes and at least 500 sales.
After they crunched the numbers, they figured out that the least expensive zip code in America is on the East Coast. I would think Midwest, somewhere in the smattering of small rural towns like the one where I grew up in Nebraska that's bordered by cornfields and cemeteries. But nope. That's probably because there are not more than 1,000 homes and 500 sales in places like that.
The zip code 21223 in Baltimore, Maryland had the lowest median home sales price of $26,000. Wow! Wanna move? Me neither, but that would make for a pretty great mortgage payment. Most of the homes there are more than fifty years old, but the remodeling budget might be easy to find with the bones priced that low to start. We've seen enough Fixer Upper episodes to get a running start, and there are always good handymen on the dating apps. This could work.
Zillow says the average home value in Tyler is $183,000, so we're not going to find too many bargain-basement deals in East Texas. At least not the ones like they're seeing in 21223 in Baltimore. But, then again, maybe it's a good thing not to be dirt cheap.