April 2026 · Affordability · 4 min read · by Kinan Sawar, MD — REALTOR® at Shorewest, REALTORS®
Nationally, homes sit roughly 18% above where incomes say they should — but the map is wildly uneven. Here’s how to read it.
“Is housing overvalued?” is the wrong question. The right one is: overvalued where, and compared to what?
I measure over/undervaluation by comparing each county’s current price-to-income ratio to that same county’s pre-pandemic (2019) norm. That sidesteps the usual trap of calling expensive-but-always-expensive places like Manhattan “overvalued.” Instead it asks: how far has this market stretched beyond its own fundamentals?
Weighted across the country, the typical market is about 18% above its 2019 price-to-income relationship. In plain terms: prices have outrun local incomes by roughly a fifth since the pandemic, even after the rate shock cooled things off.
The deepest red sits across pockets of the Mountain West, the Southeast, and parts of the Sun Belt that saw the largest pandemic in-migration. When demand arrives faster than incomes, the gap widens — and those are the markets most exposed if migration slows.
Austin is the cautionary tale in reverse: one of the most overvalued metros in 2022, it has since corrected hard — values are down year-over-year and it now reads only modestly above its 2019 norm. Overvaluation isn’t a verdict; it’s a measure of tension. Open the map, switch the metric to “Over / Undervalued,” and find your county — that number is the start of a much better conversation than the national headline.
Kinan Sawar, MD — REALTOR® at Shorewest, REALTORS®, serving Milwaukee and Southeast Wisconsin (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Racine, Kenosha, and Walworth counties). Email: [email protected] · Phone: (618) 713-2964.
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Home values and rents are Zillow ZHVI/ZORI estimates for the named area, as of 2026-07-03; incomes and population are U.S. Census (SAIPE, Population Estimates); migration is IRS Statistics of Income. Area-level statistical estimates for information only — not an appraisal, and not financial, legal, or tax advice.