Expensive home prices are out of reach for many Nashville residents
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You need to earn about $120,000 a year to afford a median-priced home in Nashville, according to a recent Redfin report.
Why it matters: That's a problem for many people who live here, because the same report puts Nashville's median household income at $91,000, more than $30,000 shy of the home-buying benchmark.
Flashback: In 2013, Redfin found you only needed to make $38,366 annually to afford the median Nashville home.
The fine print: Redfin's data assumes a homebuyer spends no more than 30% of their income on monthly mortgage payments.
State of play: Nashville's affordable housing crisis is well-documented. Sales prices have jumped more than 53% in the last five years. Stubbornly high mortgage rates are exacerbating the issue for would-be buyers.
- The dynamic could dramatically change the makeup of Music City. A 2023 survey of musicians and other creatives in the music industry found that many of them have considered leaving Nashville due to the climbing cost of living.
What's next: Solving the middle class housing crisis has been a priority for city leaders in recent years.
- Work is underway on several fronts. Metro is nearly finished with a long-awaited strategy, and Mayor Freddie O'Connell is expected to unveil a new housing plan soon.
The big picture: It's not just a Nashville problem. Housing has become much less affordable at the national level as well.
Zoom in: The small silver lining is that things are improving, albeit incrementally. A similar Redfin report released in 2023 found a larger $44,000 gap between median earnings and home prices in Nashville.
- Prices are similarly becoming slightly more affordable at the national level.
Yes, but: They still remain out of reach for many residents.
Between the lines: Realtors say that dynamic explains the amped up population growth in more affordable pockets of the city like Antioch and in surrounding suburban counties, where prices skew lower.
- For instance, Wilson County saw its population jump by more than 10% from 2020-2023.