Ask just about anyone in the dating pool right now, and they’ll tell you–it’s rough out there. But even as Americans on average find themselves getting married later in life, people aren’t waiting for a wedding ring to get the keys to a home of their own.
Single homeownership hit a decade high in 2025, representing 30% of the national market. Pair this with a rising trend of unpartnered adults living alone, and the full picture comes into view: single adults are tired of waiting to start the lives they have always wanted.
To figure out where singles can make the dream of homeownership a reality, Zoocasa analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau and National Association of REALTORS® to determine how median-earning single Americans compare in residential real estate markets nationwide.
In the end, we found four cities across Illinois, New York, Maryland, and West Virginia where the numbers made sense for the average single person to buy a home in 2026–and many where it did not. Here’s how the metros stack up.
Necessary Income Largely Falls Short For Single Households
Across 230 metro areas, only a handful came close to affordable for median-earning nonfamily households. The majority of these areas were centered around the north central United States, particularly near the Great Lakes region.
Topping the list of most affordable metros for singles is Decatur, Illinois. This was the only metro with over $10,000 in favor of median-earning single buyers. As a whole, Illinois also had the highest number of metros offering positive or small discrepancies between earnings and necessary income to own a home, with five metros below a $5,000 difference.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, both the East and West Coast showed some of the highest affordability gaps for single prospective homebuyers. At the bottom of the list was the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara metro in California, where there was an almost $380,000 gap in income to be able to own a home.
In other words, median earners in the San Jose area earn more than double the average single person in Decatur, but homeownership is still hundreds of thousands of dollars beyond reach. This means that despite earning less income, the purchasing power of a single person in Illinois is several times stronger than someone in California or Florida.
Decatur Is the Only Winner With a 10% Down Payment
Alongside Decatur, Peoria is another Illinois city where singles win out, alongside Elmira in New York and Cumberland in Maryland and West Virginia.
These four cities represent the only places a median-earning homebuyer can afford a mortgage on a median-priced home. Additionally, Waterloo-Cedar Falls and the Davenport area both fall within $1,000 of the necessary income to buy a home, making them stretch options for singles.
Affordability isn’t that cut-and-dry, though. A 20% down payment will indeed leave you in the green, but often homebuyers–especially first-time buyers–opt for a lower down payment option. According to the NAR, first-time buyers are likely to put between 6%-9% down on a home, compared to repeat buyers at 23% in 2024. This may also be harder for lower-income earners, where saving enough for a down payment can become a much larger strain on their income by percentage.
Using the 2024 average of a 10% down payment as a baseline, Decatur is the only city where median-earning singles can still afford a home. The same is true for 5% down, which still leaves you $7,838 of headroom.
The same can’t be said for other metros on the list. At 10% down, the gap widens to over $1,350 in Elmira and over $6,500 for the Davenport area.
Ultimately, this means that singles who want to buy a home are better off saving toward the 20% down payment if possible to increase their options–otherwise the income gap widens exponentially.
Coastal Cities Pose the Biggest Challenge for Singles
By far the largest affordability gap for single homebuyers is in California, where seven of the bottom 10 metros with the largest difference in earnings versus required income to buy a home are located. These gaps represent areas where single earners–and likely most married couples–would struggle to buy homes due to their high price points.
Although San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara represents the steepest difference at -$378,573, San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward is close behind at -$232,449. Rounding out the least affordable places for single homebuyers is Urban Honolulu in Hawaii, where the income gap is -$216,105.
Without substantial savings, single homebuyers may find it extremely difficult to break into these markets at median-level earnings. But even then, single buyers will find their savings go much farther in inland areas if they’re willing to break from the coasts.
Putting Single Homeownership in Context
According to the NAR, single buyers have historically made up a much smaller share of the homebuying market. Single female and male buyers have represented up to around 30% of the market in the last two decades, compared to around 60% to 67% from married couples.
Within that 30%, single women have usually represented more than double the number of buyers compared to single men. In 2025, single male homebuyers sat at 9% of the market, compared to 21% of single female buyers.
Additionally, the rate of growth for single female buyers has grown by 14% since 1985, compared to just 1% for male buyers.
Men and women both cite the desire to own a home as their largest reason for purchasing a home. Men are more likely to cite retirement as a reason for buying a home than women, however, with 11% of men compared to 5% of women in 2025.
Another key difference between single men and women is their income and age when homebuying. For first-time buyers, single women made about $73,000 and bought their first home at a median age of 44. Male homebuyers made about $66,000 and on average purchased their homes at age 39.
Single homebuyers cited the following as the major areas they had to cut down on spending or find a workaround to afford their down payment:
- Cutting out non-essential goods
- Scaling back Entertainment
- Buying less clothes
- Cancelling vacation plans
- Getting a second job
Overall, these numbers show that single homebuyers have always been represented in the modern market and have found ways to make homeownership work for them.
Building Your Homebuying Strategy
For singles looking to make homebuying a reality, the answer is straightforward–stay within your means. Find an area where the income you make matches what you’d need to afford a home, and save as much as you can toward a down payment.
Illinois is a top contender when it comes to affordability, but depending on your earnings, several metros across America could fit your needs in New York, Maryland, Iowa and beyond.
Looking to buy a home? Zoocasa can help. Start your search today.
