May 18, 2026

Nextdoor's 2026 Most Affordable Neighborhoods Rankings Are Here

Written by: Team Nextdoor

Summer is the busiest moving season of the year. Families time relocations around the school calendar; buyers and renters who've been waiting out the winter start making decisions. And right now, affordability is shaping those decisions more than almost anything else.

The numbers are stark. Home prices have risen 60 percent nationwide since 2019, and nearly 75 percent of U.S. households can't afford a median-priced new home. The median age of a first-time homebuyer has hit a record high of 40 — up from 33 just five years ago. For renters, the picture isn't much better: since 2017, home sale prices have increased 81 percent and rents 54 percent, while average earnings have grown about 43 percent. The gap between what people earn and what housing actually costs has never been wider.

That's the context for what we're releasing today. Nextdoor's 2026 rankings of the most affordable neighborhoods across cities nationwide are live.

The rankings are built on Nextdoor's Affordability Score, a composite index drawing from U.S. Census Bureau data, the Tax Foundation, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis — covering median home values, market rents, regional price parity, and tax rates — alongside platform signals reflecting how residents engage in their communities. The score is calibrated within each city: the top-ranked neighborhood receives a score of 100, with others ranked proportionately. That means the rankings are designed to answer one specific question: where is it most affordable to live in your city?

"For most people, buying a home is the single largest financial decision of their lives, and cost is almost always the defining factor in where they can afford to plant roots," said Kelsey Grady, EVP of Communications at Nextdoor. "What makes Nextdoor uniquely valuable is that we can go beyond the listing price and help people understand the real financial picture of a neighborhood."

Find the most affordable neighborhoods in your state: