The typical downpayment for a home purchase in the third quarter of 2019 was $13,900, according to Realtor.com. By the third quarter of 2025, the typical homebuyer needed more than double that figure — $30,400 — to purchase the typical home.
Elevated downpayments function as both “drivers and symptoms” of a shifting market dynamic, born of high home prices, elevated mortgage rates compared to the past decade and stagnating wage growth, the listings platform says.
In 2019, the typical U.S. household earning a median income of about $68,000 could afford a home priced around $325,000. The typical household earning the national median income in 2025, about $79,000, can now only afford a home priced around $298,000.
These figures demonstrate how the post-pandemic interest rate environment has eroded purchasing power for typical homebuyers. The median-priced existing home sold for $409,200 in November, according to the National Association of Realtors, putting a home purchase out of reach for many prospective borrowers.
Over the past five years, however, the gap between what area residents earn and how much home they can afford to purchase has widened disproportionately in rural counties, according to a mid-December report from Realtor.com.
Over the past five years, the rise of remote work and pursuit of affordability have driven a surge in rural housing demand — and a precipitous rise in rural home prices — amid a nationwide housing supply shortfall.
The median existing-home price in non-metro counties increased more than 70% from November 2019 to November 2025, compared to around 30% price appreciation for homes in metro counties.
“Often these rural counties have a less robust rental market, so options for people living there are getting thin,” says Realtor.com Senior Economist Joel Berner in the report.
A growing wage gap
Harvard University’s Joint Center on Housing Studies reported in mid-December that pandemic-era net migration to non-metro countries turned positive for the first time in at least a decade.
From 2017 to 2019, rural counties observed a net loss of 77,900 residents. From 2021 to 2023, however, they posted a net gain of 540,400 people. The result was wealthier out-of-towners driving up competition for limited rural housing stock, pricing out locals earning typically lower rural wages.
Rural workers earned around $0.84 to the dollar compared to urban workers as of last August, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York data. That ratio was even less favorable for rural workers, between $0.77 and $0.82 on the dollar, from May 2021 to May 2023.
Municipalities may be helping drive the rural housing demand and pricing shift, too. A new analysis by Mortgage Research Network, a consumer finance publication, found that incentive programs offered by rural cities are designed to attract new residents, sometimes covering the downpayment savings gap that keeps many prospective buyers on the sidelines.
Cooling home prices and easing mortgage rates led the average time it took an aspiring homeowner in 2025 to save for a downpayment to fall to seven years, down from 12 years in 2022. A borrower can qualify for a conventional mortgage with as little as 3% down.
But households are saving less of their income than they did prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the U.S. personal savings rate averaging 5.1% of income in 2025, below the 6.5% pre-pandemic norm and historical standards.
Relocation incentives
Topeka, Kan., according to Mortgage Research Network, offers out-of-town buyers a relocation incentive of up to $15,000 — 7.5% of the area’s average home price of $200,351. “Eligible participants must move to Shawnee County,” the analysis says.
St. Joseph, Mich., located 90 miles from Chicago, offers out-of-state homebuyers a $10,000 cash incentive, or 5% of the area’s average home price of $200,470, through its Move to Michigan program. Participants must become full-time residents and can receive a $15,000 kicker for enrolling children in public schools.
West Memphis, Ark., just across the Mississippi River from Memphis, Tenn., offers a $10,000 incentive — more than 8% of the average area home price — for remote workers earning at least $75,000 per year. To receive the cash benefit, an applicant must be living outside the area and purchase a home within six months of approval.
These programs stimulate housing demand by putting cash in consumers’ hands, bridging downpayment and cash-to-close financing gaps.
It is unclear to what extent these new-resident incentive programs add housing pressure on local residents watching their markets rapidly appreciate. But the programs show that rising rural housing demand, and the price pressures it induces, has been boosted by both increasing remote work flexibilities and active efforts by municipalities to stimulate demand.
