What a home actually costs in our eight markets in 2026
Neighborhood-by-neighborhood price per square foot, what moved this year, and where the numbers stopped making sense.
The US housing market spent 2025 absorbing higher mortgage rates and 2026 sorting itself out. Prices did not rise uniformly — they rose where inventory stayed tight and stalled where new supply arrived. That is the single most useful thing to understand before you look at a listing.
A note on the numbers below: this is demonstration content prepared for a sample brokerage. It is not live MLS data, and it should not be used to price a real transaction.
Price per square foot, by neighborhood
These are closed sale figures from the last twelve months, not asking prices. List prices in most of these markets run 3–8% above where homes actually close, which is why any analysis built on active listings overstates the market.
| Neighborhood | Condo $/sq ft | House or estate $/sq ft | 12-month change |
|---|---|---|---|
| SoHo, New York, NY | $1,450 — $2,100 | $1,900 — $3,200 | +3% |
| Beverly Hills, CA | $1,150 — $1,700 | $1,500 — $2,600 | +4% |
| Brickell, Miami, FL | $700 — $1,050 | $900 — $1,400 | +6% |
| Coral Gables, Miami, FL | $520 — $760 | $650 — $1,050 | +5% |
| Lincoln Park, Chicago, IL | $400 — $580 | $520 — $840 | +4% |
| South Congress, Austin, TX | $430 — $610 | $500 — $780 | +7% |
| Scottsdale, AZ | $340 — $470 | $400 — $640 | +6% |
| Frisco, TX | $230 — $320 | $260 — $410 | +9% |
Where the growth actually came from
Frisco led at +9%, and the reason is not complicated: corporate relocation into North Texas continues to outpace the rate at which new communities deliver. Homes inside the strongest school attendance zones repriced first and hardest. Move three miles into a different zone and the increase drops to around 4%, which is roughly inflation. The relocation wave did not lift Frisco — it lifted parts of Frisco.
South Congress at +7% is a different story. That is amenity-led growth: the corridor keeps generating rental demand from people who want to live without a car, and buildings within four blocks of the avenue now command a clear premium. Block-level differences of 20% inside the same neighborhood are now normal.
Where the numbers stopped making sense
Two things concern us going into next year. First, some North Texas lots are trading on infrastructure that has been platted rather than built. A lot on a paved, city-accepted street with utilities at the line is worth substantially more than an identical lot two phases away where the street is still a line on a plan, and the price gap between them is currently too narrow.
Second, new condo pricing in parts of Brickell and Austin has begun to assume the rental market will absorb every unit at current rents. It will not. If you are buying to rent out, model your yield at 85% occupancy, not 100%, and put insurance and HOA increases into the model rather than holding them flat.
What this means if you are buying
If you are buying to live in, neighborhood choice matters more than timing — the difference between a good and a poor street inside the same zip code outweighs a year of market movement. If you are buying to invest, financing cost and carrying cost are now the whole game. Buy where the rent already supports the payment.
Want this applied to a specific property?
Send us the listing — ours or anyone else’s — and we will run the numbers and tell you honestly what we think.
