The Headline Number

The typical U.S. public school teacher can afford just 12% of homes for sale within commuting distance of their school, according to a Redfin analysis of more than 70,000 PreK-12 public and private schools across the 50 largest U.S. metro areas. That is down sharply from 17% in 2022 and 30% in 2019, before the pandemic-era home price surge reset the market.

A follow-up Redfin report found the figure had only marginally improved, with teachers able to afford about 14% of for-sale homes near their schools — still less than half the pre-pandemic share.

Why Affordability Has Collapsed for Teachers

The gap between teacher pay and housing costs has widened in two directions at once:

Home prices and mortgage costs surged. Redfin reported that the median monthly U.S. mortgage payment rose 91% between 2019 and mid-2024 — more than four times the increase in asking rents over the same period.
Teacher wages have not kept up. The median U.S. teacher salary was $66,745 in 2022, and Redfin noted that when adjusted for inflation, teachers were earning roughly $3,644 less than a decade earlier. Median pay rose to $64,266 in 2023 — a 3.8% year-over-year gain, but far behind the run-up in housing costs.

The result is a widening affordability cliff that is hitting newer and lower-paid teachers hardest, especially those trying to buy their first home.

Where Teachers Are Most Squeezed

The crisis is concentrated in high-cost metros and in parts of the Sun Belt where home values have run well ahead of local teacher pay.

Least affordable for buying a home (share of homes a typical local teacher can afford):

San Jose, CA and San Diego, CA — roughly 0%
San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Austin, Nashville, Denver, and Boston — about 1% each

Most affordable for buying:

Detroit, MI — about 67%
Cleveland, OH — about 59% (later updated to roughly 61% in the 2024 report)
Pittsburgh, PA — about 53%

Renters face their own squeeze in Florida. In Miami, the typical teacher could afford just 2% of available rentals within commuting distance of their school — the lowest share of any metro Redfin analyzed. Fort Lauderdale and Orlando came in at 4%, with West Palm Beach at 6% and Nashville also at 6%.

Knock-On Effects: Shortages and Retention

Unaffordable housing is not just a personal hardship — it is reshaping the teacher workforce. Redfin found Orlando experienced the steepest decline in teacher employment of any metro it analyzed, down about 30% since 2019, while local teacher pay fell 8% to roughly $49,561.

Districts in high-cost regions have increasingly reported that housing, not curriculum or classroom conditions, is the deciding factor when educators choose whether to stay, relocate, or leave the profession entirely.

What Teachers and First-Time Buyers Can Do

Educators looking to buy — especially first-time homebuyers — still have several paths worth evaluating before giving up on homeownership near their school:

State and local teacher homebuyer programs. Several states, including California and Texas, run down payment assistance and below-market-rate loan programs aimed specifically at educators and other public employees. Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation (TSAHC), for example, highlights programs that school districts and state entities use to help teachers close the affordability gap.
Employer- and district-assisted housing. A growing number of school districts, particularly in California, are building or subsidizing workforce housing on district-owned land, and some are exploring accessory dwelling unit (ADU) programs to expand supply near schools.
General first-time homebuyer assistance. Standard FHA, VA (for veteran educators), USDA (in eligible rural areas), and state housing finance agency programs can stack with teacher-specific benefits to reduce down payment and closing cost barriers.
Targeted grants. Nonprofit and federally funded grant programs for low- and moderate-income homebuyers can be particularly valuable for educators in high-cost metros, where even dual-income households increasingly need assistance to compete.

The Bigger Picture

Redfin's findings underscore how quickly housing affordability has deteriorated for a workforce that historically represented a stable, middle-class path to homeownership. A drop from 30% to 12% of homes affordable in roughly four years is not a gradual slide — it is a structural shift that state and local policymakers, districts, and housing agencies are only beginning to respond to at scale.

For teachers weighing whether they can afford to buy near the schools where they work, the answer increasingly depends less on salary alone and more on which assistance programs, down payment grants, and employer-supported housing options they can combine.

Sources

Redfin, "The Typical Teacher Can Afford Just 12% of Homes for Sale Near Their School, Down From 30% in 2019" (August 15, 2023).
Redfin, "The Typical Teacher Can Afford 48% of Apartments Near Their School—Up From 41% Last Year. But They Can Afford Just 14% of Homes for Sale" (August 14, 2024).
Fortune, "Housing affordability crisis fuels teacher shortage: study" (September 8, 2023).
Fortune, "Housing affordability is so strained that U.S. teacher pay would need to nearly double to buy the typical house" (August 14, 2024).
K-12 Dive, "Teachers struggle to afford housing. What are districts doing about it?"
Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation (TSAHC), "How Texas School Districts are Tackling the Housing Affordability Problem."

Teachers Priced Out: Only 12% of Homes Near Schools Are Affordable, Redfin Finds