New York ZIP Code Affordability Report 2026

Key findings

• The median New York ZIP code costs 2.9 years of median household income — right at the 3.0 U.S. norm. Across the 1,572 ZIP codes with published Census housing data, the median home value is $231,850 against a median household income of $79,600. 827 ZIPs (53%) sit at or under 3.0; 129 are above 8.0, and 102 of those 129 are in New York City.
• New York is two housing markets, and the divide is the city line. The 175 ZIPs of the five boroughs have a median ratio of 8.8 on a $733,500 median home; the 932 ZIPs outside the city, Long Island and the Hudson Valley have a median ratio of 2.3 on a $168,000 home. Brooklyn (Kings County) is the least affordable county in the state at 11.8; Allegany County is the most affordable at 1.5.
• Long Island and Westchester are expensive in dollars but not in ratios. Nassau's median ZIP income of $149,250 is the highest of any county, and its 4.9 ratio is only a step above the Hudson Valley's 3.8. 32 Long Island ZIPs pass the value screen below, Levittown 11756 among them at 4.0.
• Rent burden is a Bronx story first. 86 of the 1,356 ZIPs with rent data have a median rent above 30% of median income; 48 are in New York City and 15 in the Bronx alone (15 of the borough's 24 ZIPs with rent data). 9 of the 12 worst rent burdens among ZIPs of 5,000+ residents are Bronx ZIPs, led by 10453 (Bronx) at 47.1%.
• The highest ratios are income gaps, not price peaks. 15 of the 15 highest price-to-income ratios belong to ZIPs whose median income is below the state median: Mott Haven 10454 (28.4 on a $27,500 income), East Harlem 10029 (21.4), Borough Park 11219 (19.5). Manhattan's expensive ZIPs mostly land between 6 and 8 because their incomes are high too.
• Ownership, not price, is the sharpest divide. The median New York City ZIP is 35% owner-occupied; the median upstate ZIP is 81%. Owner share correlates with the price-to-income ratio at r = -0.62 across ZIPs of 5,000+ residents, and density at r = 0.69.
• Where a median income still buys the median home: 125 ZIPs of 10,000+ residents pass our value screen (ratio at or under 4, majority owner-occupied, poverty at or below the state median). 65 are upstate, 27 in the Hudson Valley, 32 on Long Island and 1 in the city (10471 Bronx).

How this report was built

Every figure comes from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates at the ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) level, the same dataset behind every ZIP page on this site. Of the 2,234 New York ZIP codes in our directory, 1,572 have a resident population and published median household income and median home value; the other 662 are PO Box, unique and institutional ZIPs, or areas where the Census suppresses the estimate, and they are excluded from every median, rank and correlation here. Together the 1,572 ZIPs cover 19.6 million residents.

Price-to-income ratio is median home value divided by median household income (3.0 is the long-run U.S. norm; 5.0 and above is conventionally "severely unaffordable"). Rent-to-income ratio is median gross rent × 12 divided by median household income (30% is the federal cost-burden line). Statewide and regional medians are equal-weighted across ZIPs, not population-weighted, so a small Adirondack ZIP counts the same as Flushing. Named-ZIP rankings are restricted to ZIPs of 5,000+ residents (717 ZIPs) so that tiny or institutional ZIPs do not dominate. Correlations are Pearson r on the same 717-ZIP set. Regions are groupings of counties, listed in the county table. The methodology page documents the source tables, the ZCTA caveat and the update schedule.

Two New Yorks: the city line is the divide

Rank the state's 9 regions by median ZIP price-to-income ratio and they fall into three tiers. Five upstate regions — Central New York and the Mohawk Valley, the Finger Lakes, the Southern Tier, Western New York and the North Country — cluster between 2.2 and 2.3, with median ZIP home values of $141,100 to $165,600. The Capital Region (2.8), Hudson Valley (3.8) and Long Island (4.6) form a middle tier where prices rise but incomes rise almost as fast. New York City stands alone at 8.8.

The gap is a price gap, not an income gap. The median city ZIP's home value ($733,500) is 5.2 times the Southern Tier's ($141,100), but its median income ($86,330) is only 1.33 times higher. Long Island's income ($138,914) is the highest of any region — 2.1 times the Southern Tier's — and that is what holds its ratio at 4.6 on a $635,800 home.

The five boroughs

Inside the city the order is not what most people would guess. Brooklyn is the least affordable borough by ratio at 11.8, ahead of Manhattan at 8.8: Manhattan's median ZIP home ($1,037,900) is only slightly dearer than Brooklyn's ($1,010,200), but its median ZIP income is $132,518 against Brooklyn's $81,827. The Bronx has by far the lowest home values in the city ($508,050) and still runs 8.7, because its median ZIP income is $47,215. Staten Island, where 68% of households in the median ZIP own (Queens is the only other majority-owner borough, at 51%), is the most attainable at 6.3.

56 of the city's 175 ZIPs with housing data are above 10.0. Only 6 are at or under 5.0, and they are special cases: Co-op City 10475 (0.5, where the Census "home value" is a co-op share price), Riverdale 10471 (3.7), Hunters Point 11109 (2.6, 20% owners), Battery Park City 10280 (4.3 on a $206,250 income) and Kew Gardens 11415 (4.2).

Price-to-income by ZIP code

The distribution is weighted toward the affordable end: 827 ZIPs at or under 3.0, 440 between 3 and 5, 176 between 5 and 8, 89 between 8 and 12 and 40 above 12. 264 ZIPs — almost all upstate — are at or under 2.0, a level that has all but disappeared from the coastal states.

The highest ratios

Every ZIP in this table has a median income below the state's $79,600, and most are well below it. Mott Haven 10454 tops the state at 28.4 because a $780,800 median home, owned by 6% of households, is measured against a $27,500 median income. The same shape repeats in East Harlem 10029, Central Harlem 10030, the Lower East Side 10002 and across Brooklyn from Borough Park 11219 to Crown Heights 11213: the ratio is high because the renters who make up 94–74% of households earn far less than the value of the small owned stock around them. These are the ZIPs where a median household is furthest from buying in, which is exactly what the ratio measures — but they are not the most expensive ZIPs in the state.

The most expensive ZIPs by home value tell a different story. Rye 10580 ($1,834,100), Great Neck 11024 ($1,633,700) and East Hampton 11937 ($1,009,100) land between 7.6 and 9.6 because their incomes are $122,489 or more; Tribeca 10013, at the $2,000,001 Census cap on a $159,474 income, is 12.5+ and the true figure is higher. Outside the metro area the highest ratio among ZIPs of 5,000+ residents is Buffalo's Allentown 14201 at 9.6, a low-income, 20%-owner ZIP beside the Elmwood Village, followed by 14209 (8.3) and Ithaca 14850 (4.8, a college town).

The lowest ratios

Co-op City 10475 is an artifact: the ACS records what owners think their unit would sell for, and in a limited-equity co-op that is the share price, not a market value, so its 0.5 should be read as "not comparable". The rest of the table is the rural and small-city upstate story — Lyons, Ogdensburg, Wellsville, Elmira, Cuba, Fort Plain — where $78,200–$195,600 homes sit against $45,519–$120,822 incomes and 49–89% of households own. Low ratios here are a symptom of low home values, not high incomes; 13 of these 14 ZIPs have a poverty rate above the state median.

Rent burden

The median New York ZIP's rent of $1,125 a month takes 17.6% of median household income, well under the 30% line. 86 of the 1,356 ZIPs with rent data are above 30%, 14 are above 40% and 1 above 50%. Rent burden and poverty move together (r = 0.62): the burdened ZIPs are not where rents are highest but where incomes are lowest.

15 of the 86 burdened ZIPs are in the Bronx, 15 in Brooklyn, 11 in Manhattan and 7 in Queens; the city accounts for 48 of them. Upstate, the burdened ZIPs are the urban cores: Rochester's 14605 and 14611, Schenectady's 12307, Buffalo's 14204 and downtown Syracuse 13202, which has the highest poverty rate of any ZIP in the state at 52.6%. 7 of Long Island's 10 burdened ZIPs are in Suffolk County, where rents track Nassau's but incomes do not.

Education, income and home value

Across ZIPs of 5,000+ residents, the bachelor's-degree rate predicts median household income at r = 0.78 and median home value at r = 0.64, about the same as income itself predicts home value (r = 0.63). In New York the two variables carry the same information, because the state's high-education ZIPs are also its high-income ZIPs almost without exception.

The spread is wide. Bachelor's attainment runs from 11% in 14212 (Buffalo) and 12% in 14621 (Rochester) to 91% in 10069 (Lincoln Square) and 90% in 10280 (Battery Park City). Median income runs from $23,255 in 14605 (Rochester) to the $250,001 Census cap in 13 ZIPs: 10007 New York, 10282 New York, 10502 Ardsley, 10503 Ardsley On Hudson, 10506 Bedford, 10514 Chappaqua, 10526 Goldens Bridge, 10577 Purchase, 10578 Purdys, 10583 Scarsdale, 11568 Old Westbury, 11724 Cold Spring Harbor, 11765 Mill Neck. Poverty runs from 0.5% to 52.6% in 13202 (Syracuse), with 14201 (Buffalo), 14605 (Rochester) and 10454 (Bronx) next. Three of the state's four highest-poverty ZIPs are upstate city centers, not New York City.

What the ratio does not track is education: bachelor's attainment and the price-to-income ratio correlate at only r = 0.12. Highly educated ZIPs are expensive but also high-earning; the highest ratios are in low-education, low-income ZIPs surrounded by expensive stock. Density (r = 0.69) and owner share (r = -0.62) are the strongest predictors of the ratio in the dataset.

The $2,000,001 ceiling

The ACS caps reported median home value at $2,000,001. 7 New York ZIPs sit at that cap: 10007 New York, 10013 New York, 10069 New York, 10282 New York, 11568 Old Westbury, 11765 Mill Neck, 11976 Water Mill. Their true medians are higher, so their ratios are shown as minimums with a "+". The cap matters far less here than in California (7 ZIPs against 52): New York's most expensive housing is concentrated in a handful of Manhattan ZIPs and on the North Shore and East End of Long Island rather than spread across whole counties. 13 ZIPs also sit at the $250,001 income cap, 8 of them in Westchester; where both caps apply (10007 New York, 10282 New York, 11568 Old Westbury, 11765 Mill Neck) the ratio is 8.0+ and cannot be resolved further.

All 62 counties ranked

Ranked from most to least attainable by median ZIP price-to-income ratio. 57 of the 62 counties have a median ZIP ratio at or under 5.0, and 41 are at or under 3.0; the 3 above 8.0 are all New York City boroughs. Home values are lowest in Allegany ($91,850), Cattaraugus and Steuben; incomes are highest in Nassau ($149,250), Westchester and New York.

The value screen

A low ratio alone can flag a distressed ZIP rather than an attainable one, so the screen requires four things at once: 10,000+ residents, a price-to-income ratio at or under 4, a majority of households owning, and a poverty rate at or below the state median of 9.9%. 125 ZIPs pass. They are not only upstate: 32 are on Long Island and 27 in the Hudson Valley, where six-figure median incomes carry $372,900–$732,000 homes. Levittown 11756 (4.0 on $139,901), Merrick 11566 and Plainview 11803 all qualify; Sound Beach 11789 is the most attainable Long Island ZIP at 2.7.

By county: Suffolk 22, Erie 14, Monroe 13, Onondaga 12, Nassau 10, Orange 9, Saratoga 6, Westchester 6, Dutchess 5, Albany 4, Oneida 3, Ontario 3, Schenectady 3, Rockland 3, Putnam 3, Wayne 2, Steuben 1, Madison 1, Fulton 1, Chemung 1, Warren 1, Bronx 1, Ulster 1. The Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse suburbs (Erie, Monroe and Onondaga counties) supply 39 of the 125; Suffolk County alone supplies 22.

Limitations and citation

• ZCTAs approximate USPS ZIP codes; 662 New York ZIPs (PO Box, unique and institutional ZIPs, and ZIPs whose estimates the Census suppresses) have no housing data and are excluded.
• Median home value is the owner's estimate, not a sale price, and is capped at $2,000,001. In co-operative housing it is the share price: Co-op City 10475 and several other Bronx co-op ZIPs read far lower than their market cost.
• Medians are equal-weighted across ZIPs. A population-weighted statewide ratio would be higher, because the city's 8.4 million residents live in high-ratio ZIPs.
• Campus and institutional ZIPs (Cornell, Morningside Heights, the University of Rochester) have low reported incomes and are excluded from the "highest ratio" narrative but kept in every statewide figure.
• ACS 5-Year figures are period estimates, not a snapshot; small-population ZIPs carry wide margins of error, which is why named rankings use a 5,000-resident floor.

Cite as: New York Zip Codes Data Team, New York ZIP Code Affordability Report 2026, https://www.nyzipcodes.com/new-york-zip-code-affordability-report-2026/, published 2026-09-21. Source data: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-Year Estimates. Reuse permitted with attribution.

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