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As homebuyers continue to grapple with affordability concerns amid record-high home prices, purchasing a fixer-upper might be one option for finding a home at an attainable price.
However, fixer-uppers are not evenly distributed across the country, and are much more common in some states than others, according to a new analysis of Realtor.com® listing data.
West Virginia leads the nation for fixer-uppers, with more than 9% of single-family listings in the Mountaineer State in need of some TLC.
On the other end of the spectrum, just 1.8% of home listings in Nevada are fixer-uppers, the lowest share in the nation.
For homebuyers, especially those with the time and skills to tackle renovations on their own, a fixer-upper could be one path to homeownership at a time when affordability hovers at four-decade lows.
“Deciding to take on a fixer-upper could be especially attractive to enterprising homebuyers looking for modern amenities in locations where they are less common and where project homes can be bought for well under the median price for the area,” says Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner.
“Savvy home renovators can circumvent some of the current affordability challenges of the market by purchasing a home on the cheap and substituting their sweat equity for some of the interest payments on a mortgage,” he adds.
To identify the states with the most fixer-uppers, we used a set of common listing code words (such as “great bones” and “needs TLC”) to train an AI tool to identify for-sale single-family properties in need of renovations and repairs from their listing descriptions.
Additionally, to count as fixer-upper listings, the properties had to be at least 20 years old and priced below the state median on a per-square-foot basis.
Where are fixer-uppers most common?
Generally, fixer-uppers are more common in the Northeast and Midwest, regions where the average age of homes tends to be older. They are least common in the West, where the housing stock is newer.
States with significant housing stock in rural or small-town areas also appear to be more likely to boast more fixer-uppers, possibly because homes in these areas tend to be held in the same family over longer periods.
Following West Virginia, the states with the biggest share of fixer-uppers include Mississippi, Michigan, Illinois, and New York.
Although New York might seem like odd company on a list with West Virginia and Mississippi, the Empire State has the oldest housing stock in the nation, with a median age of 62 years for owner-occupied homes, according to an analysis from the National Association of Home Builders.
“In many cases, the states with the most fixer-upper opportunities are ones with lower levels of new construction, and vice versa,” says Berner. “States like West Virginia that offer many older homes ready for renovation allow owners to revitalize the housing stock in places where builders of large new communities are operating less often.”
Conversely, he notes, there are fewer fixer-upper opportunities in places like Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Colorado, where the housing stock is much newer, because builders have been prioritizing new construction in these areas in recent decades.
Notably, Nevada has the youngest housing stock in the nation, with the typical home there just 23 years old as of 2023.
Following residential construction booms, South Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona also have some of the youngest housing stock, with at least half of the homes in those states built in the past 28 years.
Where are fixer-uppers most affordable?
When it comes to a low price for fixer-uppers, West Virginia wins once again with a median list price of $89,250, by far the lowest in the nation.
West Virginia is followed by Iowa, Mississippi, and Kansas, where the typical homes in need of repair sell for less than $110,000.
Examining the “fixer-upper discount,” or the difference between the median-priced fixer-upper and the statewide median price for single-family homes, yields slightly different results.
North Dakota has the largest discount, at just over 66%, followed by West Virginia, Kansas, and Iowa, all of which have discounts exceeding 65%.
It should be noted that these discounts are measured only between statewide medians, and aren’t for comparable properties in the same neighborhood. The actual discounts from nearby comps are probably significantly smaller, as fixer-uppers are more likely to be located in remote areas than the typical home.
In terms of the states with the most expensive fixer-uppers, Hawaii leads with a median price of $796,500, which is just 33% below the statewide median for single-family homes.
Following Hawaii are Massachusetts and Washington, DC, which both have a median fixer-upper price of $550,000, and California, at $529,000.
