Study ranks Boston 9th for biggest homes in America
The homes in Greater Boston are also among the most expensive in the country.
Size isn’t everything, but it certainly can affect how much home you can afford. Boston has the ninth largest homes in the country, but they are among the most expensive, a new study finds.
LendingTree, an online loan marketplace, released a study on Tuesday that ranked the country’s 45 largest cities by median home size. Houston took the top spot, with 1,952 square feet, followed by Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Dallas, and Austin, Texas.
Boston came in ninth place, with a median house size of 1,767 square feet. Providence, the only other New England city on the list, snagged No. 39, with a median home size of 1,456 square feet. LendingTree considers metro Boston to be Norfolk, Plymouth, Suffolk, Essex, and Middlesex counties, as well as Rockingham and Strafford counties in New Hampshire, according to Tendayi Kapfidze, the company’s chief economist.
LendingTree also included the median estimated home value for each city and the median price per square foot in order to calculate which offers the most bang for your buck. Boston didn’t do nearly as well in this category, falling to No. 40 with a median cost of $259 per square foot. San Jose offers the least amount of space for your money, charging $693 per square foot.
The rankings were calculated using data pulled on Sept. 4 from the My LendingTree property value database, which “includes estimated home values for more than 155 million properties in the US based on public tax, deed, mortgage, and foreclosure data, as well as proprietary local data,” according to the study’s methodology. Only single-family homes were used in the study, Kapfidze said. Home size is defined as the mean livable area, or the square footage of the living space in each home, he added.
Here is how the cities ranked by square footage, with their median estimated price and median price per square foot:
| 1 | Houston | 1,952 | $196,000 | $100 |
| 2 | Atlanta | 1,914 | $196,000 | $102 |
| 3 | Washington | 1,908 | $446,000 | $234 |
| 4 | Dallas | 1,862 | $217,000 | $117 |
| 5 | Austin, Texas | 1,861 | $283,000 | $152 |
| 6 | Las Vegas | 1,835 | $262,000 | $143 |
| 7 | Phoenix | 1,832 | $255,000 | $139 |
| 8 | Raleigh, N.C. | 1,795 | $215,000 | $120 |
| 9 | Boston | 1,767 | $457,000 | $259 |
| 10 | Orlando | 1,758 | $228,000 | $130 |
| 11 | San Diego | 1,744 | $602,000 | $345 |
| 12 | Nashville | 1,731 | $236,000 | $136 |
| 13 | Philadelphia | 1,728 | $244,000 | $141 |
| 14 | Charlotte, N.C. | 1,722 | $188,000 | $109 |
| 15 | Richmond, Va. | 1,716 | $224,000 | $131 |
| 16 | Miami | 1,711 | $326,000 | $191 |
| 17 | San Jose | 1,711 | $1,185,000 | $693 |
| 18 | Virginia Beach, Va. | 1,708 | $227,000 | $133 |
| 19 | New York | 1,704 | $427,000 | $251 |
| 20 | San Antonio | 1,694 | $189,000 | $112 |
| 21 | Riverside, Calif. | 1,683 | $338,000 | $201 |
| 22 | Denver | 1,675 | $411,000 | $245 |
| 23 | Indianapolis | 1,674 | $132,000 | $79 |
| 24 | Memphis | 1,673 | $127,000 | $76 |
| 25 | Jacksonville | 1,670 | $183,000 | $110 |
| 26 | Sacramento | 1,661 | $393,000 | $237 |
| 27 | San Francisco | 1,650 | $923,000 | $559 |
| 28 | Seattle | 1,650 | $477,000 | $289 |
| 29 | Los Angeles | 1,618 | $647,000 | $400 |
| 30 | Portland, Ore. | 1,617 | $386,000 | $239 |
| 31 | Cincinnati | 1,606 | $166,000 | $103 |
| 32 | Oklahoma City | 1,576 | $141,000 | $89 |
| 33 | Columbus, Ohio | 1,572 | $183,000 | $116 |
| 34 | Tampa | 1,545 | $202,000 | $131 |
| 35 | Chicago | 1,517 | $232,000 | $153 |
| 36 | Cleveland | 1,513 | $138,000 | $91 |
| 37 | Baltimore | 1,504 | $300,000 | $199 |
| 38 | Louisville, Ky. | 1,482 | $157,000 | $106 |
| 39 | Providence | 1,456 | $283,000 | $194 |
| 40 | Pittsburgh | 1,452 | $147,000 | $101 |
| 41 | Kansas City, Mo. | 1,428 | $171,000 | $120 |
| 42 | St. Louis | 1,404 | $165,000 | $118 |
| 43 | Milwaukee | 1,388 | $175,000 | $126 |
| 44 | Minneapolis | 1,360 | $273,000 | $201 |
| 45 | Detroit | 1,333 | $140,000 | $105 |
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