If you have been thinking about buying in Memphis, the numbers are on your side.
A 2026 Zillow analysis found that nearly half of home listings in Memphis, 46.45%, fall within the affordable range for a typical household. More notably, the city posted an 8.94% increase in affordable listings compared to the prior year, placing Memphis in the top ten nationwide for the biggest gains in housing affordability.
Zillow defines a home as affordable when the full cost of ownership, including principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and maintenance, is less than 30% of a typical household budget. Memphis clears that bar for nearly half its available listings.
For a city with the culture, creative community, food scene, and growing economic infrastructure that Memphis has built, that kind of accessibility is significant. People can actually plant roots here without the financial ceiling that defines so many other desirable American cities.
The data places Memphis alongside markets like Phoenix and Austin, both of which are seeing similar affordability gains. The difference is that Memphis has been a place worth moving to long before the analysts caught on.
