Ever wonder where homeowners with the highest income levels are congregating? The experts at PropertyShark.com recently set out to find out just that. The site searched for the top 100 zip codes with high-income homeowners, and then compared these findings to the top 100 zip codes with the most expensive homes. Their findings may surprise you.
It seems that being able to afford a more expensive home does not necessarily mean living in an area with the highest-priced listings. Only 27 out of the top most expensive zip codes based on median sale prices made it into the income-based ranking. So while sunny California holds the majority of the most expensive housing zip codes, the East Coast actually has a higher concentration of top-earning homeowners.
East Coast Takes Top 70
Seventy of the top 100 income-earning zip codes go to the East Coast, with 48 landing in the Northeast and another 28 stretched around the D.C. suburbs. New York takes 20 top earning zip codes—eight in Manhattan, and the rest sprinkled over Westchester County. Maryland and Connecticut follow with 10 zip codes each.
What Exactly Is "High-Earning?"
So what exactly qualifies as "high-earning?"According to PropertyShark.com's discoveries, the top 11 highest-earning zip codes all feature a yearly median household income of over $250,000. New York takes five of these 11 zips, followed by California with four.
High Income vs. High Prices
The gap between where the high earners are living and where the most expensive homes reside is an interesting one. For instance, Atherton, Calif., the most expensive zip code in the U.S., comes near to the $250,000 in median household income, but the median price for a home here hovered around the $5 million mark in 2017. Similarly, Fisher Island in New York came in third in terms of median sale price, but it only took the 28th spot based on income.
Oddly enough, vacation communities like the Hamptons aren't housing the highest earners and were, by majority, absent from the list.
For more information on where high earners are housing themselves, check out the full PropertyShark.com rundown, here.
