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Residential property sales across Pennsylvania declined 15% over the past six years, while the average home sale price rose 58%, a new report from the Independent Fiscal Office found.
Pennsylvania's statewide median home sale price reached $300,000 in 2025, up 62% from 2019. The average sale price rose 58% over the same period, reaching $356,087. Both measures increased by roughly 8% annually.
Realtors say buyers from all over the country are moving to Pennsylvania in search of more affordable housing, adding to competition in the state's housing market.
"The increase has been driven primarily by too little in the way of housing supply," David Dean, president of the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors, told CapitolWire/State Affairs. "The financing and construction costs have increased considerably, as well as the people who are in the market to buy homes right now seem to be coming from out of town, and they tend to bid higher or purchase at a higher dollar amount."
Home prices grew much faster than statewide assessed property values, which rose 21% over the same period. They also outpaced personal income growth. Per capita personal income in Pennsylvania increased 34% from 2019 to 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
"If we look at the average middle-income homebuyer or first-time homebuyer's income, it's not really matched with inflation over the past couple years," Dean said. "We're seeing that a lot of buyers who are driving the prices up are actually folks who have saved cash. They have the means to be able to purchase homes at a higher rate than somebody just coming into the market the first time."
According to a report by the National Association of Realtors, the median age of first-time buyers in the United States is 40, which is at an all-time high, and the share of first-time buyers is 21%, which is an all-time low.
Dean said the biggest obstacles to homeownership are the combined costs of buying and maintaining a home, including high prices, mortgage rates, down payments and property taxes.
"Higher interest rates are going to dampen some first-time home buyers because they look back at when interest rates were 3% and they're thinking, 'Wow, that was a much better time to buy a house,'" Dean said.
He also pointed to rising property taxes and insurance rates, which add to the cost of owning a home, as well as higher construction costs that have slowed the pace of new housing development.
"There's a lot of downward pressure on home buyers, and new construction just hasn't been keeping pace because there are added costs now that builders didn't have to think about or weren't saddled with a while ago."
The top six counties that experienced price growth were all rural counties -- Warren, Carbon, Monroe, Clarion, Pike and Wayne counties. Monroe, Pike, Carbon and Wayne all sit in the northeast corner of the state, which is in close proximity to several urban counties and a relatively high share of vacation homes, according to the report.
"This price growth has to do with the fact that people from New York and New Jersey are finding Pennsylvania more affordable while still being close to where they work," Dean said.
While an influx of new residents can bring economic growth to rural communities, it can also strain local infrastructure, according to Dean.
"I was just in a smaller county yesterday, and one of the commissioners that was in the room [said] they're having a hard time building homes quick enough for people," he said. "And when they do or when they can, they're facing an infrastructure problem where the rural hospitals just can't keep up with the amount of people who are moving in."
Dean said state and local governments should consider whether they are doing enough to encourage new housing construction, given the high costs developers face before construction even begins.
"It costs approximately anywhere from $40,000 to $50,000 before the shovel even goes in the ground," he said. "The state and local governments need to ask themselves if they're really doing everything they can to make an area hospitable enough for new construction."