Despite its affordable housing challenges, a study by financial services website SmartAsset ranks the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota metropolitan statistical area as No. 1 among all metros in the country, regardless of size, in percentage of residents who own their homes.
SmartAsset ranked 75 U.S. metro areas based on the rate of homeownership to better understand where residents intend to stay and invest.
North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota joined Rochester, New York as the only metros across the U.S. with an ownership rate higher than 80% among all its residents in the first quarter of 2025, at 82.3% and 81.9%, respectively. This while the local metro ownership rate fell 0.9% from the first quarter of 2024 as Rochester gained 6.4% over the same period.
In addition to slipping nearly 1% over 2024, SmartAsset rated the “typical home value” in 2025 at $430,197, more than $30,000 less than the $461,635 value in 2024.
Following North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota and Rochester among the top 10 markets are:
Cape Coral-Fort Myers, 78.2%
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 76.4%
Charleston-North Charleston-Summervile, South Carolina, 75.4%
Allentown-Bethlehem, Easton, Pennsylvania/New Jersey, 74.2%
Columbia, South Carolina, 74.0%
Syracuse, New York, 73.4%
Grand Rapids-Wyoming/Michigan; 73.1%
Cincinnati, Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana, 73.1%
At No. 20, Tampa-St. Petersburg at 69.6% was the only other Florida metro ranked in the top 20.
By contrast, the SmartAsset study found the metro with the lowest home ownership among all residents is New York-Newark-Jersey City, New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania at 47.0%.
