Median Single-Family Home Price
Draw with a pointer, or focus the chart and use the Up and Down arrow keys to set your 2024 estimate. Home sets the minimum and End sets the maximum.
Flagstaff housing costs are leaving residents behind
How do you think housing costs and incomes have changed?
Draw the path you think each number took from 2011 to 2024.
Median Household Income
Draw with a pointer, or focus the chart and use the Up and Down arrow keys to set your 2024 estimate. Home sets the minimum and End sets the maximum.
Home Prices left incomes behind
Home prices Household income
Essential workers can’t afford Flagstaff
A common rule of thumb says housing should take no more than 30% of your income. For many essential Flagstaff jobs, that budget falls far short of the typical cost of a single-family home, even for two-income households.
Middle school teacher
$51,790/year × 2-person household = $103,580/year
$1,928 short every month
Police officer
$77,550/year × 2-person household = $155,100/year
$640 short every month
Firefighter
$58,690/year × 2-person household = $117,380/year
$1,583 short every month
Electrician
$60,150/year × 2-person household = $120,300/year
$1,510 short every month
Can’t we just raise wages?
A seemingly simple solution to this gap is to increase wages or attract higher-paying jobs to Flagstaff. But places with much higher median household incomes show this doesn’t work as expected.
Flagstaff
Median household income$75,164
New York
Median household income$99,852
San Francisco
Median household income$135,590
Housing costs have to be tackled at the source.
Higher wages may be beneficial for other reasons, but they cannot solve high housing costs by themselves. We need structural reforms that make it possible to build homes residents at all income levels can afford.
Create More Housing Choices Citywide
Allow more rental and ownership options so Flagstaff residents can find homes that fit different budgets, household sizes, and stages of life.
Make Smaller Homes Easier to Build
Update lot size, density, setback, and coverage rules that often make smaller, lower-cost homes harder to build than larger, pricier ones.
Build More Homes Near Daily Needs
Allow more housing near jobs, shops, services, and transit so residents can live closer to the places they use every day.
Remove Costly Parking Mandates
Stop requiring one-size-fits-all parking quantities that raise housing costs and consume land, while managing curb space directly where demand is high.
Make Rezoning Simpler and More Predictable
Reduce expensive design and engineering requirements early in the rezoning process while preserving meaningful public input and City Council review.
Make Transportation Costs Fair and Predictable
Replace broad project-by-project traffic studies with focused safety reviews and predictable fees that fairly fund shared transportation infrastructure.
Build Narrower, Safer Local Streets
Design residential streets that use less land, cost less to build and maintain, and naturally encourage safer driving speeds.
Create Local Affordable Housing Financing
Use City financing tools to close funding gaps for affordable and workforce housing projects that conventional financing alone cannot support.
Preserve Existing Affordable Homes
Invest in repairs, rehabilitation, and preservation so existing lower-cost homes remain safe, livable, and available to Flagstaff residents.
Bring More Housing Dollars to Flagstaff
Position Flagstaff to win state and federal funding for affordable housing construction, preservation, home repairs, and other local housing needs.
Behind every number is a person.
Data can show how far housing costs have risen and how many paychecks no longer keep up. But it cannot fully capture the stress, sacrifices, and uncertainty those costs create. Behind every line on these charts is someone deciding what they can give up—and whether they can continue calling Flagstaff home.