In Villanova, the average starter home costs $1 million

Villanova is one of a record 242 places in the country where the average starter home is valued at $1 million or more, according to Zillow.

The community is the only such place both in Pennsylvania and in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, according to an analysis by Zillow based on April home values. Zillow calls properties starter homes if they are in a market’s bottom third of home values.

Million-dollar starter homes are rare. The typical starter home in the United States is worth a little less than $200,000. But home values keep rising as demand for homes has outpaced supply, especially over the last few years.

“The pandemic reset the cost of buying a home, spreading million-dollar starter homes from a handful of coastal states to more than two dozen states across the country,” Kara Ng, senior economist at Zillow, said in a statement.

Since early 2020, the number of communities in the United States where the average entry-level home is worth at least $1 million has tripled, from 80 to 242. And the number of states has jumped from nine to 26.

Unsurprisingly, expensive California is the state with the most communities where the average starter home is valued at $1 million or more — 105. But the numbers in New York and New Jersey are rising the fastest.

“Million-dollar starter homes are popping up in more Northeast cities because the housing shortage there hasn’t been solved,” Ng said. In the Northeast, home construction hasn’t kept up with demand.

In early 2020, Pennsylvania didn’t have any communities where the average starter home was valued at $1 million or more, and New Jersey had one: Alpine in North Jersey.

The Garden State now has 26, up from 21 last year. Most are either in North Jersey or the Jersey Shore.

These include Avalon, Stone Harbor, Strathmere, Cape May Point, and five of Long Beach Island’s six towns: Harvey Cedars, Barnegat Light, Long Beach Township, Surf City, and Beach Haven.