Houston ZIP Code Affordability & Flood Risk Report 2026

Key findings

• Houston is still a price-to-income market of 3.24. The median ZIP code has a median home value of $259,800 against a median household income of $76,327. 64 of 161 ZIP codes sit at or under the 3.0 ratio lenders treat as comfortably attainable; 19 are above 5.0.
• The least affordable ZIPs are not the most expensive ones. 77005 (West University Place) has the metro's highest median home value at $1,354,300, yet its price-to-income ratio (6.3) is lower than 77027 (Galleria / Uptown, 8.6) because West U incomes keep pace. The squeeze is sharpest where a prestige housing stock meets a renter-heavy, mid-income population: the Galleria, the Medical Center and Spring Branch.
• 17 ZIP codes are rent-burdened at the median. In these areas the median rent exceeds 30% of median household income, peaking at 47.3% in 77050 (North Houston / IAH Area). All 17 are working-class ZIPs on the north, east, south and southwest sides of the metro; not one is in the affluent west-side arc from West U to the Energy Corridor.
• Flood risk carries a measurable discount. The 50 ZIP codes rated High flood risk (FEMA A/AE zones) have a median home value of $211,550, 25% below the $281,300 median of Moderate-risk ZIPs, and have logged a median of 7 historical flood events versus 3. About 1.6 million people live in the High-risk ZIPs.
• Remote work tracks income almost one-for-one. The share of workers working from home correlates with median household income at r = 0.76 across the 161 ZIPs, ranging from 27.9% in 77441 (Fulshear) to 2.2% in 77012 (Gulfgate / Park Place).
• The best value in the metro is in the far suburbs and Clear Lake. 26 ZIP codes combine above-median income, a price-to-income ratio at or under 3.0, at least 60% owner-occupancy and no High flood rating (table below).

How this report was built

Every figure below is computed from the same dataset that powers the 161 individual ZIP code pages on this site: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2020–2024 5-Year Estimates at the ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) level for population, median household income, median home value (owner-occupied units), median gross rent, tenure, educational attainment and journey-to-work, plus FEMA flood-zone designations and historical flood-event counts compiled per ZIP. Two ZIP codes (77010, 77507) are excluded because the ACS reports no resident population or no income estimate for them; two more (77046, 77050) are excluded from commute statistics only, because the ACS commute estimate is suppressed there.

We use two affordability measures throughout. Price-to-income (PTI) is median home value divided by median household income; a ratio of 3.0 is the long-run U.S. norm and the point below which a household earning the local median can typically buy the local median home with a conventional mortgage. Rent-to-income (RTI) is annualized median gross rent divided by median household income; the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines households paying more than 30% as cost-burdened. Because both numerator and denominator are ZIP-level medians, these are area-level indicators, not statements about any individual household. Medians reported for "the metro" are medians across the 161 ZIP codes (each ZIP counts once), not population-weighted, so a small affluent ZIP and a large working-class ZIP carry equal weight. Correlations are Pearson r across ZIPs. Full methodology, sources and known limitations are on our methodology page.

Price-to-income: where a median income no longer buys the median home

Across the 161 ZIP codes the price-to-income ratio runs from 2.0 in 77547 (Galena Park) to 8.6 in 77027 (Galleria / Uptown), with a median of 3.24. That median is the story most national coverage of Houston tells — a big metro where housing still roughly tracks wages — and for 120 of the 161 ZIPs it is true. The distribution has a long right tail, though: 22 ZIPs sit between 4 and 5, and 19 are above 5, a level that in a coastal metro would be unremarkable but in Houston marks a neighborhood that has decoupled from the incomes of the people who live there.

The pattern in the top of the table is consistent. The Galleria pair (77027 at 8.6 and 77056 at 7.9), the Texas Medical Center (77030, 7.7) and Spring Branch (77055, 7.9) all share a housing stock priced for buyers who mostly do not live there yet, combined with a resident base dominated by renters — owner-occupancy in these four ZIPs is 29%, 35%, 36% and 46% respectively. The median home value is set by the townhomes and high-rise condos; the median income is set by the apartment residents. Spring Branch is the most instructive case: a median income of $73,297, below the metro median, against a median home value of $577,800, more than double it, which is the signature of a neighborhood in the middle of replacing its housing stock.

Contrast that with the two wealthiest ZIPs. 77005 (West University Place) has the highest median home value in the metro at $1,354,300 but, because its median household earns $215,708, its ratio is 6.3; 77401 (Bellaire) pairs the metro's highest income, $236,037, with a $977,600 median home for a ratio of 4.1. Expensive and unaffordable are different things, and the ZIP codes where buyers are most stretched are one tier down from the top, not at it. Ownership rate is the tell: across all 161 ZIPs, owner-occupancy and price-to-income move in opposite directions (r = -0.54).

The 15 least affordable ZIP codes by price-to-income

The 15 most attainable ZIP codes by price-to-income

The bottom of the table splits into two very different groups that a single ratio cannot distinguish. One is genuinely high-value: 77059 (Clear Lake City, ratio 2.4 on a $166,614 income and 94% ownership), 77345 (Kingwood South, 2.4) and 77346 (Atascocita, 2.5) are places where six-figure households buy homes for well under three years of income. The other group is attainable only because home values are very low in absolute terms: 77547 (Galena Park) has the lowest ratio in the metro at 2.0, but on a $109,100 median home and a High flood rating. Readers using this table to shop should read the home-value column and the flood column together with the ratio.

Rent burden: 17 ZIP codes over the 30% line

Houston's reputation as a cheap place to rent holds at the median — $1,396 a month across the 161 ZIPs, which is 22.8% of the median ZIP's household income — but it breaks down in a specific geography. In 17 ZIP codes the median gross rent consumes more than 30% of median household income, the federal cost-burden threshold, and in 7 of them it is above 35%. None of the 17 has a median rent above $1,336; these are not expensive apartments. They are ordinary apartments in ZIP codes where the median household earns between $30,346 and $49,893 a year.

Geographically the burdened ZIPs form an arc from Greenspoint and the IAH corridor on the north side (77050, 77032, 77060), through Acres Homes (77091, 77076), across Kashmere Gardens, Settegast and Channelview on the east (77028, 77078), to South Park and South Acres on the south side (77033, 77051). 6 of the 17 also carry a High flood rating, which means the households with the least financial slack are disproportionately the ones exposed to the next flood event. The lowest rent burdens, by contrast, are all in high-income ZIPs where rent is small relative to income regardless of the dollar figure: 77005 at 11.4%, 77018 (Garden Oaks / Oak Forest) at 12.4% and 77094 (Energy Corridor) at 12.6%.

Flood risk and what the market charges for it

50 of the 161 ZIP codes fall predominantly in FEMA Special Flood Hazard Areas (zones A and AE), where flood insurance is mandatory on federally backed mortgages; 109 are classified Moderate (zone X500, the 0.2%-annual-chance floodplain) and only 2 rate Low. The High-risk group is home to roughly 1.6 million people, 26% of the population covered by this report, so flood exposure in Houston is not a fringe condition. It is the default for a large minority of residents.

The data shows a clear price gap. The median High-risk ZIP has a median home value of $211,550, versus $281,300 for Moderate-risk ZIPs — a 25% discount. Part of that is income: High-risk ZIPs also have a lower median household income ($61,697 vs $84,395), because the floodplains along Greens, Halls, Hunting, Sims and Brays bayous were settled by working-class communities long before the current maps were drawn. But the gap persists at the top of the income scale. The table below lists High-risk ZIP codes whose median income is above the metro median, and even these affluent floodplain ZIPs — Clear Lake City, Rice Military, Pearland, Deer Park — carry a median price-to-income ratio of 2.89, modestly below the 3.08 of above-median-income ZIPs outside the floodplain. Buyers are paying less, per dollar of income, to live where the water goes.

The historical record reinforces the classification: High-risk ZIPs have logged a median of 7 recorded flood events, Moderate-risk ZIPs 3. Readers comparing two ZIPs should treat the flood column as a recurring cost, not a one-time risk: NFIP premiums, elevation certificates and, after a major event, the months of displacement that do not show up in any Census table.

Flood risk tiers across the 161 ZIP codes

Above-median-income ZIP codes inside the High flood-risk tier

Remote work is a proxy for income, and it is reshaping where value sits

The 2020–2024 ACS window is the first five-year estimate to fully capture the post-2020 shift to remote work, and in Houston the shift is not evenly distributed. The median ZIP has 11.1% of its workforce working from home. The top of the range is 27.9% in 77441 (Fulshear) and 26.0% in 77094 (Energy Corridor / Cinco Ranch East); the bottom is 2.2% in 77012 (Gulfgate / Park Place) and 77530 (Channelview). Across all 161 ZIPs the work-from-home share correlates with median household income at r = 0.76 and with the bachelor's-degree rate at a similar strength (the degree rate itself correlates with income at r = 0.78). In practical terms, a ZIP code's remote-work share is one of the most reliable single indicators of its income tier in this dataset.

Two consequences follow for affordability. First, the highest remote-work ZIPs include several of the far-west and far-north suburbs — Fulshear, Cinco Ranch, Kingwood South, Montgomery — that also post the longest average commutes in the metro (39–39 minutes). Households there have effectively traded a daily commute for a hybrid one, and the price-to-income ratios in those ZIPs (Fulshear 3.1, Cinco Ranch 3.1, Kingwood South 2.4) remain attainable precisely because the commute penalty that used to cap prices out there no longer applies every day. Second, the inner-loop ZIPs with high remote shares — Downtown/Midtown 77002 (24.7%), Rice Military 77007 (25.9%), the Galleria 77027 (24.7%) — are exactly the ZIPs where price-to-income is most stretched, which suggests demand from remote-capable, higher-earning households is what is holding those prices up despite the renter-heavy resident base. Commute time and home value are only weakly related across the metro (r = -0.35); location premium in Houston is now more about lifestyle amenities and school zoning than minutes to downtown.

Highest work-from-home share

Lowest work-from-home share

County view: Harris is the affordability laggard

Grouping the ZIP codes by primary county (split-county ZIPs are attributed to their first-listed county) shows the same picture from higher altitude. Harris County, with 128 of the 161 ZIPs and 4.7 million residents, has the lowest median home value of any county in the report ($230,650) and also the lowest median income ($66,952), and the combination produces the highest price-to-income ratio, 3.36. Montgomery, Fort Bend, Brazoria and Galveston counties all pair higher home values with proportionally higher incomes and land between 2.9 and 3.2. The suburban counties are more expensive in dollars and more affordable in ratio terms, which is the reverse of what a buyer scanning list prices would assume.

The value screen: 26 ZIP codes that pass every test

To turn the analysis into something a household can use, we screened all 161 ZIP codes on four conditions at once: median household income at or above the metro median ($76,327), price-to-income at or under 3.0, owner-occupancy of at least 60% (a stable, resident-owned housing stock rather than an investor or transient one), and a flood rating other than High. 26 ZIP codes pass. They are almost entirely master-planned or established suburbs — Kingwood, Atascocita, Spring, The Woodlands, Cypress, Tomball, Katy, Richmond, Sugar Land, Missouri City, Crosby and Santa Fe — where a household earning the local median can buy the local median home, expects to stay, and is not in the 1%-annual-chance floodplain. Clear Lake City (77059), which would otherwise top this list on ratio and ownership, is excluded by its High flood rating; readers who accept that exposure should add it back.

The screen is deliberately conservative and will exclude some places that are good decisions for a specific household — a two-income couple with no children may be perfectly served by a Montrose condo at a ratio of 5. But as a first filter on where the numbers are on the buyer's side, it is a shorter list than most people expect from a metro of this size, and almost none of it is inside Beltway 8.

Limitations and how to cite this report

• ACS 5-Year Estimates are survey-based and carry margins of error that are larger for small-population ZCTAs. Differences of a few percentage points between two ZIPs should not be treated as significant.
• Median home value is the owner-reported value of owner-occupied housing, not a transaction price. In rapidly changing ZIPs (Spring Branch, EaDo, the Near Northside) it lags the market.
• ZIP-level medians describe areas, not households. A rent-to-income ratio above 30% at the ZIP level means the typical rent is high relative to the typical income in that ZIP; it does not mean every renter there is cost-burdened.
• Flood tiers reflect the predominant FEMA designation in each ZIP; individual parcels within a Moderate ZIP can sit in an AE zone and vice versa. Always check the FEMA Flood Map Service Center for a specific address.
• Metro-wide medians in this report weight each ZIP equally. Population-weighted figures would be closer to Harris County's values because Harris holds most of the ZIPs and most of the people.

Cite as: Houston Zip Codes Data Team, Houston ZIP Code Affordability & Flood Risk Report 2026, houstonzipcodes.com, published 2026-09-20. Data: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2020–2024 5-Year Estimates; FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer. The underlying ZIP-level dataset is available as a spreadsheet at houston-zip-codes-census-data.xlsx, and each ZIP code in the tables links to its full profile page.

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