Idaho is Home to One of The Most Expensive Small Towns in America

Idaho is actually home to not one but three of America's most expensive small towns.

Hailey, Idaho cracks the top 5 based on data provided by Lending Tree with a median home value of $413,700. Meanwhile, the median household income is only $54,987. Lendingtree attributes this to the fact that Hailey is a very popular vacation spot for affluent individuals who often don’t make their money locally and who can afford to spend significant sums of money on homes. Lending Tree says, "These types of buyers drive up home prices and make housing difficult to afford for locals who are not high-income earners."

Relative to income, homes in Vineyard Haven, Hailey, Idaho, and Breckenridge are the most expensive. In these areas, the median home price is an average of 8.19 times higher than the median area household income. This suggests that homebuyers in these towns have to stretch their budgets to buy a home. Similar to what were also seeing in the Treasure Valley

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Hailey is actually comparable to Washington, DC where the median home value is $424,000. It wasn't the only small town in Idaho to make the list either.

In addition to Hailey, two other small towns have been named by Lendingtree as the most expensive small towns in the entire country. Sandpoint is listed as the 18th most expensive small town with a median household income of $48,440 and median home value of $265,400 and is comparable to the Las Vegas metro. Moscow is the 26th most expensive town with a median income of $49,158 and homes being valued at $228,200 which is comparable to Orlando, Florida.