tunsted
A data-driven home search for first-time buyers. Built on Census, Zillow, and Federal Reserve data, scoring every county in America so you can see where the math actually works.
A house used to cost 2.0× a household’s yearly income.
Today it costs 5.0×.
Tunsted is built for the people who have to navigate that gap. First-time buyers picking the markets where the math still works.
The divergence
Since 1984, home prices have grown 74% in real terms.
Household income has grown 39%.
Both lines are inflation-adjusted to 2024 dollars and indexed to 100 in 1984. They’re measuring real purchasing power, and the gap between them is what kills first-time buyers.
Source: FRED — MSPUS (median sales price), MEHOINUSA672N (real median household income), CPIAUCSL (CPI, used to deflate home prices to 2024 USD)
The productivity paradox
You’re working harder than your parents did.
You’re not earning much more for it.
The economy figured out how to extract more from each hour of work. The gains went somewhere. Just not to the people doing the work. When the price of a home runs away, the typical paycheck can’t catch up.
Source: Economic Policy Institute, 'The Productivity-Pay Gap', 2024 update.
The K-shape
Since 1971, owning assets returned 25.6× growth.
Earning a wage returned 1.7× growth.
Both numbers are inflation-adjusted. The chart uses a log scale so you can see both lines. On a regular axis the wage line would be a rounding error.
Source: FRED — NASDAQCOM (Nasdaq Composite, daily since 1971; deflated to 2024 USD using CPIAUCSL), COMPRNFB (Real Compensation per Hour, Nonfarm Business — already inflation-adjusted). Both real series, indexed to 100 in the base year for a fair comparison.
The age gap
In 1981, the typical first-time buyer was 28.
In 2024, they’re 38.
Older Americans got into homes at the prices their wages could handle, then watched those homes appreciate into wealth. Younger Americans inherited the appreciation as a price tag.
Source: US Census Bureau, Housing Vacancy Survey, Table 19 (Homeownership Rates by Age of Householder, annual). Hand-encoded snapshots; refer to Census HVS for full series.
Today
~250,000 white-collar jobs cut between Jan 2025 and now.
Layoffs concentrated in tech, finance, and federal workforce reductions following AI productivity displacement.Affordability isn’t getting easier. The pressure to pick the right market is getting harder.
Source: Challenger, Gray & Christmas job-cut reports.
The tools you have
Zillow shows you what’s for sale.
It doesn’t tell you where to settle.
Listings, not answers.
Search sites surface the homes that are for sale right now. They don't tell you whether the market itself is a good place to plant roots.
All markets look the same on a map.
A median price doesn't tell you if a town is undervalued, overheating, or in slow decline. The same number means different things in different places.
The advice is anecdotal.
Reddit threads, TikTok takes, friend-of-a-friend recommendations. Real estate hasn't gotten the data treatment that stocks did 30 years ago.
What Tunsted does
We score every county in America so the math is on your side before you start looking at houses.
3,204 counties, ranked
Every US county gets a value score, a momentum score, and an overall opportunity grade. Built from Census, Zillow, BLS, and Federal Reserve data.
Personalized to you
Tell us your budget and what matters most: affordability, jobs, livability. We surface the markets where your dollar goes furthest, not the ones with the loudest listings.
The math is shown
No black-box scores. Drill into any market and see exactly which factors moved the number, with the source data and methodology in plain view.
Find your home
The numbers don’t have to be against you.
You just need to know where to look.
Pick the path that matches you and we’ll set up your dashboard accordingly. Free for the first 5 markets, no credit card.
Already have an account? Sign in