Here's Where Americans Spend The Most On Housing

Housing markets across the country may be poised to pick back up, now that the economy has begun to fully recover. Millennials may finally be ready to move out from their parents' homes and start households of their own.

We recently took a look at the Bureau of Economic Analysis' new state level breakdown of consumption expenditures. Personal expenditures on housing especially stuck out to us. The BEA assembles this component of consumption by factoring in rent for renters, a measure of equivalent rent for homeowners based on rental costs for similar homes, and household utilities like electricity, water, and natural gas.

This map shows the amount of money per capita spent on housing and utilities in each state in 2012:

We noted that, as would be expected, people spend more on housing on the coasts than in the middle of the country, fueled by the very high real estate prices of the big coastal cities.

We also wanted to see how this has changed since the darkest days of the Great Recession after the collapse of the housing bubble. Here is the percent change in per capita housing and utilities expenditure between 2009 and 2012:

This shows a bit of a different pattern, with housing expenditures rising faster in the middle of the country and Alaska than on the coasts. While spending on housing increased in most states, it actually decreased between 2009 and 2012 in six states: