It’s no secret that everything has gotten more expensive in recent years, especially housing.

I remember when I started in real estate in 2018, an entry-level single-family home in our area, likely in Woodbridge or Manassas, could still be purchased for around $250,000. Today, that same type of house is well into the $400,000+ range.

But the purchase price is only part of the story. A recent Wall Street Journal analysis looked at how much the annual cost of owning a home has changed since 2019, and the numbers are pretty staggering.

In 2019, the typical annual cost of homeownership was about $20,618 . By 2025, that number had risen to $28,596 . That is a 39% increase .

Some of the biggest increases were:

• Insurance: up 72% • Home maintenance: up 85% • Emergency repairs: up 175% • Property taxes: up 31% • Interest: up 35%

That means even after someone buys the home, the cost to own and maintain it has increased significantly. Insurance, taxes, labor, materials, financing, maintenance, and repairs all cost more than they did a few years ago.

This matters whether you own, rent, or invest because these costs eventually show up throughout the housing market. They affect mortgage payments, rents, condo fees, reserve studies, repair decisions, property values, and long-term affordability.

In my opinion, this is one of the biggest housing stories right now. It is not just that home prices went up. It is that almost every cost around housing went up too.

The takeaway is simple: housing affordability is not just about the sales price or the rent number. It is also about what it costs to keep the property functional over time.

And those costs have changed a lot since 2019.