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Average American mortgage debt by state (2026)

By Jeff Beem

12 min read
High-angle aerial photo of a suburban block on a clear day: single-family homes with shingled roofs, deep green lawns, scattered shade trees casting long shadows, two asphalt streets meeting at an intersection, and a few cars in driveways and along the curb.

If you have a mortgage, you are part of a very large club. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported $13.17 trillion in mortgage balances for Q4 2025. A LendingTree summary of the same underlying Consumer Credit Panel data puts active mortgage accounts at 86.94 million and the simple average balance at $151,484 per account (joint borrowers can appear more than once in that count).

Those aggregates answer “how big is the pile.” For “what does a typical borrower owe,” you need a different lens. Experian’s Ask Experian research publishes average outstanding mortgage balances from its consumer credit samples. In the Q1 2025 state table used below, the U.S. average is $256,803. In a separate June 2025 national figure from Experian’s city-level mortgage study, the average balance was $258,214. Those two Experian numbers differ because they come from different releases and dates, not because one is a typo. For year-over-year averages in the same Ask Experian mortgage series, Experian reported $252,505 in 2024 and $244,498 in 2023 (Q3 of each year in that article’s tables).

But any national average flattens a lot of reality. A homeowner in West Virginia with a $135,930 average balance in Q1 2025 and someone in the District of Columbia with $510,749 are not having the same experience, even if both are “average” in their own state.

Here is a state-by-state look at where balances stood in Experian’s Q1 2025 release, why the gaps are so wide, and how to read the numbers without overfitting them to your own loan.

The national picture first

Mortgage debt is the largest single slice of U.S. household debt. In the New York Fed’s Q4 2025 household debt release, mortgage balances were $13.17 trillion, while student loans were about $1.66 trillion, auto loans $1.67 trillion, and credit card balances $1.28 trillion. Mortgages are larger than those three categories added together, which is why headlines so often treat housing debt as the whole story.

LendingTree, citing the same mortgage panel, states that mortgages account for 70.1% of total U.S. consumer debt. That percentage uses LendingTree’s definition of the denominator; if you quote it elsewhere, cite LendingTree or the underlying Fed tables so readers know what is inside the fraction.

On the Experian side, the Ask Experian “median home values by state” report shows the national average mortgage balance rising 24% from $207,491 in Q1 2020 to $256,803 in Q1 2025. Experian’s March 2025 mortgage roundup tied the national average increase to home-price trends measured by the Federal Housing Finance Agency: about 4.3% for the 12 months ending in Q3 2024, versus about 5.5% the prior year. Rates in 2024 often sat in the 6% to 7% range, per that same Experian article, which matters because new loans at higher rates and higher prices replace older, smaller balances over time.

For existing-home prices, the National Association of Realtors reported a median of $398,000 in February 2026, compared with $280,700 in March 2020. That is a $117,300 increase over six years. How much of that shows up in any one person’s mortgage depends on when they bought, their down payment, and whether they refinanced.

States with the highest average mortgage balances

The top of the list is familiar. Expensive markets produce large average balances because new purchases finance bigger numbers, even as longtime owners pay principal down.

District of Columbia leads the Q1 2025 Experian table at $510,749. D.C. is entirely urban, so there are no lower-cost rural counties inside the jurisdiction to pull the average down.

California leads the 50 states at $449,576, which is about 1.75 times the national $256,803 average from the same table (not three times, but still a wide gap). In Experian’s September 2025 city study, 67 U.S. cities had average mortgage balances of $1 million or more, up from 47 in 2024 and 23 in 2023. That same Experian piece notes that nearly half of those million-dollar-average cities are in California.

Hawaii is next at $413,755 in average mortgage balance. In the same Q1 2025 Experian table, Zillow’s median home value for Hawaii is listed at $841,274, the highest state-level median in that dataset.

Washington ($357,849), Colorado ($346,785), Massachusetts ($322,045), Utah ($312,174), and Nevada ($300,511) all sit above $300,000 in average balance in Q1 2025. New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Maryland, and Virginia sit just below that line but are still well above the national mean.

For balance growth since 2020, Experian’s Q1 2020 to Q1 2025 table shows nine states with increases of more than 30%: Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Montana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington. Colorado was close at +29%. That list lines up with post-pandemic migration stories, but migration is only one input alongside prices, wages, and who actually takes out a mortgage.

States with the lowest average mortgage balances

The low end mixes relatively affordable markets with states where a larger share of households own outright (those owners do not appear in “average mortgage balance” statistics).

West Virginia is lowest in the Q1 2025 table at $135,930. Ohio ($152,655), Mississippi ($153,515), Indiana ($156,496), and Kentucky ($159,129) are among the next lowest. A smaller average balance does not automatically mean an easier monthly payment. Louisiana’s average mortgage balance ($180,754 in Q1 2025) sits close to its listed median home value ($201,100 in the same Experian table), which Experian flags as a sign that equity cushions can be thinner there.

On delinquencies, the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Delinquency Survey put the U.S. mortgage delinquency rate at 4.26% in Q4 2025, up 28 basis points year over year. Coverage of that release highlighted Mississippi (+109 basis points) and Louisiana (+89 basis points) as two of the largest quarterly increases, with Maryland, Oklahoma, and Indiana also among the largest moves.

Average mortgage debt by state

The table lists Experian’s average outstanding mortgage balance by state for Q1 2025, copied from the published Ask Experian “median home values by state” table (including the U.S. total row as context). Figures are among consumers with mortgage debt in Experian’s sample; homeowners without a mortgage are excluded. Jurisdictions are sorted high to low by balance.

StateAvg. mortgage balance (Q1 2025)
District of Columbia$510,749
California$449,576
Hawaii$413,755
Washington$357,849
Colorado$346,785
Massachusetts$322,045
Utah$312,174
Nevada$300,511
New York$295,426
New Jersey$289,863
Oregon$289,318
Maryland$288,500
Virginia$288,102
Arizona$274,792
Alaska$266,070
Connecticut$260,096
Idaho$257,644
Florida$257,457
Montana$247,187
Texas$245,710
Wyoming$239,965
Rhode Island$233,445
Georgia$231,225
New Hampshire$227,672
Tennessee$224,239
Delaware$223,224
North Carolina$217,352
Minnesota$214,324
South Carolina$211,894
Illinois$200,474
North Dakota$199,973
New Mexico$197,950
South Dakota$195,947
Alabama$182,264
Louisiana$180,754
Pennsylvania$178,705
Nebraska$178,646
Vermont$178,561
Maine$177,763
Missouri$173,623
Kansas$173,204
Wisconsin$171,362
Oklahoma$170,580
Arkansas$168,761
Michigan$162,525
Iowa$160,384
Kentucky$159,129
Indiana$156,496
Mississippi$153,515
Ohio$152,655
West Virginia$135,930
United States (overall)$256,803

Source: Experian Ask Experian, “Median Home Values by State,” Q1 2025 average outstanding mortgage balance column.

Why the gaps are so large

Three forces explain most of the spread.

Home prices. You cannot average a $449,576 mortgage in a state where the typical financed balance is $135,930 unless the underlying homes and loan sizes are different. Experian pairs its mortgage averages with Zillow median home values in the same release; the two columns move together, though down payments, cash buyers, and second homes keep it from being a perfect lockstep.

Migration and turnover. States that gained population and jobs after 2020 often saw faster balance growth because new buyers financed at higher prices. Locals who bought earlier anchor the average down. Experian’s own 2020 to Q1 2025 table is the right place to quote those growth rates rather than guessing.

Loan age and rate. A fixed-rate loan originated at 3% in 2021 reads differently in the data than a 7% loan from 2025, even on the same house price. States with more recent purchase activity will lean toward larger balances and higher payments.

What your generation owes

Generational averages shift with home prices, who is buying, and how Experian defines each cohort. The March 2025 Ask Experian mortgage article published this table for Q4 2024 average mortgage balances (ages as of 2024):

  • Generation Z (ages 18–27): $249,744
  • Millennials (28–43): $312,014
  • Generation X (44–59): $283,677
  • Baby boomers (60–78): $194,334
  • Silent Generation (79+): $146,015

In that release, millennials carried the highest average balance of the five groups. The same article notes the median age of first-time buyers hit 38 in 2024, up from 35 in 2023 and 32 in 1993, citing the National Association of Realtors.

A word on delinquencies

The MBA National Delinquency Survey rate of 4.26% in Q4 2025 is still far below crisis-era double-digit readings, but the year-over-year direction matters if you are stress-testing your own budget.

For foreclosures, LendingTree’s March 2026 compilation of New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel data states that 227,360 consumers experienced a new foreclosure in 2025, up 30.6% from 174,100 in 2024, and still 43.7% below the 404,180 consumers in 2015 in the same series. That metric counts people in the panel, not ATTOM-style property filings, so do not swap it one-for-one with other vendors’ headline filing counts.

Separately, the New York Fed reported that 0.92% of mortgage balances were seriously delinquent (90+ days) in Q4 2025, up from 0.70% in Q4 2024, per LendingTree’s summary of the same release.

How to use this data

If you are shopping for a home, your state’s average is a benchmark, not a budget. It does not know your income, your down payment, or the house you picked.

For loan limits, the Federal Housing Finance Agency sets conforming caps. For 2026, FHFA announced a baseline one-unit limit of $832,750 and a general high-cost area ceiling of $1,249,125 (with special rules for Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands). For 2025, the baseline was $806,500 and the usual high-cost ceiling was $1,209,750. The 2024 baseline was $766,550. Above the applicable conforming cap for your county, you are generally in jumbo territory, which often means stricter underwriting.

If you already own a home, compare your balance to the median home value in your state from the same Experian release if you want a coarse read on equity. It is still only a population average.

The Mortgage Calculator can help you model principal, interest, and PMI for a specific loan amount, and the House Affordability Calculator helps translate income into a realistic price range. If you want to test extra payments, use the Mortgage Payoff Calculator. If you are comparing a refi, the Refinance Calculator estimates the break-even point.

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