The most expensive county in the United States is a ski town. Pitkin County in Colorado covers Aspen and Snowmass. Its top-tier home value is $10,114,588, first of 3,074 counties, by a margin of 61 percent over the county in second place. Of the ten most expensive counties in the country, nine are ski resorts or islands. The exception is Manhattan, and it is ninth.
How this was measured
Every figure here is the Zillow Home Value Index for the top third of the housing stock, county by county, taken from Zillow’s published research data on 9 August 2026 for June 2026, the most recent month published. Zillow releases the same index split into thirds by value, which is the reason this comparison is possible: the expensive end of a resort county can be read against the expensive end of every other county in the country rather than against a national average that mixes in everything below it. The file carries 3,074 counties.
Resort towns are the reason the county file matters. Most of them are not metropolitan areas and several are not in one, so the same index read across US metropolitan areas cannot see them at all: Nantucket County and San Miguel County are assigned to no metro in Zillow’s own file. Counties are the smallest geography on which this index is published nationwide, and for a resort the county is usually close to the right unit, because the resort is most of what is in it.
The twenty most expensive counties in America
| Rank | County | What it is | Top-tier value | 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pitkin County, CO | Aspen and Snowmass | $10,114,588 | +10.3% |
| 2 | Nantucket County, MA | Nantucket | $6,277,364 | +7.5% |
| 3 | Teton County, WY | Jackson Hole | $5,812,440 | +1.6% |
| 4 | San Miguel County, CO | Telluride | $5,147,566 | +6.1% |
| 5 | Summit County, UT | Park City | $3,261,901 | +4.1% |
| 6 | Eagle County, CO | Vail and Beaver Creek | $3,259,601 | +3.3% |
| 7 | Dukes County, MA | Martha’s Vineyard | $3,132,551 | +4.6% |
| 8 | Madison County, MT | Big Sky | $3,130,479 | +2.5% |
| 9 | New York County, NY | Manhattan | $3,101,242 | +5.5% |
| 10 | Blaine County, ID | Sun Valley and Ketchum | $2,964,163 | +17.9% |
| 11 | San Mateo County, CA | San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA | $2,885,532 | +4.5% |
| 12 | Santa Clara County, CA | San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA | $2,857,070 | +1.9% |
| 13 | Marin County, CA | San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA | $2,650,392 | +4.4% |
| 14 | Routt County, CO | Steamboat Springs | $2,388,488 | +3.6% |
| 15 | Santa Barbara County, CA | Santa Barbara and Montecito | $2,265,769 | +3.1% |
| 16 | San Francisco County, CA | San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA | $2,243,295 | +10.9% |
| 17 | Wasatch County, UT | Heber, UT | $2,065,183 | +2.0% |
| 18 | Monroe County, FL | The Florida Keys | $2,060,786 | +0.7% |
| 19 | Orange County, CA | Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | $1,934,933 | +1.8% |
| 20 | Summit County, CO | Breckenridge and Keystone | $1,884,249 | +0.4% |
Aspen is 25 times the typical American county
The median county in this file has a top-tier value of $402,879. Pitkin County is 25.1 times that, and it is 1.61 times Nantucket, which is the next county down. The gap between first and second here is larger than the gap between second and seventh. Whatever is happening in Pitkin County is not a resort-market phenomenon that Aspen happens to lead; it is specific to Aspen.
Manhattan is ninth, at $3,101,242
New York County is the only county in the top ten that is part of a major city, and eight resort counties are priced above it. Pitkin County is 3.3 times Manhattan on the same index in the same month. That inverts the usual assumption about where expensive American housing is, and the reason is structural rather than surprising: Manhattan’s housing stock is deep and varied, so its top third contains a great deal of ordinary apartment, while Pitkin County’s top third is a few thousand homes in a valley where almost nothing is ordinary.
Every resort county in this survey
Thirty-eight counties were selected as places a reader would recognize as somewhere people go rather than somewhere people commute, then priced without any further filtering. The selection is editorial and is stated here so it can be argued with. The prices are not.
The nineteen most expensive resort counties
| Place | County | Top-tier value | National rank | 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aspen and Snowmass | Pitkin County, CO | $10,114,588 | 1 | +10.3% |
| Nantucket | Nantucket County, MA | $6,277,364 | 2 | +7.5% |
| Jackson Hole | Teton County, WY | $5,812,440 | 3 | +1.6% |
| Telluride | San Miguel County, CO | $5,147,566 | 4 | +6.1% |
| Park City | Summit County, UT | $3,261,901 | 5 | +4.1% |
| Vail and Beaver Creek | Eagle County, CO | $3,259,601 | 6 | +3.3% |
| Martha’s Vineyard | Dukes County, MA | $3,132,551 | 7 | +4.6% |
| Sun Valley and Ketchum | Blaine County, ID | $2,964,163 | 10 | +17.9% |
| Steamboat Springs | Routt County, CO | $2,388,488 | 14 | +3.6% |
| Santa Barbara and Montecito | Santa Barbara County, CA | $2,265,769 | 15 | +3.1% |
| The Florida Keys | Monroe County, FL | $2,060,786 | 18 | +0.7% |
| Breckenridge and Keystone | Summit County, CO | $1,884,249 | 20 | +0.4% |
| Kauai | Kauai County, HI | $1,838,874 | 21 | -1.0% |
| Maui | Maui County, HI | $1,723,204 | 25 | -5.9% |
| Carmel and Pebble Beach | Monterey County, CA | $1,706,778 | 26 | +0.9% |
| Cape May | Cape May County, NJ | $1,691,418 | 27 | +7.3% |
| Crested Butte | Gunnison County, CO | $1,682,443 | 29 | +5.1% |
| Napa Valley | Napa County, CA | $1,609,023 | 32 | -2.0% |
| The 30A beaches | Walton County, FL | $1,599,414 | 34 | -0.9% |
The rest of the survey
| Place | County | Top-tier value | National rank | 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oahu | Honolulu County, HI | $1,407,898 | 44 | +1.6% |
| Cape Cod | Barnstable County, MA | $1,387,041 | 45 | +1.7% |
| Naples | Collier County, FL | $1,344,111 | 51 | -4.0% |
| Charleston | Charleston County, SC | $1,328,084 | 53 | +2.0% |
| Big Sky and Bozeman | Gallatin County, MT | $1,317,131 | 57 | +0.4% |
| The Hamptons and eastern Long Island | Suffolk County, NY | $1,247,934 | 64 | +3.7% |
| Hilton Head | Beaufort County, SC | $1,187,004 | 72 | +2.1% |
| Whitefish | Flathead County, MT | $1,163,926 | 76 | +1.0% |
| Bend | Deschutes County, OR | $1,098,822 | 87 | -2.8% |
| The Big Island | Hawaii County, HI | $1,098,186 | 88 | -0.8% |
| North Lake Tahoe | Placer County, CA | $1,057,407 | 95 | +0.7% |
| Palm Beach | Palm Beach County, FL | $1,035,841 | 99 | +1.4% |
| Santa Fe | Santa Fe County, NM | $1,024,743 | 102 | +0.7% |
| South Lake Tahoe | El Dorado County, CA | $1,003,908 | 113 | -0.2% |
| Reno and the Nevada shore of Tahoe | Washoe County, NV | $954,365 | 127 | +0.8% |
| Sarasota and Siesta Key | Sarasota County, FL | $778,026 | 236 | -5.3% |
| Door County | Door County, WI | $759,109 | 259 | +1.0% |
| Taos | Taos County, NM | $687,859 | 360 | -0.2% |
| Gatlinburg and the Smokies | Sevier County, TN | $674,193 | 373 | -5.3% |
Aspen against Palm Beach is a factor of 9.8
Palm Beach County’s top tier is $1,035,841, which places it 99th in the country and puts Aspen at 9.8 times its value. This is the comparison most often made in the abstract and almost never with a number attached, and the number is larger than most people expect. Palm Beach County is also large and contains a great deal that is not Palm Beach itself, which is the clearest case in this dataset of the county being a coarser unit than the name suggests.
What this does not show
Zillow’s Home Value Index is weaker evidence than the auction results and the land-registry figures elsewhere on this site, and the difference matters. It estimates what homes are worth and then smooths and seasonally adjusts that estimate; it is not a register of completed sales. Nobody paid any of the 3,074 county values read here on 9 August 2026. A county is also not a town. Pitkin County covers Aspen and Snowmass and the land between them, its top-tier figure of $10,114,588 describes the most expensive third of everything inside that boundary, and a third of a county’s housing stock is not a luxury threshold anyone has defined.
It also does not show what any of these places costs to hold. Property taxes, insurance and the running cost of a second home in a resort county are not in this index and are not uniform across states, which is the work this desk has done for the United Kingdom in what a British house costs to hold and has not yet done here. A value is not a cost, and the two diverge most in exactly the places listed above.
This piece is part of our property reference, What an American House Costs: Zillow’s Own Index, by Metro, County and Tier, which sets out the method and collects every figure we have published on the subject. Also in it: No US Resort County in the National Top 20 Lost Value. Eleven Below It Did., The Top Third of US Housing Lagged the Bottom in 65% of Metros. In the Biggest 25, It Led., New York City Has Nine Property Transfer Tax Thresholds. Crossing the $10 Million One Costs $100,000., The Same $10 Million House Costs $532,500 to Transfer in New York and $70,000 in Florida..
Sources
All values are the Zillow Home Value Index, single-family homes and condos, top third of the housing stock by value, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, for June 2026. The file was downloaded from Zillow’s public research data on 9 August 2026 and carries 3,074 counties with a value in that month. Zillow publishes this without a license or a key. The national median, the ranks and every multiple above are our own arithmetic on that file.
One attribution was checked rather than assumed. Madison County, Montana ranks eighth nationally and Zillow assigns it no metropolitan area, so the coordinates of the Big Sky ski terrain were passed to the FCC’s Census area service, which returned Madison County for each point tested. The descriptions in the first table are ours. The selection of thirty-eight resort counties is editorial, made before the prices were read, and no county was added or removed after seeing its value.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most expensive county in the United States?
Pitkin County, Colorado, which contains Aspen and Snowmass. Its top third of housing carries a Zillow Home Value Index of $10,114,588 for June 2026, read on 9 August 2026, against $402,879 for the median American county. Nantucket County is second at $6,277,364.
Is Aspen more expensive than Manhattan?
On this index, by a factor of 3.3. New York County’s top tier is $3,101,242 and Pitkin County’s is $10,114,588 in the same month. New York County ranks ninth nationally, behind eight resort counties.
How much is a house in Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard?
Nantucket County’s top-tier index is $6,277,364 and Dukes County, which is Martha’s Vineyard, is $3,132,551. Both are estimates of value rather than sale prices, and both are county-wide figures covering the most expensive third of the housing stock.
Why use counties rather than towns?
Because counties are the smallest geography on which this index is published for the whole country, and because most resort towns are not metropolitan areas. Nantucket County and San Miguel County, which is Telluride, are assigned to no metro in Zillow’s file and would be invisible in a metro-level comparison.