Albuquerque, NM · Housing Market Profile

Overview

The Albuquerque metropolitan area, in the central region of the state of New Mexico, is coterminous with the Albuquerque, NM metropolitan statistical area and consists of Bernalillo, Sandoval, Torrance, and Valencia counties. The principal city of Albuquerque is located in Bernalillo County. Albuquerque is known for its location at the southern end of the Rocky Mountains, at the edge of the Great Plains, and in the high desert along the banks of the Rio Grande. The metropolitan area is a center for Sandia National Laboratories and is recognized as one of the most culturally diverse cities in the country.

• As of July 1, 2025, the population of the Albuquerque metropolitan area was estimated at 925,300, an average annual increase of 1,650, or 0.2 percent, since April 1, 2020 (916,700) (Population Estimates, vintage 2025).

Albuquerque is the oldest wine-producing region in the U.S.

Quick Facts About Albuquerque
Current sales market conditions: slightly tight
Current apartment market conditions: slightly soft
By Zoomprop Market Analytics · As of January 1, 2026

Economic Conditions

During the 3 months ending February 2026, nonfarm payrolls in the Albuquerque, NM metropolitan area totaled 417,100 jobs, a decrease of 4,133 jobs, or 0.98 percent, from a year earlier.

• The unemployment rate was 4.35, up from 3.93 a year earlier.
• The Education & Health Services sector led growth, increasing by 1,667 jobs, or 2.28 percent, to 74,900 jobs.
• The Albuquerque, NM metropolitan area accounted for 46.86 percent of all nonfarm payroll jobs in the state.

Nonfarm payrolls by sector — Albuquerque metropolitan area, the 3 months ending February 2026

Numbers may not add to totals due to rounding. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (CES, LAUS). Rows marked † are reconstructed from QCEW county-level annual data, because the CES monthly series is suppressed or unpublished at this MSA; absolute YoY values are from the two most recent fully-published QCEW annual files.

Largest employers — Albuquerque metropolitan area

Sources: local economic-development authorities, corporate filings, and press reporting (verified live at report-build time).

Sales Market Conditions

During 2026, home sales in the Albuquerque, NM metropolitan area totaled 1,143, down 7,751 home sales, or 87.2 percent, from 2025. Market conditions are slightly tight, with 3.9 months of supply and homes averaging 58 days on market during February 2026, compared with 48 days a year earlier.

• During 2026, new-home sales totaled 130, down 851, or 86.7 percent, from 981 in 2025.
• During 2026, existing-home sales totaled 1,013, down 6,900, or 87.2 percent, from 7,912 in 2025.
• The average sales price of a new home during 2026 was $449,910, down $11,838, or 2.6 percent, from $461,749 in 2025.
• Existing home prices closed 2026 at $370,466, down $165 or 0.0 percent from a year earlier.

Home-sales totals — Albuquerque metropolitan area, annual

Average sale price — Albuquerque metropolitan area, annual

Homebuilding and Permits

During 2025, residential building permits in the Albuquerque, NM metropolitan area totaled 2,828 units, down 69 units, or 2.4 percent, from 2,897 units in 2024.

• Single-family homes (1-unit structures) accounted for 1,810 permits during 2025, down 275 units, or 13.2 percent, from 2,085 a year earlier.
• Multifamily structures (5+ units) accounted for 984 permits during 2025, up 222 units, or 29.1 percent, from 762 a year earlier.
• Permit reporting in Torrance County is incomplete for 2025; the total above reflects reporting counties only.

Residential permits — Albuquerque metropolitan area, annual

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey (county year-to-date files, coYY12y.txt = full calendar year through December). Counties with incomplete reporting: Torrance County.

Apartment Market Conditions

As of the first quarter of 2026, apartment market conditions in the Albuquerque, NM metropolitan area are slightly soft, with a 7.0-percent vacancy rate as of February 2026.

• The average rent for all apartments in the Albuquerque, NM metropolitan area was $1,191 as of March 2026.
• HUD's FY2026 Fair Market Rents for the area are $1,185 for a one-bedroom unit and $1,464 for a two-bedroom unit. The two-bedroom FMR is 22.9-percent above the area's average market rent of $1,191.
• Recent developments include The Downtowner with 191 units and San Mateo Tower with 110 units, contributing to the city's multifamily housing developments.

Rents — Albuquerque metropolitan area, monthly

HUD Fair Market Rents — FY2026

Source: HUD User FMR dataset (annual revision).

Location Fundamentals

The standard HUD HMP sections above describe the metropolitan area's housing market itself. This section characterizes the underlying drivers of price formation — safety, schools, natural-hazard exposure, infrastructure, policy, and demographic tailwinds — from Zoomprop's proprietary thematic layers. These signals are the most-replicated non-housing inputs in the hedonic-pricing literature.

The Albuquerque metropolitan area exhibits a range of location fundamentals that influence its housing market dynamics. The median school rating of 5.00 suggests moderate educational quality, which may contribute to stable demand in family-oriented neighborhoods. Earthquake risk, with a top peril score of 76.43, could potentially deter some buyers, impacting property values in areas perceived as more vulnerable. The average walk score of 19.7 indicates limited walkability, which might affect the attractiveness of certain urban areas for those prioritizing pedestrian access. Over the past three years, the population growth rate of 0.3 percent reflects a relatively stable demographic trend, while a significant income growth of 22.1 percent could enhance purchasing power and support upward pressure on home prices.

Safety

• Across the Albuquerque metropolitan area, Zoomprop aggregated 114,118 reported incidents over the most recent six months and 20,689 in the last 30 days.

• Most recent FBI UCR data for the state (2025) shows a violent-crime offense rate of 38.2 per 100,000 residents and a property-crime offense rate of 94.2 per 100,000 residents.

Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR), state-level, latest full year available.

Schools

• 287 K-12 schools operate within the MSA (199 with GreatSchools ratings).
• Median GreatSchools rating is 5.0 out of 10; 32 schools score 8 or higher and 38 score 3 or lower.
• Average high-school graduation rate is 63.7 percent.
• Average student-to-teacher ratio is 16.1 to 1.
• Average share of students classified as low-income across schools in the MSA is 76.0 percent.

Top-rated schools in the Albuquerque metropolitan area

Natural-hazard exposure (FEMA National Risk Index)

• Of 241 census tracts in the MSA, 167 (69%) rated Very Low; 49 (20%) rated Relatively Low; 19 (8%) rated Relatively Moderate; 3 (1%) rated Relatively High; 2 (1%) rated No Rating; 1 (0%) rated Very High.
• Leading perils by average FEMA NRI risk score across the MSA's tracts: Earthquake (score 76.4); Hail (score 60.0); Lightning (score 53.0); Riverine Flood (score 45.3); Landslide (score 26.1).
• The MSA's tracts average a social-vulnerability index of 56.1 and a community-resilience score of 33.2 (both on FEMA's 0-100 scale).

Source: FEMA National Risk Index, mapped to census tracts and rolled up to the MSA. Flood and wildfire capitalization into home prices is well-documented post-2017 disclosure (Bin & Polasky 2004; Keys & Mulder 2024).

Accessibility & infrastructure

• Across 39 neighborhoods measured, the Albuquerque metropolitan area has an average Walk Score of 19.7 and an average Bike Score of 29.1.
• 2 neighborhoods score above 70 on Walk Score ("very walkable"); 34 score below 50 ("car-dependent").
• The MSA is served by 1,828 public-transit stops operated by 3 transit agencies across 17 neighborhoods.

Policy & development pipeline

Recent policy changes affecting the Albuquerque metropolitan area

Active development pipeline (top projects by investment)

Demographic tailwinds

• Population-weighted median household income across the MSA is $63,770.
• Three-year median-income growth averages 22.1 percent.
• Three-year population growth averages 0.3 percent.
• Average neighborhood-level unemployment rate (ACS-derived) is 11.7 percent.
• Average ACS-reported median gross rent is $960.
• Average ACS-reported median owner-occupied home value is $201,495.

Terminology, Definitions, and Notes

Absorption. The net change, positive or negative, in the number of occupied units in a given geographic range.

Building permits. Residential building permits from the U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS). Permit counts do not necessarily reflect all residential building activity; some units are constructed or created without a building permit, issued under a different permit type, or reported late. Annual totals are aggregated from the county-level full-year file coYY12y.txt (year-to-date through December).

Existing home sales. Includes regular resales and real estate owned (REO) sales.

Home sales / home sales prices. Includes single-family home, townhome, and condominium sales.

Net natural change. Resident births minus resident deaths.

Rental market / rental vacancy rate. Includes apartments and other rental units, such as single-family, multifamily, and mobile homes.

Data Lineage

• Employment (CES supersector): U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, BLS Public Data API v2.
• Employment fallback (QCEW county aggregation): U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, QCEW Open Data (CSV).
• Unemployment (LAUS): U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, LAUS series at MSA / state / national.
• Fair Market Rents: HUD User FMR dataset (ingested into hud.fmr).
• Mortgage rates, delinquency, state HPI: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED).
• Building permits: U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey (annual county files, live fetch).
• Population: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program (PEP), vintage CBSA/metro flat files (cbsa-estYYYY-alldata.csv) with April 1, 2020 decennial base. ACS 5-year estimates are used as a last-resort fallback only.
• Narrative color (overview, largest employers, recent developments): Tavily research API, composed by GPT-4 with a fact-check pass against the structured payload.

Location Fundamentals data lineage (Zoomprop proprietary)

• Crime incidents (Zoomprop aggregates): rolled up from local law-enforcement feeds into public_records.crime_aggregates (rolling 7d / 30d / 6-mo counts per neighborhood).
• FBI UCR offense rates: public_records.fbi_crime_data, state-level, sourced from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting program.
• Schools: public_records.school, built from NCES Common Core of Data, state DOE files, and GreatSchools ratings.
• Natural-hazard exposure: public_records.weather_risk, mapped from the FEMA National Risk Index (census-tract grain) to the MSA.
• Walkability / bikeability: public_records.walkability (Walk Score / Bike Score per neighborhood).
• Public transit: public_records.transit_stop (GTFS feeds from local agencies, stop-level geometry).
• Policy changes: analysis.policy_changes, curated from municipal / county planning department disclosures.
• Development pipeline: analysis.development_pipeline, curated from permit disclosures, planning-board agendas, and publicly announced projects.
• Neighborhood-level demographics: market.region_demographics_v2, derived from American Community Survey 5-year estimates, population-weighted to the MSA.