• The typical cost of buying a home in areas with explicit legal protections for the LGBTQIA+ community is $435,884, about 46% more than areas with no protections.
• Of those that have statewide non-discriminatory housing protections in place for LGBTQIA+ buyers, Hawaii, the District of Columbia and California have the highest premiums compared to areas without legal protections in place. 
• Currently, only 23 states and the District of Columbia offer statewide laws explicitly prohibiting housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

LGBTQIA+ home-buyers and renters typically pay a premium to live in states, cities and counties that offer legal protection from discrimination. While it is unlikely that legal protections for LGBTQIA+ people increase home values, the fact these areas are more expensive has a disproportionate impact on LGBTQIA+ buyers and renters aspiring to live there

Zillow analyzed the typical cost of buying a home in states, cities and counties with laws in place to protect LGBTQIA+ buyers from housing discrimination. These protections include safeguards against eviction, from being denied housing and/or from being refused the ability to rent or buy housing based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Typical home values in those jurisdictions with legal protections are higher than home values in places without those laws — $435,884 compared to $297,628. And because high home values generally correlate with high rents, LGBT renters also feel the effects of the price premiums.

National housing and employment non-discrimination laws protect classes including sex, race, age, color, religion and national origin. And although these protections are now recognized at the federal level by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Congress has not enacted  explicit protections and they can vary significantly locally. Currently, only twenty-three U.S. states and the District of Columbia offer statewide laws explicitly prohibiting housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Many of these jurisdictions also offer the LGBTQIA+ community legal protections beyond housing, including employment and public accommodation protections. While it’s not the specific legal protections bumping up home values in these states, those who identify as LGBTQIA+, among other buyers and renters, should expect to pay more to buy or rent in areas that offer protections through anti-discriminatory policies. 

LGBTQIA+ buyers in Hawaii, California, and Washington, D.C. can expect to pay the biggest premiums to live in an area with those protections. Home values in Hawaii are about 180% higher than the typical home values in areas with no protections. California follows at 148% higher, then Washington, D.C. at 112%. Iowa boasts the largest discount compared to states without protections: The typical home there is 30% less than the typical home in a state or jurisdiction without protections. Michigan (-22%), Illinois (-17%), Wisconsin (-7%) and New Mexico (-3%) are the only other states where home prices are typically below jurisdictions without legal protections.

States without anti-discrimination laws for the LGBTQIA+ community often have cities and counties that do provide legal protections, but those still largely come at a premium. For example, Austin, Texas, has local regulations protecting LGBTQIA+ homebuyers from housing discrimination. The typical home value in Austin is $567,718 — 88% higher than the state overall, and 91% higher than areas nationally without protections. 

The higher housing costs that LGBTQIA+ buyers disproportionately face may explain why LGBTQIA+ adults were more likely to agree that they are worried about the cost of housing in their neighborhoods: 74% agreed, versus 64% of cisgender heterosexual respondents. LGBTQIA+ adults were also more likely to support allowing multifamily home construction in their neighborhoods (91% support at least one multifamily option, versus 81% of cisgender heterosexual adults), which is an important step toward lowering housing costs. Despite reporting similar incomes to their cisgender heterosexual counterparts, LGBTQIA+ buyers are also more likely to purchase multifamily home types, which can often offer relatively low-cost options in higher-cost markets. They were about three times as likely to report buying a du/triplex (8% versus 3% of cisgender heterosexual buyers) or condo (15% versus 4%). 

Being able to afford to live in areas with protections can mean making meaningful sacrifices to avoid breaking the bank. According to a Zillow survey of prospective and successful buyers, almost all LGBTQIA+ buyers (89%) reported at least one sacrifice to save up their down payment, compared to 78% of cisgender heterosexual buyers, such as postponing or canceling health services (23% of LGBTQIA+ versus 11% of cisgender heterosexual buyers) or skipping meals (24% versus 16%).

While LGBTQIA+ buyers and renters have similar incomes to their cisgender heterosexual counterparts, LGBTQIA+ people as a whole are slightly more likely to have incomes below $24,000 (25%) compared to cisgender heterosexual people (18%) according to the Williams Institute at UCLA [1] – indicating that LGBTQIA+ people could also disproportionately face economic barriers to formal renting and homeownership.

Typical Home Value in States with Statewide Protections for LGBTQIA+ People

*Does not have protections for gender identity/transgender
**Protections do not include Public Accommodation

[1] LGBT Demographic Data Interactive. (January 2019). Los Angeles, CA: The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law.

Methodology
To estimate the cost of buying a home in jurisdictions with and without legal protections for LGBT people, Zillow matched the Zillow Home Value Index for states, counties, and cities to data from the Movement Advancement Project on local legal protections. By taking the populated-weighted median of these jurisdictions, estimates for three categories of jurisdictions (all legal protections, some legal protections, and no legal protections) revealed that LGBT buyers aspiring to live in areas that protect them from legal discrimination can typically expect to pay a premium. To prevent duplicatively counting municipalities with protections (like Austin, Texas for example) towards the cost of housing in states that lack such protections (like Texas as a whole), the populations of municipalities with protections were subtracted from larger containing jurisdictions when calculating the population-weighted median.