Average property-price gap in US cities varies by more than $1m

As America's depressed housing market bumps along the bottom, a yawning chasm has opened between the haves and the have-nots in the world's biggest economy, with average house prices in US cities varying from $68,000 (£43,000) to $1.8m (£1.12m).

A study of typical prices for four-bedroom homes has concluded that you could buy 26 houses in the motor city of Detroit for the cost of one in the Californian enclave of Newport Beach, which is the wealthiest housing market in the US and is known to television viewers as the setting for the stylish teen drama The OC.

New research by the estate agency Coldwell Banker found that the average house price in Newport Beach was $1.83m in the six months to August. Second in the rich league was the Silicon Valley enclave of Palo Alto, home to Hewlett-Packard and Facebook, where property changes hands for $1.48m; followed by the New York commuter town of Rye, with an average price of $1.33m. (more)