CATHERINE REAGOR
Can you afford it? The income you need to buy a median-priced house varies wildly across U.S.
Catherine Reagor
The Republic | azcentral.com
Can you afford to buy a median-priced house on your salary?
It might be a stretch in many elite coastal cities, but there's always the nation's heartland to consider.
To calculate affordability, consumer-loan researcher HSH.com used the National Association of Realtors' second-quarter data for median home prices and HSH.com's second-quarter average interest rate for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages. Researchers calculated how much of a homeowner's salary it would take to afford the base cost of owning a home.
Phoenix ranked in the top third of housing affordability.
Here are the 27 metropolitan areas, ranked by the salary needed in those areas to afford a median-priced home. Pittsburgh is the most affordable; San Francisco, the least.
- Pittsburgh - $33,128.20
- Cleveland - $33,881.55
- Cincinnati - $35,864.16
- St. Louis - $36,020.47
- Detroit - $36,236.03
- Tampa - $37,913.32
- Atlanta - $38,005.28
- Phoenix - $41,250.52
- Orlando - $43,163.95
- San Antonio - $46,304.97
- Minneapolis - $49,255.87
- Dallas - $50,102.98
- Houston - $51,782.56
- Philadelphia - $54,323.02
- Baltimore - $57,668.41
- Chicago - $59,315.49
- Sacramento - $59,778.52
- Miami - $60,774.40
- Portland - $61,706.20
- Denver - $63,664.45
- Seattle - $74,674.89
- Boston - $84,572.32
- Washington - $84,999.14
- Los Angeles - $86,800.40
- New York City - 89.939.45
- San Diego - $100,091.74
- San Francisco - $150,511.88