Key takeaways
- The median US home now costs 5.1 years of the median household's entire income — against the classic 3× rule of thumb for an affordable market. Not one of the 50 states (or DC) is at or under 3× anymore; the closest is Iowa at 3.64×, and 28 of 51 are at 5× or worse.
- Buying the median US home ($414,900) at July 2026's 6.49% mortgage rate takes a household income of about $112,046 — roughly $30,000 more than the median household actually earns ($81,604).
- The least affordable state isn't California or Hawaii — it's Montana, where the median listing runs 7.96× the median income ($600K vs $75,340). California (7.49×), New York (7.47×), Hawaii (7.44×) and Rhode Island (7.07×) round out the top five.
- Across the 100 largest US cities, the median household can afford the median home in exactly five: Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Memphis, and Baltimore. In the other 95, the salary needed to buy exceeds what the median household earns.
- Los Angeles is the least affordable big city in America at 13.98× — a $1.15M median listing against an $82,263 median income. Buying it takes a $310,563 salary, 3.8× what the median LA household makes.
- The single biggest number in the study: Irvine, CA, where the median listing ($1.65M) demands a $445,591 salary. Seven of the ten biggest income-you-need-vs-income-you-have gaps are in California.
- Everything here is open and reproducible: prices are Redfin per-region medians pulled through Crawlora's API, incomes are Census ACS 2024, and the full state + city dataset is downloadable under CC BY 4.0. Method and honest caveats — including why we use list price — are at the end.
Every year a wave of headlines announces what salary you need to buy a home, and every year the numbers arrive as a finished infographic — a tracker you can read but can't check. So we built the map from raw parts instead: the median listing price of every US state and each of the 100 largest cities, pulled from Redfin's per-region market data through our own API, joined to the Census Bureau's median household income for the same geographies, with every assumption stated and the whole dataset downloadable.
The result is a picture of ownership affordability in July 2026 that's blunter than any single headline number: there is no longer a single US state where the typical home costs the "affordable" 3× of typical income.
Method at a glance
- Price side: the median listing price per region from Redfin's market data — 51 states (region type 4) + the 100 most-populous US cities (region type 6), one
region-trendscall each through Crawlora's Redfin endpoints. Listing price is an asking-price proxy, not the closed-sale median — see the caveats.- Income side: median household income per state and city from Census ACS 2024 1-year (table B19013, public domain) — fetched key-free from the Census summary-file server, which now blocks plain
curloutright (Cloudflare), through the same scraping API.- Price-to-income ratio = median listing ÷ median household income. The long-run "affordable" benchmark is about 3×.
- Salary needed to buy = the gross income where the monthly cost of the median home hits 28% of pay, assuming 20% down, a 30-year loan at 6.49% (Freddie Mac's average, week of July 9, 2026), plus 1.0%/yr property tax and 0.5%/yr insurance.
- Open + reproducible: the full dataset is on GitHub (CC BY 4.0), and the numbers in every chart also sit in plain HTML tables on this page.
The map: how many years of income a home costs, by state
The classic rule of thumb — repeated by lenders since the fixed-rate mortgage was invented — is that a healthy market prices the median home near three times the median household income. Here is what that ratio actually looks like across America in July 2026:
Three things jump off the map. First, the coasts are no longer alone: Montana tops the country at 7.96×, the legacy of a pandemic-era in-migration boom that raised prices in Bozeman and Missoula far faster than local incomes — a $600K median listing in a state where the median household earns $75,340. Second, the entire Mountain West (Idaho 6.95×, Wyoming 6.24×, Nevada 6.04×, Utah 5.95×) now prices like the coasts did a decade ago. Third, the only genuinely moderate region left is a Midwest belt — Iowa (3.64×), Ohio (3.95×) and Kansas (3.97×) are the sole states under 4×, and even they sit above the 3× line that used to define "affordable."
The middle of the distribution tells the same story as the extremes: the median state is at 5.06×, and 28 of 51 are at 5× or worse.
The salary you need vs the salary America earns
Ratios are abstract; paychecks aren't. Applying the standard lender math (28% of gross income on housing, 20% down, 30-year fixed at 6.49%, plus taxes and insurance) to the national median existing home — $414,900 per NAR — gives the income a buyer needs today:
That ~$30,000 shortfall is the housing affordability crisis in one number. It compounds quietly: a household that clears the income bar still needs the $82,980 down payment (20% of the median home) — more than a full year of median gross pay — before the mortgage math even starts.
The least (and most) affordable states
The same math, state by state. Note what qualifies as "most affordable" now — nothing at 3×:
In salary terms, the worst states demand incomes that simply don't exist locally at the median: California and Hawaii both require about $202,500 to buy the median listing — against median incomes just over $100K — and even Montana requires $162,033 against $75,340 earned. The widest need-vs-have gaps by state are California (+$102,392), Hawaii (+$101,796), Massachusetts (+$89,342), New York (+$87,285) and Montana (+$86,693).
At the other end:
Show the full state table (all 50 states + DC)
Home affordability by state, July 2026: median listing price, median household income, price-to-income ratio, and the salary needed to buy
| State | Median list price | Median income | Price ÷ income | Salary to buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Montana | $600,000 | $75,340 | 7.96× | $162,033 |
| California | $750,000 | $100,149 | 7.49× | $202,541 |
| New York | $641,000 | $85,820 | 7.47× | $173,105 |
| Hawaii | $750,000 | $100,745 | 7.44× | $202,541 |
| Rhode Island | $590,000 | $83,504 | 7.07× | $159,332 |
| Idaho | $564,000 | $81,166 | 6.95× | $152,311 |
| Massachusetts | $719,000 | $104,828 | 6.86× | $194,170 |
| Washington | $645,000 | $99,389 | 6.49× | $174,185 |
| Oregon | $546,000 | $85,220 | 6.41× | $147,450 |
| Wyoming | $471,000 | $75,532 | 6.24× | $127,196 |
| Nevada | $490,000 | $81,134 | 6.04× | $132,327 |
| Utah | $575,000 | $96,658 | 5.95× | $155,282 |
| Colorado | $575,000 | $97,113 | 5.92× | $155,282 |
| New Mexico | $400,000 | $67,816 | 5.90× | $108,022 |
| Maine | $450,000 | $76,442 | 5.89× | $121,525 |
| Tennessee | $424,000 | $71,997 | 5.89× | $114,503 |
| Vermont | $475,000 | $82,730 | 5.74× | $128,276 |
| Arizona | $465,000 | $81,486 | 5.71× | $125,576 |
| New Hampshire | $569,000 | $99,782 | 5.70× | $153,661 |
| New Jersey | $585,000 | $104,294 | 5.61× | $157,982 |
| North Carolina | $400,000 | $73,958 | 5.41× | $108,022 |
| District of Columbia | $591,000 | $109,707 | 5.39× | $159,603 |
| Florida | $415,000 | $77,735 | 5.34× | $112,073 |
| Delaware | $450,000 | $87,534 | 5.14× | $121,525 |
| Connecticut | $490,000 | $96,049 | 5.10× | $132,327 |
| Arkansas | $314,000 | $62,106 | 5.06× | $84,797 |
| South Carolina | $366,000 | $72,350 | 5.06× | $98,840 |
| Virginia | $465,000 | $92,090 | 5.05× | $125,576 |
| Georgia | $399,000 | $79,991 | 4.99× | $107,752 |
| Alabama | $329,000 | $66,659 | 4.94× | $88,848 |
| Mississippi | $290,000 | $59,127 | 4.90× | $78,316 |
| Wisconsin | $376,000 | $77,488 | 4.85× | $101,541 |
| South Dakota | $370,000 | $76,881 | 4.81× | $99,920 |
| Kentucky | $299,000 | $64,526 | 4.63× | $80,746 |
| Alaska | $442,000 | $95,665 | 4.62× | $119,364 |
| Nebraska | $345,000 | $76,376 | 4.52× | $93,169 |
| Texas | $360,000 | $79,721 | 4.52× | $97,220 |
| West Virginia | $275,000 | $60,798 | 4.52× | $74,265 |
| North Dakota | $349,000 | $77,871 | 4.48× | $94,249 |
| Oklahoma | $295,000 | $66,148 | 4.46× | $79,666 |
| Louisiana | $270,000 | $60,986 | 4.43× | $72,915 |
| Minnesota | $386,000 | $87,117 | 4.43× | $104,241 |
| Maryland | $435,000 | $102,905 | 4.23× | $117,474 |
| Missouri | $300,000 | $71,589 | 4.19× | $81,017 |
| Indiana | $300,000 | $71,959 | 4.17× | $81,017 |
| Michigan | $299,000 | $72,389 | 4.13× | $80,746 |
| Pennsylvania | $320,000 | $77,545 | 4.13× | $86,418 |
| Illinois | $340,000 | $83,211 | 4.09× | $91,819 |
| Kansas | $300,000 | $75,514 | 3.97× | $81,017 |
| Ohio | $285,000 | $72,212 | 3.95× | $76,966 |
| Iowa | $275,000 | $75,501 | 3.64× | $74,265 |
The 100 biggest cities: 95 are out of reach of their own median household
States smooth over the sharpest edges, so we ran the same join for the 100 most-populous US cities — the median listing in each city against the median income of the households who actually live there. The result: in 95 of the 100, the salary needed to buy exceeds the median local income. The five exceptions are all in the old industrial Midwest and South: Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Memphis, and Baltimore (Buffalo misses by $450).
The salary leaderboard is brutal:
By the ratio, the ranking reshuffles in a telling way — expensive cities with modest incomes leapfrog rich tech hubs. Los Angeles is the least affordable big city in America at 13.98× ($1.15M listings, $82,263 income), ahead of New York (11.55×), Irvine (11.32×), Miami (10.40×) and Newark (10.26×) — the last two being the clearest cases of housing priced for buyers who out-earn the residents. San Francisco (8.94×) and San Jose (8.70×), for all their seven-figure medians, are propped up by ~$140–148K local incomes.
The gap between the income a city's households have and the income its housing demands is the cleanest single picture of who can stay:
And at the other end, the last five big cities where the math still works — plus Buffalo, the near-miss:
A $104,000 median listing makes Detroit the only major US city where a household earning under $30K can buy the median home — a sentence that says as much about six decades of disinvestment as it does about affordability. But it also frames the national picture honestly: affordable ownership in 2026 America exists almost exclusively where population left.
Show the full 100-city table
Home affordability in the 100 largest US cities, July 2026, ranked least to most expensive relative to income: median listing price, median household income, price-to-income ratio, and salary needed to buy
| # | City | Median list price | Median income | Price ÷ income | Salary to buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Los Angeles, CA | $1,150,000 | $82,263 | 13.98× | $310,563 |
| 2 | New York, NY | $938,000 | $81,228 | 11.55× | $253,312 |
| 3 | Irvine, CA | $1,650,000 | $145,731 | 11.32× | $445,591 |
| 4 | Miami, FL | $690,000 | $66,337 | 10.40× | $186,338 |
| 5 | Newark, NJ | $600,000 | $58,490 | 10.26× | $162,033 |
| 6 | Long Beach, CA | $867,000 | $91,318 | 9.49× | $234,138 |
| 7 | Anaheim, CA | $956,000 | $101,145 | 9.45× | $258,173 |
| 8 | Boston, MA | $899,000 | $97,791 | 9.19× | $242,779 |
| 9 | Scottsdale, AZ | $943,000 | $104,893 | 8.99× | $254,662 |
| 10 | San Francisco, CA | $1,250,000 | $139,801 | 8.94× | $337,569 |
| 11 | Santa Ana, CA | $850,000 | $95,118 | 8.94× | $229,547 |
| 12 | Hialeah, FL | $499,000 | $57,151 | 8.73× | $134,757 |
| 13 | San Jose, CA | $1,290,000 | $148,226 | 8.70× | $348,371 |
| 14 | San Diego, CA | $934,000 | $111,032 | 8.41× | $252,231 |
| 15 | Chula Vista, CA | $815,000 | $105,101 | 7.75× | $220,095 |
| 16 | Riverside, CA | $675,000 | $90,004 | 7.50× | $182,287 |
| 17 | Jersey City, NJ | $752,000 | $100,751 | 7.46× | $203,081 |
| 18 | Reno, NV | $620,000 | $85,605 | 7.24× | $167,434 |
| 19 | Boise, ID | $575,000 | $81,102 | 7.09× | $155,282 |
| 20 | Oakland, CA | $697,000 | $102,235 | 6.82× | $188,228 |
| 21 | Honolulu, HI | $588,000 | $86,169 | 6.82× | $158,792 |
| 22 | Seattle, WA | $790,000 | $118,745 | 6.65× | $213,343 |
| 23 | Nashville, TN | $525,000 | $80,090 | 6.56× | $141,779 |
| 24 | St Petersburg, FL | $470,000 | $73,048 | 6.43× | $126,926 |
| 25 | Richmond, VA | $400,000 | $63,390 | 6.31× | $108,022 |
| 26 | Las Vegas, NV | $477,000 | $78,556 | 6.07× | $128,816 |
| 27 | Glendale, AZ | $459,000 | $75,711 | 6.06× | $123,955 |
| 28 | Dallas, TX | $445,000 | $74,323 | 5.99× | $120,174 |
| 29 | Tampa, FL | $500,000 | $84,114 | 5.94× | $135,028 |
| 30 | Denver, CO | $549,000 | $92,504 | 5.93× | $148,260 |
| 31 | Austin, TX | $535,000 | $90,430 | 5.92× | $144,479 |
| 32 | Stockton, CA | $465,000 | $78,627 | 5.91× | $125,576 |
| 33 | Sacramento, CA | $525,000 | $91,387 | 5.74× | $141,779 |
| 34 | Fresno, CA | $425,000 | $74,491 | 5.71× | $114,773 |
| 35 | Madison, WI | $450,000 | $79,254 | 5.68× | $121,525 |
| 36 | Phoenix, AZ | $482,000 | $85,246 | 5.65× | $130,167 |
| 37 | Mesa, AZ | $479,000 | $85,580 | 5.60× | $129,356 |
| 38 | Lexington, KY | $390,000 | $69,989 | 5.57× | $105,321 |
| 39 | Colorado Springs, CO | $465,000 | $83,672 | 5.56× | $125,576 |
| 40 | Portland, OR | $508,000 | $91,478 | 5.55× | $137,188 |
| 41 | Henderson, NV | $530,000 | $95,415 | 5.55× | $143,129 |
| 42 | New Orleans, LA | $325,000 | $58,821 | 5.53× | $87,768 |
| 43 | North Las Vegas, NV | $429,000 | $78,969 | 5.43× | $115,854 |
| 44 | Arlington, VA | $725,000 | $133,582 | 5.43× | $195,790 |
| 45 | Washington DC, DC | $593,000 | $109,707 | 5.41× | $160,143 |
| 46 | Tucson, AZ | $325,000 | $60,483 | 5.37× | $87,768 |
| 47 | Albuquerque, NM | $380,000 | $71,494 | 5.32× | $102,621 |
| 48 | Chesapeake, VA | $475,000 | $89,265 | 5.32× | $128,276 |
| 49 | Houston, TX | $340,000 | $64,361 | 5.28× | $91,819 |
| 50 | Bakersfield, CA | $432,000 | $82,093 | 5.26× | $116,664 |
| 51 | Durham, NC | $430,000 | $82,916 | 5.19× | $116,124 |
| 52 | Winston Salem, NC | $300,000 | $57,758 | 5.19× | $81,017 |
| 53 | Cincinnati, OH | $295,000 | $56,910 | 5.18× | $79,666 |
| 54 | Charlotte, NC | $435,000 | $86,416 | 5.03× | $117,474 |
| 55 | Chandler, AZ | $555,000 | $110,284 | 5.03× | $149,881 |
| 56 | Port St Lucie, FL | $434,000 | $86,241 | 5.03× | $117,204 |
| 57 | Irving, TX | $425,000 | $84,849 | 5.01× | $114,773 |
| 58 | Raleigh, NC | $425,000 | $85,060 | 5.00× | $114,773 |
| 59 | Virginia Beach, VA | $473,000 | $94,579 | 5.00× | $127,736 |
| 60 | Lincoln, NE | $360,000 | $72,008 | 5.00× | $97,220 |
| 61 | Frisco, TX | $719,000 | $145,444 | 4.94× | $194,170 |
| 62 | Chicago, IL | $395,000 | $80,613 | 4.90× | $106,672 |
| 63 | Gilbert, AZ | $610,000 | $124,968 | 4.88× | $164,734 |
| 64 | El Paso, TX | $286,000 | $59,932 | 4.77× | $77,236 |
| 65 | Plano, TX | $550,000 | $115,901 | 4.75× | $148,530 |
| 66 | Greensboro, NC | $300,000 | $63,516 | 4.72× | $81,017 |
| 67 | Arlington, TX | $350,000 | $74,388 | 4.71× | $94,519 |
| 68 | Enterprise, NV | $520,000 | $111,128 | 4.68× | $140,429 |
| 69 | Aurora, CO | $435,000 | $93,837 | 4.64× | $117,474 |
| 70 | Philadelphia, PA | $279,000 | $60,521 | 4.61× | $75,345 |
| 71 | Orlando, FL | $356,000 | $77,597 | 4.59× | $96,140 |
| 72 | Tulsa, OK | $278,000 | $60,930 | 4.56× | $75,075 |
| 73 | Anchorage, AK | $475,000 | $105,356 | 4.51× | $128,276 |
| 74 | Minneapolis, MN | $345,000 | $77,732 | 4.44× | $93,169 |
| 75 | Columbus, OH | $295,000 | $67,084 | 4.40× | $79,666 |
| 76 | Oklahoma City, OK | $305,000 | $70,040 | 4.35× | $82,367 |
| 77 | Garland, TX | $325,000 | $75,797 | 4.29× | $87,768 |
| 78 | Atlanta, GA | $375,000 | $88,165 | 4.25× | $101,271 |
| 79 | Corpus Christi, TX | $284,000 | $66,967 | 4.24× | $76,696 |
| 80 | Fort Worth, TX | $349,000 | $82,503 | 4.23× | $94,249 |
| 81 | St Paul, MN | $295,000 | $70,182 | 4.20× | $79,666 |
| 82 | Louisville, KY | $280,000 | $67,251 | 4.16× | $75,615 |
| 83 | Laredo, TX | $255,000 | $61,519 | 4.15× | $68,864 |
| 84 | Jacksonville, FL | $300,000 | $72,389 | 4.14× | $81,017 |
| 85 | Kansas City, MO | $289,000 | $69,958 | 4.13× | $78,046 |
| 86 | Pittsburgh, PA | $275,000 | $66,954 | 4.11× | $74,265 |
| 87 | San Antonio, TX | $268,000 | $66,176 | 4.05× | $72,375 |
| 88 | Milwaukee, WI | $230,000 | $56,792 | 4.05× | $62,113 |
| 89 | St Louis, MO | $215,000 | $53,374 | 4.03× | $58,062 |
| 90 | Wichita, KS | $265,000 | $65,855 | 4.02× | $71,565 |
| 91 | Omaha, NE | $285,000 | $71,640 | 3.98× | $76,966 |
| 92 | Lubbock, TX | $245,000 | $62,360 | 3.93× | $66,163 |
| 93 | Indianapolis, IN | $260,000 | $66,900 | 3.89× | $70,214 |
| 94 | Fort Wayne, IN | $230,000 | $61,436 | 3.74× | $62,113 |
| 95 | Buffalo, NY | $195,000 | $52,211 | 3.73× | $52,661 |
| 96 | Cleveland, OH | $149,000 | $43,383 | 3.43× | $40,238 |
| 97 | Memphis, TN | $176,000 | $52,679 | 3.34× | $47,530 |
| 98 | Baltimore, MD | $215,000 | $64,778 | 3.32× | $58,062 |
| 99 | Detroit, MI | $104,000 | $39,209 | 2.65× | $28,086 |
| 100 | Toledo, OH | $125,000 | $50,562 | 2.47× | $33,757 |
How we did this (and the caveats)
Sources and join. Prices are the median listing price per region from Redfin's public market data, pulled on July 11, 2026 — one region-trends call per region through Crawlora for all 51 states and the 100 most-populous cities (region ids resolved once from Redfin's own pages and committed as a seed list, since Redfin's location resolver is heavily bot-fenced). Incomes are median household income from Census ACS 2024 1-year (table B19013, public domain), matched by state and by census place. City population ranks come from ACS B01003. A fun meta-detail: the Census Bureau's own file server now sits behind Cloudflare and rejects plain curl by TLS fingerprint, and api.census.gov requires an API key — so even the public-domain half of this study needed an unblocker-grade scraping API to fetch reproducibly.
The salary formula. 28% front-end debt-to-income (the standard lender guideline), 20% down, 30-year fixed at 6.49% — Freddie Mac's national average for the week of July 9, 2026 — plus property tax at 1.0% of home value per year and homeowners insurance at 0.5%. Those last two are national simplifications applied uniformly: they understate New Jersey/Texas/Illinois taxes and overstate Hawaii's, and they don't capture Florida's insurance crisis. The rate assumption matters most: at 5.5% the national salary-needed falls to about $103K; at 7.5%, it rises past $122K.
Honest caveats. (1) median_list_price is an asking-price proxy — what sellers want, not what buyers paid. List medians typically run a few percent above sale medians in cool markets, and below in hot ones; we use them because they're consistently available for every region at one point in time from one source. The national anchor ($414,900) is NAR's closed-sale median, so the headline 5.08× is sale-based. (2) City limits ≠ metro areas. "San Jose at 8.70×" is the city proper (place-level income $148,226); metro-based trackers put the San Jose metro near 11.7× because MSA prices skew higher than the city's income mix. Redfin's public region API exposes neighborhoods, zips, cities, counties and states — but no metro level — so a metro cut can't be reproduced from this source at all; we rank cities instead and say so. (3) ACS 2024 income vs July 2026 prices is a ~1.5-year vintage mismatch — incomes have grown a little since, so ratios are very slightly overstated everywhere. (4) This is a one-day snapshot (July 11, 2026); thin markets (Montana statewide, Detroit's small listing pool) move month to month. (5) A price-to-income ratio ignores wealth, equity from a previous home, and mortgage-rate buydowns — it measures the wage-earner's path to ownership, which is precisely why it's the right lens for "unaffordable America."
Pulling one consistent snapshot across 151 regions — plus the Census files their own server won't hand to curl — is exactly the kind of job Crawlora exists for: normalized JSON from Redfin, Zillow, and 700+ other endpoints, with proxies, rendering and anti-bot handled, billed pay-on-success. The same approach powers our streaming fragmentation study, song length index, and podcast gold rush study. For a metro-level cut joined against Airbnb supply, see where Airbnb has more listings than homes for sale, built on Crawlora's separate, metro-level Housing Markets dataset.
Sources
- Crawlora — US Housing Affordability dataset (GitHub, CC BY 4.0)
- Freddie Mac — Primary Mortgage Market Survey (30-yr fixed, week of 2026-07-09)
- US Census Bureau — ACS 2024 1-year, table B19013 (median household income)
- NAR — Existing-home sales & median price
- Best Interest — US house price-to-income ratio
- Visual Capitalist — Salary needed to buy a home in 50 US cities (2026)
- Atlanta Fed — Home Ownership Affordability Monitor
- NAHB Eye on Housing — affordability across states and metros
Frequently asked questions
What salary do you need to buy a house in 2026?
About $112,046 a year for the median US home ($414,900), assuming 20% down, a 30-year mortgage at 6.49% (Freddie Mac average, July 2026), property tax and insurance, and the standard 28% of gross income on housing. The median US household earns $81,604 - roughly $30,000 less. In the most expensive cities the bar is far higher: $310,563 in Los Angeles, $337,569 in San Francisco, and $445,591 in Irvine, CA.
What is the least affordable state to buy a home?
Montana. Its median listing price ($600,000) is 7.96 times its median household income ($75,340) - the highest ratio of any state in July 2026, ahead of California (7.49x), New York (7.47x), Hawaii (7.44x), and Rhode Island (7.07x). Montana's pandemic-era in-migration pushed prices up far faster than local incomes.
What is the least affordable US city?
Los Angeles, at 13.98 times income: a $1.15M median listing against an $82,263 median household income, meaning buying the median LA home takes a $310,563 salary - 3.8 times what the median LA household earns. New York (11.55x), Irvine (11.32x), Miami (10.40x), and Newark (10.26x) follow. By absolute salary needed, Irvine, CA tops the country at $445,591.
What is a healthy home price-to-income ratio?
The classic rule of thumb is about 3 - the median home should cost roughly three times the median household's annual income. In July 2026 the national ratio is 5.08, and not a single US state is at or below 3: the closest is Iowa at 3.64, and 28 of 51 states sit at 5 or worse. Among the 100 largest cities only Detroit (2.65) and Toledo (2.47) are under 3.
Where is housing still affordable in the US?
Almost exclusively the Midwest and the old industrial belt. Iowa (3.64x), Ohio (3.95x), and Kansas (3.97x) are the only states under 4x income. Among the 100 biggest cities, the median household can afford the median home in exactly five: Detroit ($28,086 salary needed vs $39,209 earned), Toledo, Cleveland, Memphis, and Baltimore. Detroit's $104,000 median listing makes it the only major city buyable on under $30K a year.
How much do you need to earn to buy a home in California?
About $202,541 for the median California listing ($750,000) - roughly double the state's median household income of $100,149. City-level bars are higher still: $445,591 in Irvine, $348,371 in San Jose, $337,569 in San Francisco, and $310,563 in Los Angeles. Seven of the ten widest income-needed-vs-income-earned gaps among big US cities are in California.
How was this study measured?
Prices are the median listing price per region from Redfin's public market data - one region-trends API call per region via Crawlora for all 51 states and the 100 most-populous cities (July 11, 2026 snapshot). Incomes are US Census ACS 2024 1-year median household income (B19013) matched by state and census place. Salary-needed assumes 20% down, 30-year fixed at 6.49%, 1.0%/yr property tax, 0.5%/yr insurance, and 28% front-end DTI. Listing price is an asking-price proxy, and city limits aren't metros - both caveats are documented in the post. The full dataset is open on GitHub under CC BY 4.0.
Originally published on crawlora.net. Crawlora is a structured web-data, search, and anti-bot API — dozens of platforms as normalized JSON, plus a hosted MCP server, with a free tier (no card).
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