The income you need to buy a home in America’s biggest metros
Buying a home in San Jose, California, requires nearly $200,000 in annual income. In Pittsburgh, it's under $65,000. These aren't minor differences—they reveal a market fracturing along geographic lines, where location increasingly determines whether homeownership remains accessible.
The housing market generates extensive data on what annual salary is necessary to secure a property in the largest metro areas of the U.S.
The data for this and all other calculations comes from HSH, which compares statistics from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), major mortgage providers, and salary data from sources including the BLS to provide a quarter-by-quarter overview of income requirements in major metro areas. The figure also assumes a 20% down payment and the traditional 28% debt-to-income ratio, which most lenders recommend, over a 30-year mortgage term at 6.11% interest, again a common thread in the market at the moment.
Below, Offerpad, a real estate technology company, shares a breakdown of a few of these figures, and what they mean for prospective homebuyers.
New York City - $197,521.96
Buyers eyeing New York City will need almost $200,000 annually to cover the $4,608.85 average monthly repayments they can expect, with median property prices at $750,000. Prices in NYC are actually down slightly, by 0.48%, compared with Q4 of 2025, although that’s unlikely to provide much comfort to people in lower salary brackets, and cements professional couples as among the best-positioned to take this step affordably.
Los Angeles - $204,796.14
Across the other side of the country, the pattern mirrors NYC trends. Average monthly repayments on homes are higher, at $4,778.58, because median property prices in LA were $858,500 in Q1 2026, down 8.64% quarter-on-quarter.
The modest easing of house prices in some major metros like LA may be due in part to sluggish sales and longer days-on-market (DOM) averages in the early months of the year, peaking at 68 DOM in January 2026, per data from FRED. When a housing market stagnates or stumbles, buyers may be in a stronger position, and sellers may seek to expedite a transaction by lowering asking prices or looking for cash buyers rather than mortgaged buyers.
Of course, with LA’s property market price peak being among the highest in the country, it’s reasonable for any subsequent dip to be written off as a price correction, rather than a sign of a long-term downslide. Those in high-paying jobs in the tech and entertainment industries across the city may still struggle to enter the market today.
Chicago - $107,546.56
Covering a vast metro area encompassing almost 10 million residents, the picture for home buyers in Chicago is a little better than either NYC or LA, at least from an affordability perspective. Median home prices sat at $384,100 in Q1 2026, with monthly repayments on a typical 30-year mortgage package estimated at $2,509.42.
BLS data on average wages shows there’s still an affordability gap. Mean hourly earnings in Chicago were $34.42 in 2024, the most recent year for which figures are available, while the US Census Bureau cites a per-capita annual income of $50,086 and household income around $77,000. In other words, individuals, couples, or families making a standard amount for the city cannot meet lending requirements.
Dallas - $105,798.75
Dallas is the first metro market in which property prices have risen on average so far in 2026, up 0.65% to a median of $369,000. With a mortgage deal locked in for three decades at the standard 6.11% rate, buyers will pay $2,468.64 a month, so long as they can also come up with the 20% down payment, as mentioned.
Median household incomes here are roughly on a par with those in Chicago, at $70,518. Individuals earn around $45,000 on average, so there’s the same disparity between what people actually take home and what the current housing market demands of them if they’re only just buying into it.
The National Picture
Nationally, the average income required to enter affordable homeownership is $103,419.69, reflecting median home prices currently at $404,300. This aligns with major metros like Chicago and Dallas, while being half that of the most populous urban areas of NYC and LA.
However, there are some outliers at either end of the affordability scale. San Jose’s $477,409.52 salary requirement, aligned with median property prices of over $2 million, puts it at the top. Meanwhile, an average Pittsburgh home can be purchased by someone earning $62,891.16, the lowest income expectation in the country for the top 50 metros.
The softening of the market in some regions may point to improvements in the affordability of homeownership going forward. However, if the causes of price reductions in properties are linked to broader economic issues and rising interest rates, buyers lack sufficient income to be in a position to meet hypothetical lower income requirements.
While price moderation in select metros offers marginal relief, rising interest rates and income-requirement thresholds continue to constrain buyer accessibility across major markets. The disconnect between median incomes and financing requirements remains the primary affordability barrier.
This story was produced by Offerpad and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
