How much do you need to make to buy a house in your city now?

Edit: 350K for a house New Orleans. Much more if you want to live in an area where you won't get shot.

75k salary
 
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The trick is to start with a starter home. A young person or young couple should buy a condo in the ghetto or a mobile home or whatever.

Then in a few years when the value goes up they can sell it and use the profit as a down payment on a slightly nicer house.

Rinse, repeat, until you're living in a nice house by the time you're in your 40's.

Don't look at median home prices unless you're earning more than the median income.

Most people earning the median income are (surprise) middle-aged.

So when 20-year olds complain about not being able to afford a median priced house, I'm like, why should you? You should be shopping for houses on the bottom end of the spectrum.

To answer the question though, median is about $420k where I am. But I can't live in a $420k house because I have a family of 4, so we spent just over 500k for this house.

My monthly payment is only $1700 because I used the profits of my last house as a huge down payment on this one.
 
Buy a below average house, build up equity and then move to an above average house.

Or keep the below average house, buy an average house and profit.
 
Fedorgasm said:
The trick is to start with a starter home. A young person or young couple should buy a condo in the ghetto or a mobile home or whatever.

Then in a few years when the value goes up they can sell it and use the profit as a down payment on a slightly nicer house.

Rinse, repeat, until you're living in a nice house by the time you're in your 40's.

Don't look at median home prices unless you're earning more than the median income.

Most people earning the median income are (surprise) middle-aged.

So when 20-year olds complain about not being able to afford a median priced house, I'm like, why should you? You should be shopping for houses on the bottom end of the spectrum.
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This is the way. Then when kids are gone and you are old sell that big house , combine profit with retirement savings, move to Florida. buy something small and enjoy those golden years.
 
Too many factors to consider beyond income, however if you don’t have at least 20% down + more for closing, potential furnishing/renovations be prepared to have a mortgage of $5k+ even for an old small starter home in my area. Unless you’re prepared to live in a RV or trailer park the cheapest option would be to aim towards a townhome or live a city away that can be much cheaper (and ghetto). With that being said for young couples/families who are first time homebuyers and even worse with student loan debt it will very hard to own a home unless you’re bringing in $350k+, have a modest lifestyle and willing to sacrifice retirement contributions. I live in one of the most affordable counties in the Bay Area (California) so at least double that income in the South Bay...
 
$273k income in San Diego for median priced home
 
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Bornstarch said:
The median price for a home in Las Vegas, where I live, is $475k

I just did the math on a mortgage calculator and the monthly payment for a 30 year mortgage is $2,339.73

The online calculator said you need to make $125k a year in order to afford the average house in Las Vegas, NV.
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Average price in Dallas is about $440k, so probably similar to Vegas according to that online calculator.

Rates are still high though so if the rates do drop it's important to do the math and see if it's worth it to refinance. I did that in 2019 and locked in a sweet deal by today's standard.

What I don't understand is how people in Vancouver and Toronto afford a home. Canadians make a lot less than Americans in similar jobs, yet the average price of a detached home in Vancouver is over $2 million. I had recently visited my friends there and one of them had just bought a townhome for $1.6 million. How people can afford the down payment and monthly mortgage is beyond me
 
Depends on the house. My house was valued at 250k and it’s a two story on and acre of land.

In my area a 1 story starter home is about 200k give or take. A really nice home is in the 300s. A friend of mine just bought a home for 575k. But it’s a pretty big home and it’s on 18 acres of land.

I don’t know how much you would have to make though. Since your credit score plays a big role on that. Probably 40k a year for a starter home. 55k a year for my place. 70k for a bigger newer home.
 
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The question was how much do you need to make to buy the median priced house in your city and people are posting the price of houses itt
 
Median home price in my zip code is $1.15 million. No joke.
 
Home prices are ridiculous and only getting worse.
Baby boomers had it made.

The future consists of large corps/investment managers buying subdisions and renting their homes.

Multiple generations will be living together in order to afford a moderate home in the future.
 
AI Overview says you need to earn at least 100k a year to buy a median value home in Rhode Island, which now comes out to roughly 468k. Before a couple years ago home prices were very reasonable here. Ahh, nostalgia.
 
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