United States

Mapped: The Salary Needed to Buy a Home in 50 U.S. Metro Areas

Published

5 years ago

April 22, 2019

Jeff Desjardins

Check out the latest 2023 update of the salary needed to buy a home in the U.S.

This 3D Map Shows the Salary Needed to Buy a Home in 50 U.S. Metro Areas

The Salary Needed to Buy a Home in 50 U.S. Metro Areas

Check out the latest 2023 update of the salary needed to buy a home in the U.S.

Over the last year, home prices have risen in 49 of the biggest 50 metro areas in the United States.

At the same time, mortgage rates have hit seven-year highs, making things more expensive for any prospective home buyer.

With this context in mind, today’s map comes from HowMuch.net, and it shows the salary needed to buy a home in the 50 largest U.S. metro areas.

The Least and Most Expensive Metro Areas

As a reference point, the median home in the United States costs about $257,600, according to the National Association of Realtors.

	Median Home Price	Montly Payment (PITI)	Salary Needed
National	$257,600	$1,433.91	$61,453.51

With a 20% down payment and a 4.90% mortgage rate, and taking into account what’s needed to pay principal, interest, taxes, and insurance (PITI) on the home, it would mean a prospective buyer would need to have $61,453.51 in salary to afford such a purchase.

However, based on your frame of reference, this national estimate may seem extremely low or quite high. That’s because the salary required to buy in different major cities in the U.S. can fall anywhere between $37,659 to $254,835.

The 10 Cheapest Metro Areas

Here are the cheapest metro areas in the U.S., based on data and calculations from HSH.com:

Rank	Metro Area	Median Home Price	Monthly Payment (PITI)	Salary Needed
#1	Pittsburgh	$141,625	$878.73	$37,659.86
#2	Cleveland	$150,100	$943.55	$40,437.72
#3	Oklahoma City	$161,000	$964.49	$41,335.41
#4	Memphis	$174,000	$966.02	$41,400.93
#5	Indianapolis	$185,200	$986.74	$42,288.92
#6	Louisville	$180,100	$987.54	$42,323.15
#7	Cincinnati	$169,400	$1,013.37	$43,429.97
#8	St. Louis	$174,100	$1,031.70	$44,215.56
#9	Birmingham	$202,300	$1,040.51	$44,593.35
#10	Buffalo	$154,200	$1,066.29	$45,698.05

After the dust settles, Pittsburgh ranks as the cheapest metro area in the U.S. to buy a home. According to these calculations, buying a median home in Pittsburgh – which includes the surrounding metro area – requires an annual income of less than $40,000 to buy.

Just missing the list was Detroit, where a salary of $48,002.89 is needed.

The 10 Most Expensive Metro Areas

Now, here are the priciest markets in the country, also based on data from HSH.com:

Rank	Metro Area	Median Home Price	Monthly Payment (PITI)	Salary Needed
#1	San Jose	$1,250,000	$5,946.17	$254,835.73
#2	San Francisco	$952,200	$4,642.82	$198,978.01
#3	San Diego	$626,000	$3,071.62	$131,640.79
#4	Los Angeles	$576,100	$2,873.64	$123,156.01
#5	Boston	$460,300	$2,491.76	$106,789.93
#6	New York City	$403,900	$2,465.97	$105,684.33
#7	Seattle	$489,600	$2,458.58	$105,367.89
#8	Washington, D.C.	$417,400	$2,202.87	$94,408.70
#9	Denver	$438,300	$2,139.02	$91,672.45
#10	Portland	$389,000	$1,987.37	$85,173.08

Topping the list of the most expensive metro areas are San Jose and San Francisco, which are both cities fueled by the economic boom in Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, two other major metro areas in California, Los Angeles and San Diego, are not far behind.

New York City only ranks in sixth here, though it is worth noting that the NYC metro area extends well beyond the five boroughs. It includes Newark, Jersey City, and many nearby counties as well.

As a final point, it’s worth mentioning that all cities here (with the exception of Denver) are in coastal states.

Notes on Calculations

Data on median home prices comes from the National Association of Realtors and is based on 2018 Q4 information, while national mortgage rate data is derived from weekly surveys by Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers Association of America for 30-year fixed rate mortgages.

Calculations include tax and homeowners insurance costs to determine the annual salary it takes to afford the base cost of owning a home (principal, interest, property tax and homeowner’s insurance, or PITI) in the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas.

Standard 28% “front-end” debt ratios and a 20% down payments subtracted from the median-home-price data are used to arrive at these figures.

Related Topics:salary home market cities Real Estate mortgage

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Public Opinion

How Much Do Americans Trust the Media?

Media trust among Americans has reached its lowest point since Trump won the 2016 presidential election.

Published

4 days ago

December 2, 2023

Bruno Venditti

How Much Do Americans Trust the Media?

Media trust among Americans has reached its lowest point in six years.

Gallup began its survey on media trust in 1972, repeating it in 1974 and 1976. After a long period, the public opinion firm restarted the polls in 1997 and has asked Americans about their confidence level in the mass media—newspapers, TV, and radio—almost every year since then.

The above graphic illustrates Gallup’s latest poll results, conducted in September 2023.

Americans’ Trust in Mass Media, 1972-2023

Americans’ confidence in the mass media has sharply declined over the last few decades.

Trust in the mass media	% Great deal/Fair amount	% Not very much	% None at all
1972	68	24	6
1974	69	21	8
1976	72	22	4
1997	53	31	15
1998	55	35	9
1999	55	34	11
2000	51	37	12
2001	53	33	14
2002	54	35	11
2003	54	35	11
2004	44	39	16
2005	50	37	12
2007	47	35	17
2008	43	35	21
2009	45	37	18
2010	43	36	21
2011	44	36	19
2012	40	39	21
2013	44	33	22
2014	40	36	24
2015	40	36	24
2016	32	41	27
2017	41	29	29
2018	45	30	24
2019	41	30	28
2020	40	27	33
2021	36	29	34
2022	34	28	38
2023	32	29	39

In 2016, the number of respondents trusting media outlets fell below the tally of those who didn’t trust the media at all. This is the first time that has happened in the poll’s history.

That year was marked by sharp criticism of the media from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

In 2017, the use of the term ‘fake news’ rose by 365% on social media, and the term was named the word of the year by dictionary publisher Collins.

The Lack of Faith in Institutions and Social Media

Although there’s no single reason to explain the decline of trust in the traditional media, some studies point to potential drivers.

According to Michael Schudson, a sociologist and historian of the news media and a professor at the Columbia Journalism School, in the 1970s, faith in institutions like the White House or Congress began to decline, consequently impacting confidence in the media.

“That may have been a necessary corrective to a sense of complacency that had been creeping in—among the public and the news media—that allowed perhaps too much trust: we accepted President Eisenhower’s lies about the U-2 spy plane, President Kennedy’s lies about the ‘missile gap,’ President Johnson’s lies about the war in Vietnam, President Nixon’s lies about Watergate,”
Michael Schudson – Columbia Journalism School

More recently, the internet and social media have significantly changed how people consume media. The rise of platforms such as X/Twitter and Facebook have also disrupted the traditional media status quo.

Partisans’ Trust in Mass Media

Historically, Democrats have expressed more confidence in the media than Republicans.

Democrats’ trust, however, has fallen 12 points over the past year to 58%, compared with 11% among Republicans and 29% among independents.

How-Much-Do-Americans-Trust-the-Media

According to Gallup, Republicans’ low confidence in the media has little room to worsen, but Democrat confidence could still deteriorate and bring the overall national reading down further.

The poll also shows that young Democrats have less confidence in the media than older Democrats, while Republicans are less varied in their views by age group.