By Jason Bulloch, Offerpad Research Team
Buying a home in San Jose, California, takes nearly $480,000 in annual income. In Pittsburgh, it is under $65,000. These are not minor differences. They point to a market fracturing along geographic lines, where location increasingly decides whether homeownership stays within reach.
The housing market generates a lot of data on the annual salary needed to buy in the largest U.S. metro areas.
The figures for this and the calculations below come from HSH, which combines statistics from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), major mortgage providers, and salary data from sources including the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to give a quarter-by-quarter view of income requirements in major metros. Each figure assumes a 20% down payment and the traditional 28% debt-to-income ratio most lenders recommend, on a 30-year mortgage at 6.11% interest, a common rate in the market right now.
Below, Offerpad, a real estate technology company, breaks down a few of these figures and what they mean for prospective homebuyers.
New York City: $197,521.96
Buyers eyeing New York City need almost $200,000 a year to cover the $4,608.85 average monthly payment they can expect, with median property prices at $750,000. Prices in NYC are actually down slightly, by 0.48% compared with Q4 2025, though that is unlikely to offer much comfort to people in lower salary brackets. It also cements professional couples as among the best positioned to buy affordably.
Los Angeles: $204,796.14
Across the country, the pattern mirrors NYC. Average monthly payments are higher, at $4,778.58, because median property prices in LA were $858,500 in Q1 2026, down 8.64% quarter over quarter.
The modest easing of prices in some major metros like LA may be due in part to sluggish sales and longer days on market (DOM) early in the year, peaking at 68 DOM in January 2026, per data from FRED. When a market stalls, buyers can gain leverage, and sellers may look to speed up a sale by lowering the asking price or seeking cash buyers rather than mortgaged buyers.
With LA’s price peak among the highest in the country, a dip like this is reasonably read as a correction rather than a long-term slide. Even people in high-paying tech and entertainment jobs across the city may still struggle to enter the market today.
Chicago: $107,546.56
Covering a metro area of almost 10 million residents, Chicago looks a little better than NYC or LA on affordability. Median home prices sat at $384,100 in Q1 2026, with monthly payments on a typical 30-year mortgage estimated at $2,509.42.
BLS data on average wages shows there is still an affordability gap. Mean hourly earnings in Chicago were $34.42 in 2024, the most recent year available, while the U.S. Census Bureau puts per-capita annual income at $50,086 and household income around $77,000. In other words, individuals, couples, or families earning a typical amount for the city cannot meet the lending requirements.
Dallas: $105,798.75
Dallas is the first metro on this list where prices have risen on average so far in 2026, up 0.65% to a median of $369,000. With a 30-year mortgage locked in at the standard 6.11% rate, buyers pay $2,468.64 a month, as long as they can also come up with the 20% down payment.
Median household income here is roughly on par with Chicago, at $70,518. Individuals earn around $45,000 on average, so there is the same gap between what people take home and what the current market asks of new buyers.
The national picture
Nationally, the average income needed to enter affordable homeownership is $103,419.69, reflecting a current median home price of $404,300. That lines up with metros like Chicago and Dallas, and it is about half what NYC and LA require.
There are outliers at both ends. San Jose’s $477,409.52 income requirement, tied to a median price above $2 million, sits at the top. At the other end, an average Pittsburgh home is within reach for someone earning $62,891.16, the lowest income bar of any of the top 50 metros.
Softening in some regions may point to better affordability ahead. But if those price drops are tied to broader economic strain and rising interest rates, many buyers still will not have the income to meet even lower requirements.
While price moderation in select metros offers marginal relief, rising interest rates and income thresholds keep buying out of reach across many major markets. The gap between typical incomes and financing requirements remains the main affordability barrier.
This story was produced by Offerpad and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
