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Salary Needed To Buy a Home In The US
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this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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What is the size of the “median” home in each area? Single family, or townhome, or condo?
Given that this appears to be a median average, this graphic does not account for the extremely wide variance depending on the cases above. A two bedroom condo and a five bedroom single family home could easily have a $2000/mo variance in the mortgage cost.
The other item that would perhaps be useful would be to call out what the down payment requirement is for each of these areas; ie, you can only achieve a $3000/mo mortgage if you’ve also put down $140,000, which is unachievable for over 90% of the country.
There is no way that this graphic isn’t including the entire metro area. The city I currently live in is on the list and so is the city that I am planning to relocate to. Prices shown do not accurately reflect the prices of houses/condos that I would consider “in the city”.
From the Bay Area, $1.5M will get you a two bed one bath or three bed 1.5 bath home built in 1925 or so. You can buy in a lower end neighborhood for a little less or a higher end one for a bit more, but the standard is going to be a craftsman home from 1906 with a driveway if you’re lucky.
I think the graphic also used a 20% down payment and a slightly over 6% mortgage in the calculation.
I just want to retire and move someplace cheap, like NYC or London.
Wow, two bedrooms for only $1.5mil! What a steal!
That's insane to me. I live in Tulsa, OK and bought a nice 2400sq ft home with 4 bedrooms, 2 living rooms, dining room, 2 full baths and garage and in a cul-de-sac for 120k. But the downside is I'm living in Oklahoma...so... Yeah.
I feel that. I got a cute little almost 4 bed, 1.5 bath farm house in a smallish town in Wisconsin for 120k a couple of years ago. When I first moved here I was a shut in and the trade-off of not really having stuff to do out of the house was fine, but now I'm wanting to go enjoy the nightlife, have a good meal that isn't a bar burger (I can get some damn good bar burgers, but still) and also drive less so we're looking at moving to a bigger city in the nearish future.
On the upside thanks to the hyperinflation we've been able to get a chunk of equity that'll help us a lot when we do move
Well the good thing about Tulsa is it's still a fairly large city and there's tons of shit to do here. Tons of great restaurants and great nightlife. And as far as Oklahoma goes, it's extremely liberal here in the city. Which is crazy because historically not so much lol. This is home of the biggest race riot ever in the country. It's not the best place in the world but it's extremely cheap to live here and has everything I had when I lived in Dallas. Minus all the traffic lol.
Where in the Bay? Here in the Tri-Valley, you can get a 3-4 bed, 2 bath, for 1.5-.8 mil.
Even in downtown San Jose you’re talking about seven figures for an ancient craftsman with outdated electric and plumbing. Willow Glen, Los Gatos, Cupertino, you’re pushing $2M.
If you’re willing to commute from way up in the east bay, you can do a bit better, you’re right, but if you’re commuting to a South Bay company you’re paying for it in travel time and stress.
And tbh, I was stationed for a bit near Dublin. I can’t swear to what the prices are like now, but man, now that I’m out of that line of work I’d choose to live in East SJ or the peninsula instead.
But those are super reasonable prices, I will happily admit, and if you work in SF the commute might be worth it. We just need much more mass transit.