Americans need six-figure salaries to afford a house in most cities, new economics report shows
Americans need to earn nearly $108,000 a year to afford a single-family home in most cities now, according to a new economics report.
Oxford Economics revealed this week that a household in 2024 needs an average annual income of $107,700 to afford a new single-family home, including property taxes and home insurance. This number was nearly twice the cost it was five years ago in 2019, at only $56,800.
The report added that only 36% of households earned enough to buy a home last quarter, a sharp decrease from the 59% of households that could afford one in 2019.
HIGH HOUSING COSTS HITTING RECORD HIGHS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY REPORT SAYS
"Housing affordability has dropped significantly over the last five years in every major metro as house prices soared and mortgage rates nearly doubled," the report summarized.
The least affordable cities included San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Honolulu, where less than 15% of households could cover their respective housing costs. Of the 50 largest cities, the most affordable ones were in the Midwest and South, like Cleveland, Louisville, Detroit, St. Louis, Oklahoma City and Memphis.
Housing costs in those cities ranged from $64,600 to $75,300, with approximately half of households in these areas earning enough to afford a home.
The most affordable cities from the study were Decatur, Illinois; Cumberland, Maryland; Youngstown, Ohio; Charleston, West Virginia; and Elmira, New York. Nearly two-thirds of households could afford a single-family home in these cities.
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Housing costs repeatedly broke records in 2024. In June, findings from Redfin showed the median U.S. home sale price rose to $394,000, a 4.4% increase from the same time last year.
In another report from the National Association of Realtors' (NAR) annual survey of buyers and sellers found the share of first-time homebuyers dropped from 32% in 2023 to 24% in 2024, the lowest share since NAR began collecting data in 1981.