The amount of money that Americans need to earn to be able to afford to buy a home has soared in the last five years, as house prices have jumped and mortgage rates nearly doubled.
In the majority of US cities, buying a home now requires a six-figure salary.
That is according to fresh data from economic advisory firm Oxford Economics.
The report found that, on average, a household needs to earn an annual income of $107,700 to afford a single-family home and pay both property taxes and home insurance costs.
That is nearly double the income that was required five years ago.
In the most expensive cities, many of which are in California, residents need to earn multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in order to buy and maintain a home.
In San Jose, which is the least affordable metro in the study, locals need to earn a staggering $460,746 in order to be a homeowner.
The most affordable cities, meanwhile, are largely located in the Midwest. Across the 173 metros analyzed in the study, the cheapest place was Decatur, Illinois, where residents need to earn $43,840 to afford a home.
Across the US, Oxford Economics found that only a third of households earned enough money to afford a home as of the last quarter, which concluded at the end of September.
That is far fewer than nearly two thirds of American households who were able to do so in 2019.
The second most expensive place on the list is San Francisco, where residents must have an income of at least $326,746 to be able to afford a home.
Third is Honolulu, followed by Los Angeles, San Diego and Boulder, Colorado, where residents need an an annual income above $200,000 in order to afford a typical property in the area.
Of the 50 largest cities in the study, the more affordable metros were mostly in the Midwest: Cleveland, Louisville, Detroit, and St. Louis, as well as Oklahoma City and Memphis, where the income required to cover housing costs ranged from $64,600 to $75,300.
Close to half of the households in these metros earned this salary or more, the study found.
Along with Decatur, the most affordable metros were Cumberland, Maryland, Youngstown, Ohio, Charleston, West Virginia, and Elmira, New York.
In these areas, nearly two thirds of households could afford median priced homes as of September.
San Jose is the least affordable metro in the study by Oxford Economics
In San Jose, locals need to earn a staggering $460,746 in order to be a homeowner
Over the last several years, the housing market has become increasingly unaffordable for millions of Americans.
Mortgage rates have soared, which has meant that many homeowners have stayed put in their properties, locked in by cheaper existing loans.
This, in turn, has pushed up home prices, due to a historic shortage of houses for sale.
Property taxes and insurance costs have also been on the up across large swathes of the US, amid worsening climate disasters.
Mortgage rates had begun to drop in August, reaching their lowest level in 15 months, but then began to creep up again.
The typical 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is 6.78 percent, as of latest Freddie Mac data from November 14.
