Top 11 Cities in the U.S. Where Buying a Home Costs Over $200K in Earnings

To afford a house in some cities in California, you need to be making more than $200,000 a year. This comes from a recent report by the National Association of Realtors.

San Jose tops the list in a survey of 221 U.S. metro areas. To buy a median-priced home there, you need an annual income of $482,835, says the NAR report.

The report calculates the income needed in different cities, factoring in a 20% down payment and a 7.12% interest rate. It assumes that monthly home payments shouldn’t exceed 25% of a household’s income.

The 11 metro areas where you need over $200,000 to buy a median-priced home include:

1. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA: $482,835
2. Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine, CA: $340,595
3. San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA: $339,290
4. Honolulu, HI: $277,147
5. San Diego-Carlsbad, CA: $255,381

[Click here to see the full list.]