This Whopping Salary Is What You Need To Buy A Home In NYC
Being a first-time home buyer can be intimidating—especially in NYC. That’s why Visual Capitalist has calculated the exact salary needed to buy a home in major U.S. cities. Spoiler alert: the results don’t do much to alleviate our stresses. In order to buy a home in NYC, you need to have a salary of $186.1k.
With the average New Yorker making $89,000 in 2023, the $186.1k goal seems daunting. Not to mention, less than 5% of NYC rent is affordable for those making the average salary. And even for those making above the average at $100k a year, their take home is just $35,791.
In order to determine the necessary salaries for home buying in 50 of America’s largest metropolitan cities, the study examined principal, interest, taxes, and insurance payments on a median-priced home from recent HSH data in each city. The results are considering a 30-year-fixed-rate-mortgage with a 20% downpayment.
Before 2020, the average salary Americans needed to afford a home was $59,000. Now the average necessary salary is $104,000. On the bright side, at least NYC isn’t the most expensive city in the U.S. That title is take by San Jose, California.
Purchasing a home there requires quadruple the national average monthly payment of $2,434.6, at a steep $10,824. The median price for a home in the U.S. is $389,400; but for San Jose, it’s a whopping $1,840,000. Therefore, those buying a home in San Jose must make a yearly salary of $463,886.5—nearly half a million.
Inversely, Cleveland, Ohio requires the lowest salary of the 50 analyzed cities. Interested home buyers only need to make $58.4k. For context, New Yorker’s salaries need to be three times greater than the people in Cleveland to afford a home in their city. When taking a broader look at NYC, the median price for a home is $659,200 with a monthly payment of $4,342.9.
So if you’re planning on buying a home, be sure to understand what city makes the most sense for your finances. Or, you can try testing your luck with winning an NYC housing lottery! 
You can find the remaining figures for other U.S. cities in the study.
The post This Whopping Salary Is What You Need To Buy A Home In NYC appeared first on Secret NYC.