{"id":805032,"date":"2026-08-06T22:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/805032\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T22:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:00:11","slug":"the-6-figure-income-needed-to-afford-the-average-us-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/805032\/","title":{"rendered":"The 6-figure income needed to afford the average US home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time in years, US homebuying affordability has plateaued. The bad news: You still need to earn six figures to buy a home.<\/p>\n<p>The household income needed to scoop up a typical home in the country \u2014 and spend no more than 30% of income on a monthly mortgage payment \u2014 sits at $109,796, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.redfin.com\/news\/affordability-homebuying-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">June report from Redfin<\/a>. That is down a marginal 0.5% from an all-time high of $110,382 a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>Six figures is a far cry from reality for many people.<\/p>\n<p>Consider that the median US household brings home just $87,599 annually, though that\u2019s up 4% year-over-year.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50146628;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"40222847\" width=\"886\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/136578993.jpg\" alt=\"A green single-family home in the distance with a green street sign in the foreground. \" class=\"wp-image-40222847\"  \/>It still takes a shiny six-figure salary to buy a home in America.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe earnings needed to buy a house have stabilized after several years of deterioration, but that doesn\u2019t mean homes are affordable to the average American,\u201d Yingqi Xu, a senior economist at Redfin, said in a statement. \u201cThere\u2019s still a double-digit gap between what the typical household earns and what they need to comfortably buy a home, leaving many prospective first-time buyers stalled on the sidelines.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For the average buyer, purchasing a median-priced property would consume roughly 38% of their annual household earnings.<\/p>\n<p>On the plus side, the $22,197 affordability deficit \u2014 the difference between the $109,796 needed to nab a home and the $87,599 median salary \u2014 has shrunk over the past two years, down from $26,125 last year and $28,834 two years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Plus, incomes and monthly housing costs are increasing at about the same rate.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, there are more options for the average Joe, with 34.2% of active listings now considered affordable, up from 30.5% a year prior.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.33333333;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"40222853\" width=\"787\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/aerial-cityscape-fall-foliage-residential-136578711.jpg\" alt=\"Aerial cityscape with fall foliage in residential Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.\" class=\"wp-image-40222853\"  \/>Two years ago, the typical household made $28,834 less than what was required to buy a average home. Last year that gap shrank to $26,125. Today the gap has narrowed even further down to $22,197. Andrew \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n<p>Entering the market for the first time is a bit easier now. First-time homebuyers need to earn $70,693 to afford the typical US entry-level home, down 1.5% from a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly half of major US metropolitan areas, like Seattle and San Jose, saw improvements in homebuying affordability.<\/p>\n<p>Typical households make enough to buy a median-priced home in just three major cities: St. Louis, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time in years, US homebuying affordability has plateaued. The bad news: You still need to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,2053,3425,1170,1349],"class_list":["post-805032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-housing","tag-income","tag-real-estate","tag-residential-real-estate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}