16 US cities where a typical family can afford a home
- Thanks to rising home prices and stagnant pay, many cities have a high home price-to-income ratio, according to real-estate platform Clever.
- Sixteen cities across the Midwest, northeast and southeast offer livable salaries and affordable homes, including St. Louis, Missouri; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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When it comes to buying a house, not all cities are equal.
In the past few decades, home prices have been climbing while wages have been stagnant. The rule of thumb was once to buy a house no more than 2.6 times your yearly household income, according to CityLab. Today, that number seems more like an aspiration than a rule, especially in pricier regions like the west coast.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't still affordable options out there. Real-estate platform Clever looked at the home price-to-income ratio of several cities with median income and median home value information compiled by Zillow. The data shows that few have been able to maintain a ratio below 2.6.
Below, we've listed the 16 most affordable cities in the US according to Zillow's data, as well as the median household income in each city from the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey and the median home price from Zillow.