34 US cities where people can barely afford homes

Reuters

In 15 California cities, at least 13% of households spend at least half of their income on housing.

• The cost to buy a home is more expensive than it's ever been.
• SmartAsset recently released a new report ranking the US cities with the most severely cost-burdened households - households who spend at least half of their income on housing.
• In 34 cities, at least 13% of households are severely cost-burdened - almost half of the cities are in California.

The housing market is on the climb.

The value of homes has increased by 73% since the 1960s, when adjusted for inflation, Business Insider previously reported, citing a Student Loan Hero report.

It's so expensive that, in some cities, the average home outweighs the average income by so much that it can take nearly a decade to save for a 20% down payment, according to a SmartAsset report released earlier this year.

Now, SmartAsset is back with new data that highlights the high cost of homeownership: the US cities with the most severely housing cost-burdened households (defined as households who spend more than 50% of their income on housing).

To determine this list, SmartAsset gathered US Census Bureau data for the percentage of severely housing-cost burdened households among homeowners in 167 cities, ranking each city by the amount of people spending at least half of their income on housing.

In 34 cities, 13% or more households spend at least half of their income on housing. Of these cities, 15 are in California, making it the state with the most severely housing-cost burdened cities. Florida ranks second, home to four of the most severely housing cost-burdened cities.

See which other cities made the ranks below.