THE SALARY YOU MUST EARN TO BUY A HOME IN 27 METROS

How much salary do you need to earn in order to afford the principal and interest payments on a median-priced home in your metro area?

To find out, HSH.com took the National Association of Realtors’ third-quarter data for median-home prices and HSH.com’s third-quarter average interest rate for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages to determine how much of your salary it would take to afford the base cost of owning a home — the principal, interest, taxes and insurance — in 27 metro areas.

We used standard 28 percent “front-end” debt ratios and a 20 percent down payment subtracted from the NAR’s median-home-price data to arrive at our figures. We’ve incorporated available information on property taxes and homeowner’s insurance costs to more accurately reflect the income needed in a given market. Read more about the methodology and inputs on the final slide of this slideshow.

Nationally, home-price gains continued to slow, returning price growth to more “normalized” levels in the third quarter, said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. As far as interest rates are concerned, mortgage rates fell in every metro on our list but one, in which there was no change at all from the previous quarter. Lower mortgage rates and home prices have increased affordability, lowering the required salary for 15 of the 27 metro areas on our list.