Well, you'll probably never make enough money to buy a home in New York, but have you ever considered sunny, bustling, happening Pittsburgh?
The mortgage research site HSH has published a list that tells you exactly how much money you'll need to make annually in order to buy a house in 27 of America's largest metro areas (reflected on the map above).
It looks like it might be time to consider Tampa ($41,488), Detroit ($37,544) or Cincinnati ($36,357) instead of San Diego ($104,839), L.A. ($88,315), or Boston ($86,164) – if you want to own instead of rent.
The place where you can be poorest and still afford a home is Cleveland, where you can make $33,714 and still buy a house with monthly mortgage payments of $786.66 (or approximately 1/4 of the rent on a so-so Manhattan apartment).
The most expensive is San Francisco, where you'll need to make $157,912 a year to buy something with monthly payments of $3,684. In other words, start learning how to code.
Just for comparison, the median home price in Cleveland is $129,700, versus $841,600 in San Francisco.
You can check out the full list with additional states on interest rates and median home prices for all the cities over at HSH.
