The biggest wakeup call of 2018 when when my father came to my shoebox Brooklyn apartment and tried to hold in his laughter. When my dad was my age (30), he was literally building the house I grew up in with his bare hands in a Boston suburb. When he found out his son rents an apartment so small that when someone farts it lingers for a fortnight, his pity was impossible to conceal.
But, luckily for my integrity, I am just part of a larger trend. According to Financial Times, just one-quarter of young adults born in the late 1980s owned a home by the age of 27, compared with a third of those born earlier in the decade. And it’s not entirely our fault–house prices have increased about seven times faster than the incomes of young adults over the last 20 years. I don’t feel too much like a sloth now.
If you’re one of the lucky ones, one of the ones who prioritizes the question ‘where’ over ‘how much?’ then Business Insider compiled a list of the 23 most expensive places to live right now.
The list compiles “the US metro areas where the minimum salary required to qualify for a mortgage, after a 20% down payment, is highest.” It assumes a mortgage rate of 3.9% for all areas, with the monthly principle and interest payment limited to 25% of income.
Here are the 10 most expensive regions, via Business Insider:
10. Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, Florida
Population: 357,305
Median sale price: $438,500
Salary needed to buy: $82,830
9. Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Massachusetts/New Hampshire
Population: 4,774,321
Median sale price: $448,500
Salary needed to buy: $84,719
8. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington
Population: 3,733,580
Median sale price: $471,700
Salary needed to buy: $89,102
7. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, California
Population: 10,170,292
Median sale price: $541,200
Salary needed to buy: $104,516
6. Boulder, Colorado
Population: 319,372
Median sale price: $546,400
Salary needed to buy: $103,212
5. San Diego-Carlsbad, California
Population: 3,299,521
Median sale price: $610,000
Salary needed to buy: $115,226
4. Urban Honolulu, Hawaii
Population: 998,714
Median sale price: $760,600
Salary needed to buy: $143,674
3. Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine, California
Population: 3,169,776
Median sale price: $785,000
Salary needed to buy: $148,283
2. San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, California
Population: 4,656,132
Median sale price: $920,000
Salary needed to buy: $173,783
1. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California
Population: 1,976,836
Median sale price: $1,270,000
Salary needed to buy: $239,897
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Check out the entire list of 23 places here.
If all of these options are out of your price range, a reporter at real estate website Curbed named Patrick Sisson put together a list of five up-and-coming metropolises across America that provide the cheapest path to home ownership.
Via Fox News:
Madison, Wis. (median home price: $273,600); Richmond, Va. ($258,900); Des Moines, Iowa ($198,200); Chattanooga, Tenn. ($178,100) and Omaha, Neb. ($179,000).