$218,000 income needed to buy a California home, up 82% since 2019
The annual income required to purchase a typical California house has nearly doubled over the past five years.
To see how homebuying burdens have multiplied, my trusty spreadsheet compared the California Association of Realtors’ homebuying affordability report for the first quarter of 2025 with the final three months of 2019, just before the pandemic disrupted the economy.
These numbers tell us that to start 2025, a $218,000 income was necessary to income-qualify a successful California buyer, a standard that has grown 82% since the end of 2019. Remember, the Realtor yardstick assumes buyers spend 30% of their income based on a mortgage with a 20% down payment, with an additional 1.4% of the purchase price going toward property taxes and insurance.
Part of the house hunter’s challenge is that mortgage rates were 6.93% in early 2025, compared to 3.89% in late 2019. But do not forget pricing. California’s median selling price increased by 40% over five years to $846,830.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/05/13/218000-income-needed-to-buy-a-california-home-up-82-since-2019/
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