The household income needed to afford a home in San Diego rises above $250,000

How do you realize the American dream: buying a house? In San Diego, by making more than $250,000.

For hopefuls in California’s major metro areas, including San Diego, the household income needed to buy a median-priced home is more than a quarter of a million dollars, or more than double the national income needed .

According to April housing data from Realtor.com, the national required household income to purchase such a home rose to $116,000, up $5,900 from a year ago, after taking into account the cost of taxes and insurance.

But in San Diego, the required income is a whopping $259,000, just ahead of San Francisco, at $256,000.

That income is based on an average listing price of $1.05 million in San Diego and almost $1.03 million in San Francisco.

And the median household income for San Diego County? According to the Census Bureau, that’s just $97,000 — roughly 37% of the $259,000 called for in the data.

Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com, called California “a fascinating market,” not just because of its “eye-popping” numbers, but “because it’s a microcosm of the diversity we see in housing markets nationwide.”

In some areas, like San Francisco,” she said in a news release, home prices have fallen enough to offset rising mortgage rates, and the income needed to buy a home has fallen. In other markets, including San Jose and Sacramento, price declines have been more modest, but rising mortgage rates have pushed up required incomes.

“And finally, most major U.S. markets are seeing trends like we’re seeing in Southern California,” she explained. “In Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego, rising home prices and mortgage rates have combined to push up required incomes – in some cases, like these California markets, by double digits compared to a year ago.”

Affordability is even worse in San Jose, where a household income of $361,000 is needed to buy a median-priced home, and in Los Angeles, where a household must bring in $298,000.

California’s major markets also surpassed notoriously expensive New York, where the household income for homebuyers must be $218,000.

If you’re willing to make the move to a more affordable market, there are urban areas, especially in the Midwest and South, where a household income of less than $100,000 is needed to purchase a median-priced home.

The most affordable among them? Pittsburgh, Detroit and Cleveland, where people with household incomes ranging from $67,000 to $71,000 could enter the housing market.