I love and hate watching house hunting shows on HGTV - I love seeing what great deals we can get in Atlanta on homes compared to other parts of the U.S. and Canada, but I hate the fact that when I save enough money to buy a house here in Atlanta, if I want to move to a different city, then I won’t be able to afford nearly as much.

Is this rickety shack all you can afford to buy in your city?

You should get a higher wage in cities where it is more expensive to live, but of course that doesn't really happen: people don't move to New York City for the high salaries waiting for them there, they move there with a dream. A similar thing effect happens in Portland, OR. There is a shortage of jobs, but people want to live there because of the city's personality, rather than solid, economic reasons.

I decided to compare Atlanta’s median home prices and median income with those of other cities, to see how we really line up. (I’ll give you a hint - it’s still way cheaper here, even with higher wages elsewhere!)

Metro Area	State	Median Home Price*	Median Household Income**	% income/home price
San Francisco	CA	725,000	70,040	9.66%
New York	NY	420,000	50,173	11.95%
Seattle	WA	363,000	58,990	16.25%
Portland	OR	250,000	48,053	19.22%
Chicago	IL	222,000	46,781	21.07%
Co. Springs	CO	205,000	53,359	26.03%
Austin	TX	183,000	50,236	27.45%
Atlanta	GA	178,000	50,243	28.23%

 The final column, income shown as a percent of median home price, gives a rough feel for how “expensive” housing in that city is.

In more understandable terms, let’s take a look at Atlanta. If you have the average household income of $50,243, less 15% tax, is take-home pay of about $3,560.

If you buy a house for %178,000 with 20% down, at 4.5% interest, your monthly payments would be roughly $907/month.

In the Atlanta scenario, your home payments would be about 25% of your tax-home pay each month.

However, in San Francisco, if you bought the average home with the average salary, your home payments would be about 77% of your take home pay each month (and you wouldn’t be able to get a mortgage for that much, even if you wanted to!).

The home price data on San Francisco also lists the median condo price at $540,000, so condos may be the way to go there, but that would still average about 55% of take-home pay (and you still wouldn’t be able to get a mortgage for that much.)

Conclusion, we’re better off in Atlanta, but San Francisco still seems cool enough to make me want to live there anyway!

What percent of your monthly paycheck goes to mortgage/rent payments? How much of your monthly pay would you be willing to put into living in the right area? Do you live in an over-priced area, relative to your income? (I know I have some readers living in some expensive Canadian cities up there!) How does that affect you?

*home price data from Kiplinger.com housing tool

**median income from census data

Mortgage payments calculated at MortgageCalculator.org

Image copyright Rocket6to3 from sxc.hu