The best places in America to buy a house on a $125,000 salary
The South was well represented in the top 10, too, including cities in Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina and Texas.
The U.S. housing market "is at a turning point," says NAR Senior Economist Nadia Evangelou. After a years-long shortage, inventory has started to rebound: The number of Realtor.com listings shot up nearly 20% between March 2024 and March 2025.
But an affordability gap persists.
"For many first-time homebuyers, navigating the current housing market still feels like window shopping," Evangelou said in a release. "Listing prices don't match [their] budgets."
According to the report, middle- and upper-middle-income homebuyers (households earning between $75,000 and $100,000 a year) have seen the largest uptick in affordable housing supply. Meanwhile, households earning $75,000 are only able to afford about a fifth of home listings nationwide.
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To determine the share of listings that are financially accessible on a $125,000 salary, NAR used Realtor.com listings from March 2025 in the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSA).The calculations are based on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with a down payment of 20% or less, assuming that no more than 30% of a family's earnings are allocated toward housing, as recommended by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Maximum home price: $410,340Share of affordable listings: 89%
The MSA encompassing Youngstown and Boardman, Ohio, and Warren, Pennsylvania, is popular with commuters who work in nearby Cleveland or Pittsburgh.
In 2024, NAR identified Youngstown as one of the last metro areas where a household of nearly any income level could find an affordable single-family home.
Maximum home price: $402,940Share of affordable listings: 83%
The fourth-largest MSA in Ohio, the greater Dayton area includes Kettering and the surrounding Miami Valley. A loss of manufacturing jobs and the 2008 housing market crash fueled a steep population decline, but the region has begun to recover: In 2022, the population was over 812,000, up from 799,700 in 2010.
Maximum home price: $413,210Share of affordable listings: 82.7%
Akron was the heart of the U.S tire and rubber industries throughout the 20th century, and both Bridgestone and Goodyear still have a major presence. The median household income in the Akron MSA was $48,544 in 2023, a 4.18% increase from 2022.
Maximum home price: $408,270Share of affordable listings: 81.5%
The Toledo MSA, which includes Ohio's Fulton, Lucas, and Wood Counties, has long been a bedroom community for Detroit. It's also home to Fortune 500 company Owens Corning, the world's largest manufacturer of fiberglass composites.
Maximum home price: $414,350Share of affordable listings: 79.3%
The Cleveland-Elyria, Ohio, MSA incorporates Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, and Medin Counties. In 2022, it had a population of 2.06 million, making it the third-largest metropolitan area in the state and the 33rd-largest in the nation.
Maximum home price: $381,960Share of affordable listings: 79.1%
Northeastern Pennsylvania's coal industry helped fuel the American industrial revolution. In 2024, the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre MSA remained the state's fifth-largest metropolitan area, with a population of 574,000.
Maximum home price: $423,590Share of affordable listings: 78.2%
The state capital, Little Rock is a political, economic and cultural hub in the American South. The Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway MSA has seen a population surge over the last half-century, from 396,462 in 1970 to nearly 777,000 in 2024,
Maximum home price: $427,430Share of affordable listings: 78.1%
About 30 minutes east of Tampa, the Lakeland-Winter Haven MSA had a population of 852,878 in 2024, a major increase from 485,378 in 2000. Florida Southern College in Lakeland is home to the largest gathering of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world.
Maximum home price: $362,540Share of affordable listings: 78.0%
The population of the El Paso MSA ballooned from 680,942 in 2000 to 879,392 in 2024. Located on the Mexico-U.S. border, El Paso is the epicenter of the Borderplex Region, considered the largest bilingual workforce in the Western Hemisphere.
Maximum home price: $436,330Share of affordable listings: 77.8%
The Columbia MSA is another region enjoying a growth spurt in the last quarter-century, with a population that jumped from 649,181 in 2000 to 870,193 in 2024. In addition to serving as the state capital, Columbia is home to Fort Jackson, where roughly half of all soldiers in the U.S. Army receive basic combat training.
According to HUD, no more than 30% of your gross income should go toward housing expenses. That includes mortgage principal and interest, as well as:
With that in mind, someone earning $125,000 a year should keep their total housing budget to $3,125 a month or less.
How much you can spend depends on the size of your down payment, and the cost of expenses like homeowners insurance, property taxes and private mortgage insurance in your location. When NAR accounted for these variables, it found that the maximum price that families earning $125,000 could afford ranged from $356,940 to $542,440.
See how much home you can afford using our mortgage calculator.
In part, the current scarcity is being fueled by Covid-era supply-chain issues, material costs and labor shortages. But new home builds dropped sharply after the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. And historically high mortgage rates have deterred many homeowners from selling, just as millennials entered their peak homebuying years.
According to the Federal Reserve, the median U.S. home price in the first quarter of 2025 was $416,900. There are wide variations depending on the state, city and neighborhood you live in, however, and that figure doesn't factor in homeowners insurance, property taxes and other housing expenses.
Someone earning $125,000 a year can spend as much as $542,440 on a house, depending on their location, down payment, outside financial obligations, current mortgage rates and other factors.
Ohio is considered the most affordable state for homebuyers. The median household income is 1.5 times more than what's needed to afford a median-priced home in the state.
At CNBC Select, our mission is to provide our readers with high-quality service journalism and comprehensive consumer advice so they can make informed decisions with their money. Every mortgage article is based on rigorous reporting by our team of expert writers and editors with extensive knowledge of financial products. While CNBC Select earns a commission from affiliate partners on many offers and links, we create all our content without input from our commercial team or any outside third parties, and we pride ourselves on our journalistic standards and ethics.
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