This Is How Much You Have To Earn To Buy A Home On LI, Study Says

The area in and around New York City isn't the most most expensive place in the country to live -- but it is pretty darn close.

The study, released by the mortgage resource website HSH.com, used the latest available quarterly home-price information from the National Association of Realtors, and incorporates local property tax and homeowner’s insurance costs to calculate the income needed to qualify for a median-priced home.

According to the study, which used home-price data from the fourth quarter of 2018, the salary needed to buy a home in the New York metropolitan area is $105,684.33. Luckily for Long Islanders, that's not too far out of their price range. According to the US Census Bureau, Suffolk has a median annual income of $92,838, and Nassau is $105,744.

That doesn't mean homes around here are cheap, though. According to the latest data from the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island, the average sale price for a home in Suffolk County in January was $380,000, and $525,000 in Nassau.

The New York metropolitan area, as defined by HSH, includes wide swaths of New York and New Jersey. It includes Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens, Richmond, Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester in New York; as well as Essex, Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset, Sussex, Union, Bergen, Hudson, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean and Passaic counties in New Jersey.

While San Jose was the least affordable metropolitan area on the list, the Pittsburgh area was the most affordable metropolitan area. The study found that the difference in salary required between the two areas to afford a home was a whopping $217,000.

According to the study, median home prices in the fourth quarter of 2018 were lower compared to the third quarter of 2018. However, it noted that this was not uncommon and it doesn’t indicate that homes are becoming more affordable.

San Jose was also the only metropolitan area to see a year-over-year decline in median home prices. The median home prices in all 49 other metro areas ranked in the study stayed the same or saw an increase. However, HSH.com says nationally, there appears to be evidence that the rate at which home prices are increasing has started to slow.

The 10 most expensive metros for buying a home are:

• San Jose (Salary needed: $254,835.73)
• San Francisco (Salary needed: $198,978.01)
• San Diego (Salary needed: $131,640.79)
• Los Angeles (Salary needed: $123,156.01)
• Boston (Salary needed: $106,789.93)
• New York City (Salary needed: $105,684.33)
• Seattle (Salary needed: $105,367.89)
• Washington D.C. (Salary needed: $94,408.70)
• Denver (Salary needed: $91,672.45)
• Portland (Salary needed: $85,173.08)

The 10 least expensive metros for buying a home are:

• Pittsburgh (Salary needed: $37,659.86)
• Cleveland (Salary needed: $40,437.72)
• Oklahoma City (Salary needed: $41,335.41)
• Memphis (Salary needed: $41,400.93)
• Indianapolis (Salary needed: $42,288.92)
• Louisville (Salary needed: $42,323.15)
• Cincinnati (Salary needed: $43,429.97)
• St Louis (Salary needed: $44,215.56)
• Birmingham (Salary needed: $44,593.35)
• Buffalo (Salary needed: $45,698.05)

You can read the full study from HSH.com here.

Patch editor Feroze Dhanoa contributed to this report.