How much money you need to make to afford a home in San Diego County – NBC 7 San Diego

San Diego families need an income of nearly $275,000 a year to afford a mortgage on a home, which is nearly double what it was before the pandemic, according to a new report from the real estate website Zillow.

With that estimate, at most, 18% of households in San Diego County, where the median household income is $96,964, might make enough money to comfortably afford a home, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data from 2022. It’s likely far less since that number accounts for San Diegans making more than $200,000.

The study — which considers “affordable” to be spending no more than 30% of income on housing after paying a $10% down payment — shows how housing costs are far outpacing wage increases, making the American dream of becoming a homeowner a more and more distant hope.

According to Zillow, the average monthly mortgage payment — including insurance, property taxes and maintenance — after a 10% down payment in San Diego is $5,757, which would take an income of at least $273,613 to be able to afford, according to Zillow’s analysis. At the time of the study, mortgage rates were about 6.6%.

It would take a San Diegan nearly 17 years to save for a 10% down payment, assuming a household saves 5% of its total income a month, Zillow said. That’s almost double the national average of 8.4 years to save for a down payment where the annual average income needed to afford a home is $106,536.

Of the 50 largest metropolitan areas Zillow ranked, San Diego needed the fourth-highest income in order to afford a home, trailing only three other California cities — San Jose, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Hope is not lost, though, as buyers are getting creative to make homeownership a reality. Zillow said that more and more frequently hopeful homeowners are relying on family for help, “co-buy” a home, or are buying homes with the intent of renting out a portion.

Another way San Diegans may be able to afford a home is to move elsewhere. The cities with the lowest income required to afford a mortgage were Pittsburgh; Memphis, Tenn.; Cleveland, Ohio; and New Orleans, according to Zillow.

The median price of a single-family home last month was $1.043 million compared with $899,000 last year — up more than 16% this year, according to data the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors released Tuesday. A condo or townhome came in at $662,000 this year compared with $618,500 last year.

The most expensive home sold in San Diego County in February 2024 was a Spanish-style beach home in Coronado that went for $28 million.