To buy an average home in San Francisco, you need 9-plus year’s of income
According to CityLab, the average San Francisco household would have to spend more than nine times its annual income to fully pay off a median-priced home in the city. Editor-at-large Richard Florida notes that, traditionally, house hunters are supposed to set their max price by multiplying their annual income by 2.6. CityLab credits that formula to Forbes, which claims “[typically] median homes in the U.S. cost 2.6 times as much as the median annual income.” Money magazine prescribes a similar but distinct 2.5-1 formula. But the finer points of what’s behind that decimal probably don’t matter as much in this case, because no place in the Bay Area comes close. By CityLab’s math, the average San Francisco home costs 9.2 times the city’s median income. That’s the third-highest factor in the country, after just Los Angeles (9.6 percent) and San Jose (9.5 percent). “Our calculations reflect the years of income it would take to pay for ...