The price-to-income ratio divides a typical home price by the local median household income. It expresses how many years of gross income it would take to buy a typical home, and is one of the most durable ways to compare affordability across very different markets.
Median home price / median household income
As a general guide, a ratio under 3 is considered affordable, 3 to 5 is moderate, 5 to 7 is expensive, and above 7 is severely unaffordable. Because it normalizes prices by local earning power, it reveals stretched markets that a raw price alone would hide.
See price-to-income ratio for any state, metro, county, or ZIP code in the Reatlas Market Explorer.
Explore the dataSource: Reatlas analysis of U.S. Census American Community Survey (ACS), Realtor.com, and Zillow market data.