If you want as many options as possible when house hunting, don’t sleep on Ohio. The Buckeye State is home to the five areas with the most affordable homes for Americans making $125,000, according to the 2025 Housing Affordability and Supply Report from the National Association of Realtors and Realtor.com.
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.
You can qualify for a mortgage using various income sources when working with the right lender.
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Best cities to buy a home with a $125,000 salary
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).
1. Youngstown, Ohio
Maximum home price: $410,340
Share 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.
2. Dayton, Ohio
Maximum home price: $402,940
Share 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.
3. Akron, Ohio
Maximum home price: $413,210
Share 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.
4. Toledo, Ohio
Maximum home price: $408,270
Share 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.
5. Cleveland, Ohio
Maximum home price: $414,350
Share 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.
6. Scranton, Pennsylvania
Maximum home price: $381,960
Share 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.
7. Little Rock, Arkansas
Maximum home price: $423,590
Share 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,
8. Lakeland, Florida
Maximum home price: $427,430
Share 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.
9. El Paso, Texas
Maximum home price: $362,540
Share 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.
10. Columbia, South Carolina
Maximum home price: $436,330
Share 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.
How much can I spend on a house if I make $125,000?
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:
- Homeowners insurance: Lenders typically require borrowers to take out homeowners insurance when they sign a mortgage agreement. Premiums averaged $3,303 a year in 2024, or just over $275 a month.
- Property taxes: Property taxes vary from state to state but, nationwide, the effective tax rate on a median-priced home averages about 1.10% of its value each year.
- Private mortgage insurance: Required for conventional mortgages with a down payment under 20%, PMI protects a lender should the borrower default on their loan. PMI averages between 0.5% and 1.5% of the loan total each year. If you put 10% down on a median-priced home in 2025, that could be as much as $5,600.
- Utilities: U.S. households spend an average of $380 a month on electricity, gas and water, according to Move.org. If you add internet, phone, HOA fees and other necessities, it’s closer to $600.
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.
Housing affordability FAQs
Why is there a housing shortage in the U.S?
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.
What is the median home price in the U.S.?
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.
How much can I afford to spend on a house if I make $125,000 a year?
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.
What state has the most affordable housing?
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