Rather than working through the DTI formula yourself, this guide gives you the answer directly: a comprehensive salary-by-salary breakdown of what home price is realistically affordable at each income level in 2026, accounting for typical down payments, current mortgage rates, and average tax and insurance costs. Find your salary range, and see where you likely fall.
How to use this table: Find your gross annual salary, then check the corresponding affordable home price range. These figures assume a 10% down payment, minimal existing debt, and a 6.8% 30-year mortgage rate — adjust upward with a larger down payment, downward with existing debt.
Why three columns instead of one number
Presenting a single affordable price per salary level would be misleading, because the right target depends heavily on your personal risk tolerance and financial priorities, not just your income. The "low" column reflects a conservative approach favored by buyers prioritizing flexibility, faster equity building, and continued strong retirement savings — roughly 25% of gross income toward housing. The "typical" column reflects the standard 28% front-end DTI guideline most lenders quote as their baseline. The "stretch" column reflects what well-qualified borrowers with strong credit and minimal existing debt can sometimes reach when lenders extend beyond the traditional 28% cap.
Most financial advisors recommend the low-to-typical range for buyers who value flexibility and want to continue funding other goals at full strength. The stretch column exists because it reflects real lending practice, not because it is universally recommended — treat it as the outer edge of what is possible, not a target to aim for by default.
How the down payment assumption changes your real number
Every figure in the table above assumes a 10% down payment. A larger down payment shifts these numbers meaningfully upward for the same monthly payment, since less needs to be financed and PMI is reduced or eliminated. A buyer at $90,000 salary putting 20% down rather than 10% can typically afford a home price roughly $30,000-$45,000 higher than the table shows, split between the smaller loan amount required and the PMI savings. Conversely, a 3-5% down payment, common on FHA loans and some conventional first-time-buyer programs, pushes the affordable range downward from the table figures, since more of the purchase price needs to be financed at the same monthly payment ceiling.
How existing debt shifts you within the range
The table assumes minimal existing debt. Real-world existing debt — a car payment, student loans, credit card balances — pulls a buyer toward the lower end of their range, or below it entirely if debt is substantial. As a rough guide, every $200/month in existing debt payments reduces affordable home price by approximately $30,000-$35,000 at typical 2026 rates, since that $200 comes directly out of the 36% back-end allowance that would otherwise support additional mortgage payment. A buyer at $80,000 salary with $600/month in existing car and student loan payments should expect to land near or even below the "low" column figure, rather than the "typical" column, despite their income placing them squarely in that salary bracket.
Two-income households: why combining salaries is not simple addition
Dual-income households often assume their combined affordability is simply the sum of what each partner could afford individually, but the math does not work quite that cleanly. Combined gross income does increase the DTI-based housing budget proportionally, which is genuinely favorable. However, combined households also typically carry combined debt — two car payments instead of one, potentially two sets of student loans — which works against the higher income in the back-end ratio calculation. The net effect is usually still a meaningfully higher affordable price than either partner alone, but rarely a simple doubling of the single-income figures in the table above.
A dual-income household earning a combined $150,000 ($75,000 each) with modest combined debt typically affords a home in a similar or slightly higher range than the $150,000 salary row in the table, assuming debt levels are proportionally similar to a single high earner at that income. The calculation genuinely benefits from lender flexibility around using both incomes, but should still be verified with an actual affordability calculator rather than assumed from the single-income table.
Regional adjustment: the same salary buys very different homes
Every figure in the table above is a national estimate based on typical 2026 tax and insurance costs. Actual affordable price at a given salary can vary substantially by region due to differences in property tax rates (ranging from under 0.5% of home value annually in some states to over 2% in others) and insurance costs (dramatically higher in flood, wildfire, or hurricane-exposed areas). A buyer earning $90,000 in a low-property-tax state might afford a home $15,000-$25,000 higher than the table suggests; the same buyer in a high-tax state or high-insurance-cost region might need to adjust the table figures downward by a similar margin.
What changes for self-employed and variable-income buyers
The salary figures in this table assume stable, verifiable W-2 income. Self-employed buyers and those with significant commission or bonus income are typically qualified based on a two-year average of documented tax-return income, which can differ substantially from current cash flow, especially for business owners who deduct legitimate expenses that reduce taxable income. A self-employed buyer with $90,000 in actual annual cash flow but $70,000 in net income after deductions on their tax returns should generally expect their affordability to align closer to the $70,000 row in this table than the $90,000 row, until they have built a longer, higher-earning tax-return history.
Building toward a higher affordability tier
For buyers whose current salary places them in a tier below their target home price, several concrete paths exist to move up the table over time. Increasing income through a raise, promotion, or additional certification directly shifts affordability upward. Paying off existing debt, particularly monthly obligations like car payments, frees up back-end DTI capacity without any change in income. Saving toward a larger down payment shifts the entire affordable range upward for a given income level, as discussed above. And improving credit score to access better interest rates increases how much loan a given qualifying payment can support, independent of income or debt changes entirely.
Get a personalized number rather than a table estimate with the Home Affordability Calculator, entering your exact income, debts, and down payment.
Why relying only on a salary table can mislead you
A salary-based table like the one above is a useful starting point, but it necessarily averages away meaningful individual variation. Two buyers earning an identical $90,000 salary can have genuinely different affordable home prices once you account for differences in existing debt, credit score, down payment source, and local tax and insurance rates. One buyer with no debt, a 760 credit score, and 20% down might comfortably afford $420,000, while another at the identical salary carrying $700/month in existing debt and putting down only 5% might realistically be limited to $310,000 — more than a $100,000 spread at the same reported income.
This is precisely why mortgage professionals and financial planners consistently recommend running your own specific numbers through a proper affordability calculator rather than relying on a general table, however useful that table is as an initial orientation point. The table tells you roughly where you sit among buyers at your income level; your own calculation tells you where you specifically sit given your complete financial picture.
Hourly wage converted to affordable home price
For buyers paid hourly rather than salaried, converting to an equivalent annual figure helps translate directly to the table above. A standard full-time schedule of 2,080 hours annually (40 hours/week, 52 weeks) means $20/hour equates to roughly $41,600/year, $25/hour to $52,000/year, $30/hour to $62,400/year, and $35/hour to $72,800/year. Buyers working significant regular overtime, or whose hours vary seasonally, should generally use a conservative average across the full year rather than their highest-earning months, since lenders typically require at least a two-year history to count variable or overtime income fully toward qualification.
Buyers transitioning from hourly to salaried work, or vice versa, within the two years before applying should expect additional documentation requirements, since lenders generally want to see income stability and a track record before fully counting a recent change toward the qualifying income figure used in affordability calculations.
Adjusting the table for high cost-of-living metro areas
The figures in this table assume national average property tax and insurance rates. In genuinely high cost-of-living metros — major coastal cities in particular — both property taxes on a given home value and homeowners insurance premiums often run meaningfully above the national average, which reduces the affordable home price at a given salary compared to the table figures, since more of the monthly housing budget is consumed by taxes and insurance rather than principal and interest.
Conversely, buyers in lower-tax, lower-insurance-cost regions of the country can often afford a somewhat higher home price than the table suggests at the same salary, since a larger share of their housing budget goes toward the loan itself rather than these secondary costs. Checking actual local property tax rates and obtaining a real homeowners insurance quote for the specific area you are considering, rather than relying on national averages, produces a materially more accurate affordability estimate than the table alone can provide.
Salary growth trajectory: buying for today vs. buying for tomorrow
Early-career buyers with strong salary growth trajectories — certain professional tracks like medicine, law, and technology in particular — face a genuine strategic question: buy at the affordability level their current salary supports, or stretch somewhat further in anticipation of near-certain future raises. Lenders qualify strictly against current, documented income, so this is not a qualification question but a personal risk decision about whether to buy at the lower end of the affordable range now, planning to grow into a larger home later, versus buying closer to the upper end of current affordability and accepting a tighter budget in the near term that eases as income rises.
The more conservative approach — buying at the lower-to-typical range of current affordability rather than the stretch figure — generally proves the more resilient strategy, since expected raises are not guaranteed, career paths change, and unexpected life events (job loss, health issues, family changes) can disrupt even a strong income trajectory. Buyers confident in near-certain, well-documented near-term income increases (a signed offer letter for a higher-paying role starting soon, for example) may reasonably factor that into their planning, but should still maintain a genuine buffer against the possibility that the increase is delayed or does not materialize as expected.
Using the table as a starting point for your home search
The most practical way to use this table is as a starting filter for your home search, not a final answer. Identify your salary row, note the typical range, and use that as your initial search price filter on listing sites, while simultaneously running your specific numbers — actual debt, actual down payment savings, actual credit score — through a full affordability calculator before making any offers. This two-step approach lets you browse realistically from the start of your search, while ensuring your eventual offer is grounded in your true, personalized qualification rather than a national average that may not reflect your specific financial circumstances.