How Long Will You Need to Save to Buy a Home In Your City?

How long do you have to work in order to afford a home? Ahead of the upcoming Labor Day weekend, we calculated how many years it takes to save enough for a down payment in the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, factoring in both local average wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and local housing prices based on the median asking price per square foot of homes listed on Trulia.

We assumed that people saving for a down payment set aside 10 percent of their pre-tax earnings – even though of course that depends on your earnings and how much you want to put away – and will earn an annual return of 1.5 percent on those savings. We also assumed a 20 percent down payment, the traditional norm, though many mortgages (including FHA-insured mortgages) require less than a 20 percent down payment (see note at end).