Finder.com: $55K income to buy home, live comfortably, in Prov.

FINDER.COM looked at 78 cities to determine the salary needed to buy a home and live comfortably. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/DANIEL ACKER
FINDER.COM looked at 78 cities to determine the salary needed to buy a home and live comfortably. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/DANIEL ACKER

PROVIDENCE – To buy a home and live comfortably in Providence, one needs a salary of at least $55,661, according to finder.com.
The advice website looked at 78 U.S. cities to determine the salary needed to live comfortably, discovering that San Francisco is the most expensive city on the list, as “a huge salary” of $180,600 is needed to “simply buy an average home” costing $1.1 million.

Coming in a “distant” second and third were San Jose and Los Angeles, with respective salaries of $129,864 and $90,244 needed to buy a home in those California cities, the website stated. The most inexpensive city on the list was Jackson, Miss., where an income of $43,265 allows home ownership and a comfortable lifestyle.
Providence ranked 26th on the list, with an average home price of $156,600. Non-housing expenditures were pegged at $32,299 and non-mortgage debt at $16,000.
Boston was eighth highest on the list, as a salary of $79,366 is needed to buy a $477,100 home, and live comfortably.
Finder.com cited U.S. census data, which said the average wage was $52,250 in 2013.
“According to our research, this is a sufficient income to live in 36 out of 78 of the cities analyzed,” finder.com said.

The website assumed that “living comfortably” means the ability to purchase an average home, presuming a 20 percent deposit has been saved, the ability to cover average per-person expenditure and the ability to pay off non-mortgage-related household debt. Median house prices; mortgage payments, including mortgage interest; and average non-mortgage debt in the city, was included in the analysis.

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