How much house can I afford on a $75,000 salary?

Short answer: about $119,000 to $150,000. A typical figure is $130,000. Your bank's calculator will say $235,500.

The uncomfortable context

US median household income is roughly $80,600. The median existing home sold for about $431,400 in mid-2026. That is a price-to-income ratio north of five, against a historical norm closer to three.

So before any arithmetic, understand what the answer is going to be: a $75,000 earner, doing everything right, cannot buy the median American home. Not in a stretch, not with a bigger down payment, not by shopping harder. The gap is structural. What follows is where you can buy, and for how much.

From salary to actual money

On $75,000 gross, take-home lands between $4,187 and $4,700 a month after federal tax, FICA, state tax, a 6% retirement contribution and health premiums. Roughly a quarter to a third of the headline number never reaches you.

Cap all-in housing at 25% of that and the budget is $1,047 to $1,175 a month — covering principal, interest, property tax, insurance, PMI and maintenance, not just the loan.

Where that lands, by state

Washington is the interesting row. Take-home is high because there is no state income tax, property tax is moderate at 0.75%, and insurance is cheap. Illinois earns similar money and buys $24,500 less house, almost entirely because of a 1.88% property tax rate. Same salary, same discipline, materially different life.

Why the bank's $235,500 is not a typo

It is the 28/36 rule applied to gross income with national-average escrow assumptions. Nothing about it is fraudulent; it is simply answering a different question — the largest loan they would underwrite, not the largest payment you should carry.

At $235,500, your real all-in monthly cost is approximately $2,021, which is 45% of your take-home pay. Lenders will approve well past this; conventional underwriting routinely allows 43% to 50% debt-to-income. The 28/36 version is the polite number.

Debt: the cliff sits around $500

Below roughly $500 a month of other debt, your maximum price does not move, because the 25% housing cap binds before the total-debt cap does. Above it, each additional $200 of monthly debt costs you real money.

From $130,000 with no debts, you fall to $117,500 at $600 a month, $94,500 at $800, and $71,000 at $1,000. If you are carrying a car payment near that threshold, paying it off before applying is worth more than almost anything else you can do in a year.

The down payment ladder

Going from 10% to 20% down buys you about $17,000 more house at the same monthly cost, and requires $16,400 more cash up front. PMI at 10% down is only $43 a month here — a real cost, but a small one, and it cancels at 20% equity on a conventional loan.

The question is not "how do I avoid PMI." It is "what does the extra cash cost me in time, and what happens to prices while I save."

Rate sensitivity: the cheapest lever you control

Between 5.75% and 7.75% sits $18,500 of buying power — more than doubling your down payment would achieve. Nobody can time the market, but two things are within reach: shop at least three lenders in the same week, since quotes for the same borrower differ meaningfully, and check your credit report for errors before you apply.

Should you buy at all at this income?

Worth asking honestly, because the answer is not automatic. Buying makes sense when you expect to stay put roughly five years or more, because closing costs on the way in and agent fees on the way out consume most of the early equity. It also assumes you can absorb a $7,800 repair without borrowing — on a $130,000 house, a roof or an HVAC system lands in that range.

If you are likely to move for work within three years, or your emergency fund would be emptied by the down payment, renting is not a failure. It is the correct decision, and the transaction costs of buying and selling quickly are large enough to make it obviously so.

What to do with this number

Treat it as a ceiling, not a target. Buying at the maximum any calculator produces, this one included, means every assumption has to hold: the rate you were quoted, the insurance estimate, no job gap, no major repair in year one. Buying at 80% of the maximum is what a comfortable first year looks like.

Run your own numbers →