Study: Colorado requires income of $100k to afford average home, 5th highest in country

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO ARCHIVE) -- According to a 2018 study, the minimum salary needed to afford an average home in Colorado is $100,000 and the 5th highest in the nation.

The top five states or districts requiring the highest salaries to afford an average home in 2018 are:

1. Hawaii: $153,520 for a house worth $610,000
2. Washington, DC: $138,440 for a house worth $549,000
3. California: $120,120 for a house worth $499,900
4. Massachusetts: $101,320 for a house worth $419,900
5. Colorado: $100,200 for a house worth $415,000

Notably, Colorado is the only landlocked state in the top five. It's trailed by New York at $91,172, Oregon at $87,160, and Washington state at $87,040. Utah is the next landlocked state to make the list, coming in 9th with a salary of $83,720.

Researchers collected average home prices for every state from Zillow and plugged them into a mortgage calculator to figure out monthly payments. Their concluding income estimations assume that home buyers can contribute a 10% down payment.

In contrast, the top five states that require the lowest income to afford an average home are:

1. West Virginia: $38,320 for a house worth $149,500
2. Ohio: $38,400 for a house worth $149,900
3. Michigan: $40,800 for a house worth $160,000
4. Arkansas: $41,040 for a house worth $161,000
5. Missouri: $42,200 for a house worth $165,900

In the study, the authors call their map a "quick snapshot of housing affordability across the United States." They note that there a several pockets in which only the upper middle class and higher could afford to own the average home, mostly in the Northeast and West. Colorado's landlocked status makes it an outlier in that regard. The authors suggest that Denver's housing market may be the cause.