This is how much you need to make to afford a starter home in Southern California

LA-OC home prices 10 times greater than incomes

Buying a home in Los Angeles and Orange counties costs 10 times more than what a typical family earns in a year, a new housing report shows.

LOS ANGELES - Good luck buying a starter home in Southern California. According to Redfin data, homebuyers must earn double the local median income to afford a starter home in SoCal.

"In both Anaheim and Los Angeles, a family would need to earn twice the local income to afford a starter home," wrote Redfin data journalist Dana Anderson. "Anaheim’s median income is $122,192; a family needs to earn $251,302 to afford the typical starter home. In Los Angeles, the median income is $93,197 and a household needs to earn $184,477 for a starter home."

The gap is only slightly smaller in San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose.

Broken down, your monthly payments in Los Angeles would be $4,612 or more, according to real estate brokerage site, Redfin, starter homes went for a median of $615,000 in July. In Anaheim, the median price of a starter home was $740,000, which would make your monthly payments $6,283 or more.

While the affordability gap for starter homes is biggest in California, Redfin found that in half of the 50 most populous U.S. metros, a family earning the local median income can't afford a starter home.

"It’s tough to afford even a starter home in much of California because even though residents tend to earn more money than some other parts of the country, it’s not enough to afford the state’s ultra-high home prices," Anderson noted. "Among the pool of starter homes on the market in many California metros, virtually none are affordable to someone earning the median income."

LA's median home price to top $1 million

The median home listed in Los Angeles will soon cost more than $1 million, according to the latest data from Zillow. As of June 30, $975,333 was the median price for a home in LA - that's more than a 30% increase from five years ago, the data shows.

It's much less expensive to buy homes that are not in the Golden State, including Detroit, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Philadelphia, Redfin found.

The estimated monthly payment for starter homes in the U.S. requires an annual household income of about $80,000, which translates into $2,000 a month or less, Redfin data showed.

Redfin estimates the median U.S. household makes about $84,000 a year.

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