Is homeownership only for the wealthy? Seattle buyers now need $182K income
Mar 7, 2026, 5:00 AM
To afford a home in Seattle, the numbers continue to reach historic levels.
According to Redfin Real Estate, the income needed to afford a home in Seattle is $182,766. Redfin also found that the median household income is $131,906. The numbers become even more daunting when examining the share of income needed to cover monthly housing payments: 41.6%.
“When you hear the numbers, what stands out to you?” KIRO host Gee Scott asked.
“It sounds frustrating and dire, and I think it’s even worse than what the numbers show,” KIRO fill-in host Angela Poe Russell answered on “The Gee and Ursula Show.” “I don’t think it’s realistic that some of these numbers, like, ‘Oh, if I make this, I can afford a home.’ Maybe the question is, what kind of home are you in? A one-bedroom condo for this amount? What I take away when I see this is that it’s even harder than that, especially if you add in children. I’m sure the number just goes way up.
“So it leads me to ask the question,” Angela continued. “Is owning a home just for the wealthy?”
The national median sale price for a home hit a record in 2022 and has continued to set new monthly highs nearly every month since, pricing out buyers and sidelining sellers.
“One of the things that I’ve learned about when people buy a house, sometimes you’re buying too much house,” Gee responded. “When you buy a home, your expenses are way more than you think. So you think that your mortgage is going to be x amount, but you also have to account for everything else: furnace, roof, floor, plumbing, any and all those things. What ends up happening is they call it house poor.”
House poor essentially means the houseowner overextended themselves with their mortgage. It can loosely be defined as someone spending more than 30% of their income on their monthly home expenses.
“I want to bring Paul into this. You are newly married, and I know you and your wife have talked about buying a home,” Gee said. “How do you react to these numbers?”
“It just seems not reachable in my state,” producer Paul Holden answered. “Obviously, some people that I know, they’ve been able to get high-paying enough jobs to get themselves in there, but that goal seems completely unattainable on our own, really. I mean, we’re both working full-time. I actually worked multiple jobs as well.”
Watch the full discussion in the video above.
Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.
