It's no surprise to longtime Oregonians that waves of Californians are moving out of the state.
That's, naturally, largely due to the price of housing. The Golden State dominates the list of U.S. neighborhoods with the most expensive home values.
Of the top 20 ZIP codes with the highest median home value, 15 are located in California. The Bay Area city of Atherton, ZIP code 94027, was tops on the list with a median home value of $6.8 million, according to research compiled by Zillow Group (Nasdaq: Z). That’s about $2 million more than the median home value in the second most expensive — and perhaps the most famous — ZIP code in America, 90210 in Beverly Hills.
So what sort of salary does it take to gain entry to Atherton's housing market? Roughly $1.3 million a year, according to a Business Journals analysis of home-value data and mortgage rates in more than 15,000 ZIP codes nationally. Atherton was the only neighborhood in the country with a minimum salary requirement of more than $1 million, according to the Business Journals' findings.
The analysis determined each neighborhood's minimum salary threshold by applying prevailing mortgage rates to a hypothetical home buyer scenario that included the following:
- A 10 percent downpayment applied to the area's median home value
- Prevailing mortgage rates for conventional and jumbo loans
- A monthly mortgage payment of no more than 30 percent of the buyer's pre-tax income
In Atherton, that annual mortgage payment would equal about $395,000 for the area's median home. Another 25 California neighborhoods had an annual mortgage payment of more than $150,000, based on the Business Journals' purchase scenario.
We've calculated what it costs to buy a home in, using the median home price as a primary measure, 35 Oregon "dream" neighborhoods. Click here to see how much you'll need to spend to live in these most-desirous spots.