Cities Where it Takes Longest to Save Up for a Down Payment

In Texas, would-be buyers would only have to save for about three years while working to afford a median home in Fort Worth, San Antonio, and El Paso. In some Californian cities, buyers have to save and work between five and a half and almost 11 years.

Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City are the one, two, and three cities for taking the longest to save up a down payment, between 9.5 and 11 years. Seven out of the top 15 cities in SmartAsset's ranking were located in California, while no other state had more than one city in the top 15. Out of the top 25 cities where it takes longest, Nashville ranked twenty-fifth, as it takes over 3.5 years to save up for the median home, priced at $210,600.

In order to rank the cities where it takes the most years of work to save for a down payment, SmartAsset looked at data for the 50 largest cities in the country. Specifically we estimated how many years it would take to afford a 20 percent down payment on the median home in each city if workers earning the median income saved 20 percent of their salary a year.

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