In 2020, there were 564 American cities where it was possible to buy a large home on a $50,000 salary. Five years on, that number has shrunk to just 37. So, where can you still get a good-sized home on a modest income?

HomeAbroad used cost of living and home sale price data to calculate the size of home a $50,000 salary could realistically afford across more than 900 US cities, and then ranked the locations based on where homebuyers can get the most square footage. See the full methodology here.

People earning $50,000 will get the biggest home in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where that salary can afford a median of 2,642 square feet. The second- and third-most spacious houses belong to Canton, Illinois (2,481 square feet), and Forrest City, Arkansas (2,374 square feet), respectively.

The smallest homes are found in Nantucket, Massachusetts, with the median property affordable on a $50,000 salary measuring a very tiny 97 square feet.

More than half of the 37 cities offering large homes are in the Midwest, followed by the South, which is home to 22 percent of the top cities.

In 2020, homebuyers earning a $50,000 salary could afford a home worth up to $239,935. By 2025, the maximum affordable home price on this income fell to an average of just $163,806 — a decline of 31.7 percent.

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Via HomeAbroad.

[Image credit: AS Photography]