A $70,000 salary does not buy a fixed house price — it buys a monthly housing budget, and the interest rate, the down payment and local taxes decide how much house that budget carries. On the 28% rule of thumb, $70,000 a year gives a housing budget of $1,633.33 a month, which carries a home priced at about $248,331 on the assumptions below. This article works the same sum for ten salaries, shows what income a given mortgage needs, and says plainly where the rule of thumb stops and a lender’s decision starts.

The rule of thumb in one line

Take your gross annual salary, divide by 12, and take 28% of the result. That is the monthly housing budget the classic 28/36 rule allows — housing costs alone, before other debts are counted. The price follows by working backwards: the budget must cover the loan’s principal and interest, plus property tax, insurance, HOA dues and PMI if the down payment is under 20%. The calculator on the house-affordability page does exactly that backwards solve, with your own rate, tax and insurance figures.

Assumptions used for every worked price in this article: a 30-year fixed loan at 6.50%, a 20% down payment (so no PMI), property tax at 1.10% of the price per year, home insurance of $1,800 a year, and no HOA dues. Change any of them and the price moves — the house-affordability calculator lets you change all of them.

Two warnings belong with every number here. First, this is a budgeting rule of thumb, not a lender promise: no lender approves a loan on a salary figure alone, and your credit history, employment, debts and the property itself all affect the real decision. Second, the rule uses gross income, before tax — your take-home pay is smaller, so a budget that passes the 28% test can still feel tight month to month. If it feels tight, it is tight: treat the rule as a ceiling, not a target.

Worked examples by income

Each row starts from the salary, applies the 28% front-end rule, and solves for the highest price that budget carries on the assumptions above.

Prices are rounded to the nearest dollar. The 28% budget must cover principal and interest, property tax, insurance, HOA dues and PMI where it applies; these examples carry no HOA dues and no PMI because the down payment is 20%.

Read the table as a range, not a verdict. The $45,000 row carries about $150,673; the $100,000 row about $365,521; the $200,000 row about $756,154. The price grows faster than the salary at the top end only because the fixed $150-a-month insurance charge shrinks as a share of a bigger budget — the rule itself is strictly proportional: double the salary, double the budget.

What income do you need for a given mortgage?

The same sum runs in reverse. Pick the loan, work out its full monthly housing cost on the same assumptions, and divide by 28% to find the salary that keeps that cost at 28% of gross monthly pay.

Salary needed = monthly housing cost ÷ 0.28 × 12. With other monthly debts, the 36% back-end rule raises the income required — see the note below the table.

So a $400,000 mortgage — a $500,000 home with 20% down — needs about $134,426 of salary on the 28% rule alone, and a $600,000 mortgage needs about $198,425. Those figures assume no other monthly debts. With debts, the 36% back-end rule takes over: the salary must also satisfy (housing cost + debts) ≤ 36% of gross monthly pay, which pushes the required salary higher. A borrower with $800 a month of car and student-loan payments needs more income for the same mortgage than a borrower with none, even though the front-end sum is identical.

Why your salary alone does not decide it

Debts set the real ceiling for many buyers. The back-end rule counts car loans, student loans, minimum card payments and personal loans. Clearing a debt entirely frees its whole monthly payment; paying a balance down without closing the account frees nothing, because the payment stays the same.

The down payment changes two things at once. A bigger down payment means a smaller loan for the same price, and once it reaches 20% it removes PMI. A smaller down payment does the opposite on both counts, which is why two buyers with the same salary and the same budget can be approved for very different prices.

The rate decides the house, not the budget. Your salary fixes the monthly budget; the rate fixes what that budget buys. That is why affordability feels so different from one year to the next even when salaries barely move — and why locking a rate, or buying the rate down, is a price decision in disguise.

Taxes and insurance vary by place. Two homes at the same price in different counties can differ by hundreds of dollars a month in tax and insurance alone. A national rule of thumb cannot see that; the calculator can, once you enter local figures.