California’s housing market has reached a point where buying an ordinary home now requires an income far beyond what the typical family earns, according to finance expert Ramin Ekhtiar, who says the state has effectively turned homeownership into a luxury product.
In a recent video on his RaminRealTalk channel, Ekhtiar pointed to a California median home price of about $930,000 and said households now need roughly $212,000 a year to realistically participate in the market, compared with a typical household income of about $116,000.
His argument was simple: Californians are not imagining the squeeze. The numbers, he said, increasingly show that even people with respectable salaries, steady jobs and years of savings can still find themselves locked out.
A $212,000 Income Just To Get Through The Door
Ekhtiar opened with the number he believes best captures the problem: $212,000.
“That’s what a family now has to make every single year before California will even let you buy a house,” he said.
He contrasted that with the roughly $116,000 earned by a typical California household and argued that the gap shows just how far housing prices have moved away from ordinary incomes.
The situation becomes even more dramatic when home prices are compared with the rest of the country.
Ekhtiar said a typical U.S. home costs around $450,000, while California’s figure has climbed to roughly $930,000, more than double the national level. In the Bay Area, he said, the number reaches about $1.4 million.
For existing owners, that appreciation can look like a financial windfall.
For someone trying to buy for the first time, it can feel like the door has simply been locked.
That difference is crucial. Rising home values sound positive when discussed as household wealth, but the same increase can become a huge barrier for younger families trying to enter the market.
Dave Ramsey Says Young Buyers Feel Boxed Out
Ekhtiar also played comments from personal-finance personality Dave Ramsey, who argued that many Americans feel trapped not only by housing costs but by enormous levels of consumer debt.
Ramsey said people should separate feelings from facts, but acknowledged that many younger buyers feel shut out of homeownership.
He pointed to massive balances in auto loans, credit cards and student debt, arguing that those monthly obligations leave households with very little room to save or qualify for a mortgage.
Ramsey then used much stronger language when discussing younger generations.
“The American dream has been stolen from them,” he said, blaming banks and the student-loan system for helping create the pressure.
Ekhtiar seized on that phrase because Ramsey is usually associated with personal responsibility, budgeting and cutting unnecessary spending rather than structural explanations.
He also highlighted Ramsey’s comparison between California and more affordable parts of the country.
Ramsey said housing around the Midwest can still be purchased on an income closer to $80,000 if a household is not buried under other payments, while California and Manhattan operate under dramatically different pricing.
Ekhtiar’s conclusion was that California has moved beyond being merely expensive. In his view, it is now playing by a different set of economic rules.
“A House Is A Luxury Commodity Now”
One of the most striking clips Ekhtiar used came from a California real-estate professional who described homes in the state as a “luxury commodity.”
The speaker said the market is essentially being supported by the top 40% of earners, whose average household income is around $212,000.
Ekhtiar said that number explains why so many otherwise stable households cannot make the math work.
He asked viewers to look up the homes they grew up in and consider whether their parents, buying on the income they had at the time, could purchase those same properties today.
His answer was no.
The house may be identical. The street may be identical. What has changed is the price attached to entry.
Ekhtiar made the issue more personal by recalling a young couple he had worked with during his career in lending.
Both adults were employed, they had a child, and they had saved for years. He said they arrived at his office proud of having done everything they believed responsible buyers were supposed to do.
Then he ran the numbers and had to tell them they did not qualify.
He remembered watching their expressions change as they realized that years of careful preparation still were not enough.
That example is effective because housing affordability can become abstract very quickly. Percentages and median prices matter, but the real impact appears when a household that did everything “right” still cannot reach the starting line.
CNN Segment Points To California’s Bigger Problem
Ekhtiar also played a CNN segment featuring Fareed Zakaria, who questioned why a state with so much wealth and opportunity had made everyday life so difficult for ordinary residents.
Zakaria said California’s population had grown by roughly 15% since 2000 while general state expenditures had increased by more than 200%, rising from about $78 billion to roughly $248 billion.
He also focused heavily on housing supply.
Citing Wall Street Journal writer Allysia Finley, Zakaria said the Los Angeles metro area, despite having nearly 13 million people, issued roughly 118,000 permits for new homes from 2021 through 2024.
Atlanta, with around half the population, reportedly issued about 163,000.
Zakaria described California as having built a “system of exclusion,” arguing that political language centered on compassion has existed alongside a housing system that makes it extremely difficult to build enough homes.
Ekhtiar agreed with that criticism and framed housing as the state’s central economic failure.
Whatever someone’s politics, there is a practical point underneath the argument: when demand stays strong while new housing remains limited, ordinary buyers are the ones who feel the pressure most severely.
Nearly Two Million People Have Left
Ekhtiar then connected the affordability crisis to domestic migration.
Citing the CNN segment, he said California has lost a net 1.9 million residents through domestic migration over the past seven years.
He argued that people do not leave only because they dislike the state. Many leave because housing, insurance, taxes and other expenses make staying increasingly difficult.
Ekhtiar also referred to what he described as an approximately $30,000 annual “cost-of-living penalty” associated with remaining in California.
His larger point was that high housing prices do not exist in isolation.
If someone pays more for housing, transportation, insurance, food and everyday expenses at the same time, even a relatively high salary can begin to feel surprisingly small.
That helps explain one of the strange features of California’s affordability debate: six-figure incomes can sound wealthy on paper while producing a very ordinary, sometimes strained lifestyle in practice.
Ekhtiar Says The Math Is Working Against Ordinary Families
Ekhtiar closed by returning to the kitchen-table version of the problem.
He said Californians are repeatedly told that the state is simply expensive and that households need to adjust their spending, but he believes that explanation no longer covers what is happening.
His figures were blunt: about $212,000 to compete for a home, roughly $930,000 for the median property, and nearly 1.9 million people leaving through domestic migration.
He also repeated Ramsey’s warning that people cannot finance lifestyles they have not earned, agreeing that excessive car payments, credit-card debt and other spending can absolutely make homeownership harder.
But Ekhtiar argued that personal discipline has limits when the underlying price of a basic home rises far faster than the income of the typical household.
That is the uncomfortable part of California’s housing story.
Some buyers undoubtedly can improve their position by saving more, reducing debt or moving farther from expensive job centers. But when a household earning around $116,000 is facing a market Ekhtiar says increasingly requires more than $200,000, budgeting alone cannot close every gap.
For him, that is why the state’s housing crisis has moved beyond a story about expensive real estate.
It has become a question of who California is still affordable for — and whether ordinary working families are slowly being priced out of the answer.
Ed spent his childhood in the backwoods of Maine, where harsh winters taught him the value of survival skills. With a background in bushcraft and off-grid living, Ed has honed his expertise in fire-making, hunting, and wild foraging. He writes from personal experience, sharing practical tips and hands-on techniques to thrive in any outdoor environment. Whether it’s primitive camping or full-scale survival, Ed’s advice is grounded in real-life challenges.
