It's official. Denver is the nation's priciest inland city to buy a home, according to The Denver Business Journal and HSH.com, a mortgage information website.

HSH.com used the National Association of Realtors' fourth-quarter data on media home prices and overlaid its fourth-quarter average interest rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage to arrive at a the median salary needed to cover the base cost — just principal and interest — of owning a home in 25 of the country's biggest metro areas.

It's findings? Denver was ranked as the 19th most affordable city in the study, sandwiched between Portland and Seattle — and is the nation's most expensive inland city to buy a median-priced home. The study showed that it requires an annual salary of $48,122 to afford a median-priced home of $279,300 in Denver, using a mortgage rate of 4.43 percent. 

The study's nearest big city to Denver was Chicago, where an average salary of $32,388.90 can afford a median-priced home of $187,100, using a mortgage interest rate of 4.47 percent.

HSH.com noted that the Denver housing market has been noted for its consistency, where our prices didn't rise too high or fall too hard — and that our salary requirements actually dropped by $2,500 the last quarter of 2013. Read more...

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