Mortgage tracking site HSH.com estimated how much salary a person must bring in to afford the principal, interest, taxes and insurance payments

New York City, which has the highest mortgage rate at $4.22 per cent, was the fourth most unaffordable metro requiring homebuyers to earn $87,535

Pittsburgh ranked the most affordable metro area requiring a salary of under $32,000

has to earn $142,448 to keep up with monthly payments of $3,323 for a median-priced house

San Francisco has solidified its reputation as the city with the least affordable housing, where you need to earn more than $142,000 to afford a median-priced home.

The West Coast hub of America’s booming tech industry was named the most unaffordable metropolitan area in the US by HSH.com, a mortgage tracking site, which estimated how much money a person must earn annually to afford the principal, interest, taxes and insurance payments in 27 metro areas across the country.

The mortgage research company based its estimates on the National Association of Realtors' fourth-quarter data for median home prices, and its own data on average interest rates for 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages and a 20 per cent downpayment.

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Nation's housing market: Mortgage tracking site HSH.com estimated how much salary a person must bring in to afford the principal, interest, taxes and insurance payments in 27 metro areas across the country

Golden city: A home buyer is San Francisco has to earn $142,448 to keep up with monthly payments of $3,323 for a median-priced house

Going for a song: Pittsburgh ranked the most affordable metro area in the country for the third quarter in a row, requiring a salary of under $32,000

Based on the estimates, Pittsburgh ranked the most affordable metro area in the country for the third quarter in a row, requiring a salary of under $32,000.

The historic ‘Steel City’ also had the lowest median home price at $135,000, and it tied Washington DC for the lowest mortgage rate at 3.98 per cent.

Potential homebuyers operating on a shoestring budget also can find affordable housing in Cleveland, St Louis and Cincinnati, where required salaries range between $32,010-$33,485.

On a national scale, with 20 per cent down, a buyer would need to earn a salary of $48,603.82 to afford the median-priced home.

Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Diego landed on the high end of a spectrum, requiring salaries of $80,000 and higher to afford homes with median prices ranging between $383,000-$493,000.

The Big Apple, which has the highest mortgage rate in the nation at $4.22 per cent, was the fourth most unaffordable metro area on HSH's list, requiring homebuyers to earn $87,535 to meet the expense of a house with the median price of $393,000.

San Diego, California, retained its title as the second-most-expensive metro in the country thanks to a $95,432 salary requirement.

Big Apple: New York City, which has the highest mortgage rate at $4.22 per cent, was the fourth most unaffordable metro requiring homebuyers to earn $87,535

Runner up: San Diego, California, retained its title as the second-most-expensive metro in the country thanks to a $95,432 salary requirement

San Francisco, the home of the world's leading tech companies like Google and Apple, which has become notorious in recent years for stratospheric real estate prices, was once again crowned the king of unaffordable housing.

A median home price in the Bay Area was just under $743,000 last quarter, requiring a buyer to earn $142,448 a year just to keep up with monthly mortgage payments of $3,323.

The home-price gap between the San Francisco metro and Pittsburgh amounted to a whopping $607,000.

‘Home prices in metro areas throughout the country continue to show solid price growth, up 25 per cent over the past three years on average,’ Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, told HSH.com.