Yes, by now it's well-known that Los Angeles is becoming less and less a place for any people who need reasonably-priced housing. But here's another bit of proof to add to the pile: according to the number-crunching by mortgage research firm HSH.com (via LA Times), if a buyer is putting down a 20 percent down payment and paying current mortgage rates they'll need to be earning $96,513 a year to buy a median-priced house of $481,900 in LA County. If $96,000 sounds like a lot of money, that's because it is for a good amount of people: the average household income in the county is quite a bit less than that, coming in at around $56,241. And if $481,900 sounds like a low price for a house, that's because it is: good luck finding something for less than a half a million dollars that doesn't need a lot of fixing or a relocation to a better neighborhood.

Okay, so you don't have $96,000 a year. Either clean out your closets, hit Antiques Roadshow, and pray, or do what half of Angelenos do: rent. As long as you make at least $55,920, you should be able to afford an average, two-bedroom apartment in LA, according to numbers from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, as seen on LA Weekly. Yes, that number is just shy of the median household income, meaning that what's most realistic right now for so many households, whatever their composition, is a two-bedroom rental.

· It Takes Nearly $100,000 a Year in Earnings Just to Buy a Crappy House in L.A. [LAW]

· To afford a typical L.A.-area home, you must earn $96,513, study says [LAT]

· LA is the US's Most Unaffordable Place For Renting and Buying [Curbed LA]

· Los Angeles is Still the Second Least Affordable Housing Market for the Middle Class [Curbed LA]