That depends on having 20% down, or $200,000 in cash. That would take most people quite a while to save up unless they've been working long enough (say decades)

That depends on having 20% down, or $200,000 in cash. That would take most people quite a while to save up unless they've been working long enough (say decades), and without it you'd have to take on private mortgage insurance which would shoot the price up even more, at least for a few years. But even assuming one had 20% down, with a rough tax calculation of 30%, that $140k salary comes out to $98,000 annually post-tax and $8,166 monthly. Which means a person would be paying almost 50% of their income on the mortgage. That's not a situation I would be comfortable with. If it takes a whole 50% of my post-tax income to fund my home, I'd be terrified of any kind of interruption to my employment (like a personal accident, recession, or pandemic; these things aren't as unlikely as we like to believe). If you mean $140k post-tax I'd be more inclined to see a $1M house as doable