What salary do you need to live in Fairbanks, AK?

The cost side of living in Fairbanks

Renters in Fairbanks pay a median $1,483 a month for two bedrooms. Size matters: one bedroom is $1,147, three bedrooms $2,019, so going from the smallest to the largest of the three adds $10,464 a year.

Homeowners in Fairbanks report a median home value of $298,200. Against a median household income of $88,267, the ratio is 3.4× — one of the gentler home-price-to-income ratios in the country.

The Regional Price Parity, BEA's index of local prices with the US at 100, is 103.2 here. Above 100 means a paycheck stretches less: $100,000 in Fairbanks has the buying power of roughly $96,892 at national average prices.

Income needed for each grade in Fairbanks

For two bedrooms, $205,000 is where Fairbanks turns Comfortable. Below that, $101,000 marks the start of Okay and $50,000 the start of Tight; under $50,000 the score reads Stretched. Rent at the Comfortable line is 9% of gross pay.

Reaching Royal takes $741,000 — 3.6× the Comfortable line — because the last points come slowly once rent is already a small share.

How they were found: the same scoring function the calculator runs was evaluated at rising incomes until each cutoff was crossed, and the crossing rounded up to a whole $1,000.

What different incomes look like in Fairbanks

At $75,000 home size barely changes the picture: one, two and three bedrooms all grade Tight, with scores from 32 to 41.

Comfortable is above every row of the table here. At $150,000 a two-bedroom still grades Okay, with rent taking 12% of income.

Fairbanks on the national list

Ranked against all 387 metros, Fairbanks sits 45th on overall price level and 73rd on the two-bedroom rent median, counting from the most expensive. Its median home value ranks 154th.

For a sense of scale, the metros just above and below it on two-bedroom rent are Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN ($1,489) and Worcester, MA ($1,483).

Fairbanks vs. the rest of Alaska

Compared with Alaska as a whole, two-bedroom rent in Fairbanks is 3% higher ($1,483 vs. $1,434) and the median home is 16% lower ($298,200 vs. $352,900).

Run Alaska's statewide medians through the same score and Comfortable begins at $210,000; Fairbanks's line is −2% from that.

Alaska has only one other metro in the data, Anchorage, AK, so the closest matches elsewhere, Worcester, MA and Ithaca, NY, are included too.

Fairbanks's median income on the scale

A household at the Fairbanks median income of $88,267 would see a two-bedroom score of 41 — Tight — with rent at 20% of income. That falls $116,733 short of the $205,000 Comfortable line, a reminder that the typical household here spends a larger share on housing than the Comfortable band allows. For Alaska as a whole, the median household income of $92,788 scores 42 against statewide rents. Household income can include more than one earner, so a single salary of the same size goes less far.

All figures are pre-tax estimates from public data, not financial advice.