What salary do you need to live in St. Joseph, MO?

Rent, home values and prices in St. Joseph

Median gross rent, meaning contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities, runs $652, $908 and $1,074 a month for one, two and three bedrooms across St. Joseph, MO-KS. The largest of those is 65% more than the smallest.

The median value of owner-occupied homes in the metro is $171,300. That is only 2.6× the area's median household income of $65,005, a low ratio by national standards.

The Regional Price Parity, BEA's index of local prices with the US at 100, is 86.4 here. Below 100 means a paycheck stretches further: $100,000 in St. Joseph has the buying power of roughly $115,765 at national average prices.

The salary lines for a two-bedroom in St. Joseph

For two bedrooms, $82,000 is where St. Joseph turns Comfortable. Below that, $41,000 marks the start of Okay and $18,000 the start of Tight; under $18,000 the score reads Stretched. Rent at the Comfortable line is 13% of gross pay.

Royal, the top band, starts at $221,000. At that income rent is 5% of pay and the median home 0.8× income.

These lines come straight from the calculator's formula: the income is raised until the two-bedroom score crosses each cutoff, then rounded up to the next $1,000.

Four salaries, three home sizes in St. Joseph

At $75,000, a one-bedroom scores 68 (Comfortable), a two-bedroom 63 (Okay) and a three-bedroom 60 (Okay). The $5,064 a year between the smallest and largest home is what moves the grade.

Of the four salaries, $100,000 is the first where a two-bedroom reads Comfortable or better; $75,000 still lands at Okay.

St. Joseph on the national list

Ranked against all 387 metros, St. Joseph sits 361st on overall price level and 354th on the two-bedroom rent median, counting from the most expensive. Its median home value ranks 346th.

Its nearest neighbors on the rent list are Las Cruces, NM ($909) and Springfield, OH ($904).

St. Joseph next to Missouri and similar metros

How St. Joseph stacks up against its state: $908 for a two-bedroom against Missouri's $1,027, $171,300 for the median home against $230,300, and a price level of 86.4 against 90.8. Parts of the metro lie in Kansas, but St. Joseph is in Missouri, so that is the state used here.

The Missouri figure for the Comfortable line, using state medians, is $110,000 against $82,000 for St. Joseph.

If St. Joseph is on your list, Joplin, MO-KS, Cape Girardeau, MO-IL, and Springfield, MO are the most similar Missouri metros by two-bedroom rent and price level; the table shows where each turns Comfortable.

Where the typical St. Joseph household lands

A household at the St. Joseph median income of $65,005 would see a two-bedroom score of 59 — Okay — with rent at 17% of income. The Comfortable line is 26% above what the median household makes. For Missouri as a whole, the median household income of $70,702 scores 52 against statewide rents. Since a household can have two or more earners, compare it with a combined income rather than one paycheck.

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