According to the real estate data analytics company CoreLogic, 74% of millennials make financial sacrifices to afford mortgage payments compared to 40% of older generations.

Concessions include cutting back on eating out, nixing vacations, taking on a second job or housing a few roommates. With 40 percent of the nation’s top 50 metropolitan centers now categorized as overvalued, it is no wonder that homeowners age 23 to 38 find it necessary to make sacrifices to afford their monthly mortgage payments.

With a current Sonoma County median home price of $620,000 and a median household income of $71,769, a monthly mortgage payment of $3,078 would occupy 51% of your monthly salary! A more “affordable” home for couples earning the county median would be priced at around $350,000 and needless to say there aren’t too many homes left at that price in Sonoma County.

For those of you looking to stretch your dollars as far as you can,  we’ve prepared a gallery of homes priced under $500,000. Click through our gallery above to take a look.

P.S. There were no homes under $500,000 in Petaluma at the time of this posting and only one home in Sonoma that we had previously listed before.