Leave your wallet in San Francisco

It's not just a five-hour flight that separates the bay areas of San Francisco versus the bay areas of Tampa and St. Petersburg.

There's also the wide gulf in housing costs, including this tidbit: A homebuyer in the Tampa region needs an annual salary of $41,922.58 to afford the principal, interest, taxes and insurance payments on a median-priced home, according to mortgage data firm HSH.com. In the San Francisco area, an HSH.com study shows, a homebuyer needs a salary of $147,996.19 to afford a median-priced home. That's more than three times more expensive than Tampa.

The website analyzed median-priced homes in 27 markets, with a 20% down baseline on a 30-year fixed mortgage rate. The national salary requirement is $51,114.62.