A free tool for Garfield, Eagle and Pitkin counties. Pick a home, pick what the household earns, and see whether the numbers work, and what stands in the way.
The fastest way: tap a town below, then press Use this price. Want something else? Open "Price a home by its size" or "Type any price."
Help with buying a home, like down payment assistance, lower-rate loans and price-limited homes, is mostly built for people earning up to about 150% of AMI. Above that line, most of that help ends.
That puts mid-level and upper managers in a gap. In Garfield County that is one person earning about $119,850 to $159,800. They earn too much for most help, yet, as this page shows, many still can't cover the down payment or the yearly pay needed for a typical home.
Each program sets its own limits, and most count the whole household's income against AMI for that household's size. Check a specific program's current rules before relying on it.| County | Average100% AMI | Mid-level management150% AMI | Upper management200% AMI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Garfield | $79,900 | $119,850* | $159,800* |
| Eagle | $97,100 | $145,650 | $194,200* |
| Pitkin | $99,500 | $149,250 | $199,000* |
The same home with different down payments. Putting less cash down means a bigger loan and an extra monthly fee (mortgage insurance), so the household has to earn more. "Years to save" is how long it takes to save that cash, setting aside part of the household's pay each year.
Make one household and see what it can buy. For each adult, pick a job title (real pay) or an AMI level.
All income from every source, self-employment included, counted where people live. The best match for AMI.
These are owners, partners and contractors. The industry pay numbers on this page only count people on a company payroll, so these people are missing from them.
About 1 in 3 jobs in Garfield County belongs to someone who works for themselves. That is more than in Colorado overall. On average they earn about half as much as a payroll job, because many do it part-time or on the side. So they add more workers, but they don't raise the average pay.
Interest rate, down payment, taxes and more. These decide how much pay it takes to buy. Change any of them and the whole page updates. Press "Reset to current terms" to go back.
Businesses where the owner works alone, with no employees. Revenue is all the money the business takes in before paying its costs, so it is more than what the owner actually earns.
Prepared by C&E Group at Compass Real Estate for discussion. Everything on this page is an illustration built from public data and stated assumptions. It is not financial, lending or legal advice. Anyone thinking about buying should talk with a lender about their own situation.
Pay by industry (BLS QCEW). Average yearly pay per payroll job by industry, October 2024 to September 2025 (four quarters of total wages divided by average jobs, all public and private employers), for Garfield, Eagle and Pitkin counties, taken directly from BLS. The combined view weights each county by its number of jobs. BLS withholds some small industries in Eagle and Pitkin to protect employer privacy; those are marked * and Pitkin farming and mining are left out entirely. Counts payroll jobs only, not owners or contractors, by where people work. Part-time and seasonal jobs count the same as full-time. The manager levels (150% and 200%) are our estimates, not real paychecks.
Pay by job title (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The middle (median) pay for each job title is real BLS data and is shown as "Average." The 150% and 200% levels are our estimates, the middle pay times 1.5 and 2, not real paychecks. BLS pools Garfield County into one 10-county region (Garfield, Eagle, Grand, Jackson, Lake, Moffat, Pitkin, Rio Blanco, Routt and Summit) and does not publish Garfield on its own. Resort counties like Pitkin and Eagle probably make these numbers a bit higher than Garfield alone. We show about 30 job titles out of more than 370.
People who work for themselves (BEA). Government counts of self-employed jobs (newest is 2022) and their income (2022 and 2024). Income is after business costs. One person can have a payroll job and a side business, so they can be counted twice.
One-person businesses (Census, 2023). Businesses with no employees that earned at least $1,000 (or $1 in construction), from tax records. Revenue is before costs.
Price per square foot. Two sources, never mixed. Sold numbers come from closed single-family sales in the Aspen Glenwood MLS, one town at a time, never blended: Glenwood Springs, Rifle, Silt, New Castle, Carbondale and Basalt, January to July 2026, the same months as the typical home prices in Step 1 (manufactured HUD homes left out). "Older homes" means built before 2000. Totals only, no addresses or names. Size groups with fewer than 3 sales are not shown; groups with 3 or 4 sales are marked "few sales." Every other price per square foot on this page is the current asking price from Realtor.com listings, by ZIP code, all home types.
Down payment. Mortgage insurance is set to 0.75% of the loan per year when the down payment is under 20%. That is our guess; a lender can give the real number. "Years to save" assumes the household saves the same share of its pay every year, with no interest, no gifts and no down payment help. Closing costs are extra.
Yearly pay needed. We add up the monthly loan payment, property tax, home insurance, mortgage insurance and HOA dues. Then we figure the yearly pay where that total is 30% of pay before taxes. Other debts like car loans are not included. The interest rate is the national average from Freddie Mac for Oct 29, 2026, not a quote from a lender.
Home prices. Single-family and townhome/condo: the middle sale price of homes that actually sold, January to July 2026, from the Aspen Glenwood MLS as published in the Colorado Association of REALTORS local market reports (shown on the City of Glenwood Springs Economic Research dashboard). Half of the homes sold for more and half for less. Towns: Rifle, Silt, New Castle, Glenwood Springs, Carbondale and Basalt. Glenwood single-family $996,500 from 62 sales; Glenwood townhome/condo $507,500 from 42 sales. Basalt single-family is based on only 16 sales. Some towns had very few sales (Silt townhome/condo: 4; Rifle townhome/condo: 9), so those prices can jump around a lot. Listings: the middle asking price on Realtor.com in September 2026, all home types. Asking prices are what sellers want, not what buyers paid.
AMI. From CHFA's 2026 income limits (HUD numbers, effective May 1, 2026). One-person 100% AMI: Garfield $79,900, Eagle $97,100, Pitkin $99,500. CHFA publishes Garfield only up to 120% and Eagle and Pitkin up to 160%, so the higher levels marked with * are simple multiples of the 100% number (for example 200% of $79,900 = $159,800). Pitkin also has higher "HERA" limits for some older tax credit apartments; we use the regular limits. Housing programs set their own rules, so check with a program directly before relying on these numbers.