: How much can you buy?

To get an idea of how far your housing dollar will go in some of the nation's largest cities, we went shopping for a median-priced home in three metropolitan areas that earned the highest grades in our Fall Home Affordability Study and five areas with failing grades.

We scoured the market for homes that were within 4% of each city's median price — and there is an amazing difference in median prices, running from right at $100,000 in Atlanta to well over $500,000 in San Francisco.

We suspect you'll be surprised at the size difference we found. For example, we located a median-priced home with over 2,000 square feet in Boston but couldn't find one with even 1,000 square feet in New York.

Also be prepared for a big difference in each home's price per square foot — one of the best ways to compare how far your housing dollar will stretch. Our homes ran from well under $100 a square foot in Pittsburgh to well over $500 a square foot in New York.

So let's take a look at what you can expect to get with the median-priced home in these eight cities.