Most (and least) affordable cities to buy a house

Median home price: $403,000
Median income: $81,700
Affordability score: 34.7%

The biggest city and metro area in the Aloha State has been an expensive place to live for decades; little developable land and the need to import building materials from far away helped inflate home prices.

Median home prices have bounced around a lot, topping out at around $585,000 during the last three months of 2007 and dropping to $360,000 in the first quarter of 2009. They bounced back to $403,000 in early 2010.

The economy is as heavily dependent on tourism as any American city, and that industry has suffered as more Americans think twice about taking expensive vacations. Hotel occupancy rates declined for 18 consecutive months before starting to rise again last September. They have been up nearly every month since.

The metro area's official unemployment rate stood at just 5.6% in March, well below the national average.

Foreclosures have been a mild but rapidly increasing problem, with just 3,985 properties having a foreclosure filings during 2009, according to RealtyTrac. That was 128th among 203 metro areas covered. That represented, however, a 671% increase over 2008.

If that trend continues, it could unleash a host of distressed properties on the market, which should bring down prices and raise affordability.

NEXT: Fourth place: Santa Ana, Calif.