Home prices have been on the rise for several years, with many homeowners benefiting from the subsequent equity gains. However, this trend has also created challenges for buyers, who often struggle to find a suitable property in their price range.

A recent report by the real estate site Trulia finds that higher home prices can be particularly troubling for teachers, first responders, and other public servants. These professionals are rarely able to find a home they can purchase in the community they serve, forcing them to look elsewhere.

Cheryl Young, senior economist at Trulia, says the report determined the median salary for certain occupations using information from the Labor Department. These wages were then compared to the prices of homes available on the local market to determine what percentage of homes buyers in each occupation would be able to afford.

An affordable home was defined as one that would require the buyer to contribute 31 percent or less of their paycheck toward the monthly payments on a mortgage. The report also assumed a 20 percent down payment and a 30-year fixed rate of 4.44 percent on the loan, and added any applicable fees such as property taxes and homeowners insurance.

The report, which looked at the 93 largest metro areas in the United States, found that few professionals were able to afford homes in the markets where prices have been appreciating at a rapid clip, such as cities on the West Coast. In San Francisco, a teacher with a median salary of $74,230 would only be able to afford 0.7 percent of the available listings.

In nine metro areas, including seven in California, teachers could afford less than 10 percent of the available listings. After San Francisco, the least affordable areas included San Jose (2 percent), Oakland (3.4 percent), and Ventura County (4 percent).

The report also found that some areas had become considerably less affordable to teachers over the course of the previous year. In Tacoma, Wash., 25.8 percent of the available listings were affordable to teachers – a drop of 24.4 percentage points. Listings affordable to teachers fell by 21.7 percentage points in Colorado Springs, Colo. and 17.3 percentage points in Indianapolis.

El Paso, Texas, was the most affordable market for teachers. On a median salary of $57,517, teachers were able to afford 82.7 percent of the available properties in the metro area – a year-over-year increase of 5.7 percentage points. Teachers were also able to afford 79.5 percent of the available homes in Bakersfield, Calif.; 77.7 percent of those in Dayton, Ohio; and 75.9 percent of those in Syracuse, N.Y.

First responders could also earn only a fraction of the properties in the same areas where teachers were struggling, despite considerably higher median salaries. Although the typical first responder in San Francisco had a salary of $102,925, they could only afford 2.4 percent of the available properties. Similarly, first responders with a median salary of $104,010 in San Jose were only able to afford 6.6 percent of the properties on the market in the metro area.

There were similar affordability pressures in San Diego and Orange County. First responders were able to afford 5.5 percent and 9.2 percent of the available homes in these metro areas, respectively.

In other areas, lower salaries presented a greater obstacle to affordability. With a median salary of $38,645, first responders in Columbia, S.C., could only afford 10.8 percent of the listings in the market. Those in Nashville, Tenn., were able to afford 13.6 percent of the available listings on a $44,175 annual salary.

Bakersfield bucked the trend of less affordable California properties, with 74.6 percent of first responders able to afford a median priced home of $279,000. First responders could afford 73.5 percent of the listings in Camden, N.J., as well as 72.2 percent of those in Toledo, Ohio; 71.4 percent of those in Detroit; and 71.2 percent of those in Dayton, Ohio.

The report also looked at professions with higher salaries, finding that even these jobs would make for a difficult home search in the top market. San Francisco computer programmers earned a median salary of $122,923, but were only able to afford 4.8 percent of the available homes. Similarly, programmers could only afford 6.9 percent of the listings in Orange County, 8.6 percent in Ventura County, and 11.8 percent in San Jose.

While programmers' salaries fell short of six figures in most markets outside of California, they were also better equipped to purchase a home. El Paso was the most affordable market for programmers, with the median salary of $67,753 sufficient for 89.8 percent of the listings. Programmers could afford 87 percent of the listings in Columbia, S.C.; 86.8 percent of those in Wilmington, Del.; and 85.3 percent of those in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Doctors earned a six-figure median salary in all but two of the 93 metro areas in the report, and could afford more than 9 out of 10 listings in 67 markets. However, the majority of homes on the market were still out of their price range in the hottest metro areas.

Only 30.5 percent of the listings in San Francisco were considered affordable to doctors. In San Jose, 41.7 percent of the available homes were considered affordable to doctors.

Trulia also looked at restaurant workers, who often had a salary under $25,000. These employees could afford less than 10 percent of the available homes in 61 markets. Less than 1 percent of restaurant workers could afford a home in 10 markets, with Ventura County registering as completely unaffordable.

Restaurant workers were more likely to find a home in Detroit, where just over half—50.6 percent—could afford a $85,000 median priced home on a typical salary of $21,454. Ohio was also friendlier to restaurant workers; 32.7 percent of Toledo's homes were considered affordable for the profession, along with 31.7 percent of Dayton's listings.