While purchasing a home in New York City or Southern California is going to be an expensive proposition, there are plenty of metropolitan areas across the country where real estate remains fairly affordable. You can even purchase a home for $1,000 a month in some of these areas.
According to HSH.com, an online mortgage broker, its list of 27-metro list, HSH.com includes 10 metro areas where you can afford the base cost of owning a median-priced home – the principal, interest, taxes and insurance payments — for only around $1,000 per month. In the commentary of each slide, we discuss how the monthly figures will change when a home buyer makes a 10 percent down payment instead of a 20 percent down payment.
The list includes some cities you might expect and others that may be a surprise. From most affordable, it includes Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Detroit, Atlanta, Phoenix, Tampa, San Antonio and Orlando.
Several of these cities may be a surprise, like Cleveland, the city where LeBron James works. It comes in No. 2 at $788.19 per month.
The city recently hosted the Republican National Convention and it has a vibrant downtown that boasts a theater district that is one of the largest outside of New York.
The mortgage rate stands at 3.97 percent and the median home price is $131,000, a bargain in comparison to the national average of $235,000, according to HSH.com. The payment requires a salary of $33.779.45.
If homeowners in the metro area put 10 percent down on a median priced home, the website calculates buyers could afford the home with an annual salary of $38,302.81, lifting the PITI (and mortgage insurance) payment to $893.73 per month.
If you are seeking warmth, you can go to another real surprise city. You can stay hot in Phoenix for $1,071.33 a month. The median house costs $235,600, up 6.6 percent over last year. Required income for the payment is $45,913, up 4.5 percent.
If homeowners in the Phoenix metro area put 10 percent down on a median priced home, the website calculates buyers could afford the home with an annual salary of $54,049, lifting the PITI payment to $1,261 per month.
Deep in the heart of Texas, you could call San Antonio home for $1,170.41 a month. The median home price is $206,300, up 7.3 percent over the same period a year ago. The required salary to purchase is $50,160, up 6.7 percent year-over-year.
If home buyers in the San Antonio metro area put 10 percent down instead of 20 percent, the required salary increases from $50,160.34 to $57,283.77, lifting the PITI payment to $1,336.62 per month.
Surprisingly, living in the shadow of Disney World isn’t as expensive as you might think. The median home price is $227,000 and monthly payment is $1,187.01. The required salary to purchase is $50,871.95.
For a home buyer in Orlando who puts 10 percent down instead of 20 percent, the required salary increases to $58,734.31, and the PITI payment increases to $1,370.47 per month.
In its survey, HSH used standard 28 percent “front-end” debt ratios and a 20 percent down payment subtracted from the median-home-price data to arrive at its figures. Loans with less than a 20 percent down payment will incur mortgage insurance, which would in turn increase costs.
PMI costs are for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages.
