Ten most affordable places to buy a home Updated on:
- Introduction
- Cleveland
- Pittsburgh
- Memphis
- Oklahoma City
- Detroit
- St. Louis
- Louisville
- New Orleans
- Buffalo
- Cincinnati
- About
Extracted from our homebuying salary calculations that cover the 50 largest metropolitan areas, here's a group of ten areas around the country that qualify as the least costly places to buy a home.
These metro areas not only feature lower-cost housing stock, but median family incomes for each area (ACS 2021 5-year estimates) are also high enough as to be able to handle the principal, interest tax and insurance payments for a median-priced existing home in the fourth quarter of 2023. Although the base calculation we use assumes a 20 percent down payment, each panel also shows costs with just a 10 percent down payment, where the cost for PMI in included in our tally.
It's important to remember that these calculations use a median home price for each area; this means that half of the home sold in each metro had lower prices than the figure we utilized, so you should be able to find more affordable homes in each area, too. It also means that even in areas that didn't make the top 10 for housing affordability there could still be affordable options for lower-cost homeownership in other metropolitan areas.
Not surprisingly, our list of metro areas with the lowest housing costs features smaller cities, with only the St. Louis and Detroit metro area cracking the top 20 in terms of population.
If you're looking for help with a down payment and closing costs, check to see if you qualify for a state-backed homebuyer assistance program, or consider an FHA loan, too.
Cleveland$1,408.82/month
- Quarterly change: +0.26 percent
- Quarterly change: -19.43 percent
- Year-over-year change: -8.62 percent
- Quarterly change: -$8,492.89
- Year-over-year change: -1.72 percent
Pittsburgh$1,465.11/month
- Quarterly change: +0.26 percent
- Quarterly change: -9.04 percent
- Year-over-year change: -0.10 percent
- Quarterly change: -$3,083.96
- Year-over-year change: +4.43 percent
Memphis$1,621.62/month
- Quarterly change: +0.26 percent
- Quarterly change: -11.29 percent
- Year-over-year change: -2.20 percent
- Quarterly change: -$5,343.57
- Year-over-year change: +2.83 percent
Oklahoma City$1,666.40/month
- Quarterly change: +0.26 percent
- Quarterly change: -3.14 percent
- Year-over-year change: +9.50 percent
- Quarterly change: +$175.02
- Year-over-year change: +12.58 percent
DetroitSalary $1,674.44/month
- Quarterly change: +0.26 percent
- Quarterly change: -9.41 percent
- Year-over-year change: +1.90 percent
- Quarterly change: -$3,535.78
- Year-over-year change: +6.44 percent
St. Louis$1,674.59/month
- Quarterly change: +0.26 percent
- Quarterly change: -9.27 percent
- Year-over-year change: +1.97 percent
- Quarterly change: -$3,608.86
- Year-over-year change: +6.33 percent
Louisville$1,688.27/month
- Quarterly change: +0.26 percent
- Quarterly change: -3.53 percent
- Year-over-year change: +4.42 percent
- Quarterly change: -$74.80
- Year-over-year change: +8.76 percent
New OrleansSalary $1,739.84/month
- Quarterly change: +0.26 percent
- Quarterly change: -6.47 percent
- Year-over-year change: -4.57 percent
- Quarterly change: -$2,159.82
- Year-over-year change: +0.53 percent
BuffaloSalary $1,807.66/month
- Quarterly change: +0.26 percent
- Quarterly change: -6.56 percent
- Year-over-year change: +6.89 percent
- Quarterly change: -$1,384.38
- Year-over-year change: +10.20 percent
CincinnatiSalary $1,830.56/month
- Quarterly change: +0.26 percent
- Quarterly change: -5.15 percent
- Year-over-year change: +8.97 percent
- Quarterly change: -$1.127.89
- Year-over-year change: +12.65 percent
To compile these results, HSH.com calculates the annual before-tax income required to cover the mortgage's principal, interest, property tax and homeowner's insurance payment. We use standard 28 percent "front-end" debt ratios and a 20 percent down payment subtracted from the median-home-price data to arrive at our figures. Loans with less than a 20 percent down payment will incur mortgage insurance, which would in turn increase the required salary and require Private Mortgage Insurance. Results using smaller down payments and including PMI costs are provided on each market's slide.
We utilized the National Association of Realtors 2023 fourth-quarter data for median home prices. For mortgage data, we create a quarterly average of 30-year fixed mortgage rates from survey data published by Freddie Mac (conforming loans).
The average mortgage rate information we used was for purchase-money mortgages made to borrowers with good to excellent credit.
Into our calculations, we incorporate metropolitan-area average property tax information using data made available from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS). We use 2018-2022 ACS 5-year estimates, which are the latest available data.
For homeowner's insurance costs, we use the latest available data for statewide average homeowner insurance premium costs from the Insurance Information Institute (http://www.iii.org), whose mission is to improve public understanding of insurance.
Note: Property taxes and insurance costs are specific to an individual property itself and will be different for any single property in which you may have an interest. Also, if other personal debts exceed 8 percent of one's given monthly gross income, this may increase the salary needed to qualify.
PMI costs used in our calculations are for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages. For conforming loan amounts, these are costs for FICO scores of greater than 740 but less than 759. You can calculate mortgage insurance costs for other credit scores, down payment amounts and mortgage types using HSH.com's PMI Cost Calculator.