

10 metros where a home costs about $1,000/month Updated on:
- Introduction
- Pittsburgh
- Oklahoma City
- Cleveland
- Louisville
- St. Louis
- Detroit
- Buffalo
- Cincinnati
- Memphis
- Indianapolis
- About
Extracted from our homebuying salary calculations that cover the 50 largest metropolitan areas, here's a group of ten areas around the country where you can own a home for about $1,000 a month or pretty close to it -- and sometimes even if you can only make a 10 percent down payment for your purchase, too. Our calculations factor the principal and interest payments for a median-priced existing home in the first quarter of 2022, and we take into account taxes and insurance costs as well. Although the base calculation assumes a 20 percent down payment, each panel also shows costs with just a 10 percent down purchase, where we also include the cost for PMI in our tally.
Fast-rising home prices in most areas mean a decreasing number of metro areas at the $1,000 per month level, but we've included the ten least costly markets in this group, which now range up to about $1250 per month. Continual and significant home price inflation will likely mean we'll need to reset the dollar benchmark for this series sometime this year.
None of these lower-cost places to live to your liking? A median-priced home in Birmingham, Alabama is available for around or just under $1,300 per month, and if you can climb a little higher up the monthly payment ladder, places such as New Orleans or Virginia Beach, Virginia open up to you, too, so there may be other low-cost choices if you're looking to locate or relocate to an area with lower housing costs.
It's also important to remember that these calculations use a median home price for each area; this means that half of the inputs for each metro were homes that sold for less than the number we utilized, so you should be able to find homes at lower costs in each area, too.
Not surprisingly, the lower cost metro areas feature smaller cities, with only the St. Louis and Detroit metro area cracking the top 20 in terms of population. Also, it's important to remember that as we use the median home price in our calculation that half of the homes sold in each market in the fourth quarter of 2021 sold for less than this price. This means that even in areas that didn't make our list of 10, there could still be affordable options for lower-cost homeownership in other areas.
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.

$1,000.02/month
- Quarterly change: +0.76 percent
- Quarterly change: -2.26 percent
- Year-over-year change: +11.87 percent
- Quarterly change: +$2.082.48
- Year-over-year change: +17.28 percent

$1,056.99/month
- Quarterly change: +0.76 percent
- Quarterly change: -1.64 percent
- Year-over-year change: +11.98 percent
- Quarterly change: +$2,415.06
- Year-over-year change: +17.56 percent

$1,060.46/month
- Quarterly change: +0.76 percent
- Quarterly change: -1.53 percent
- Year-over-year change: +9.74 percent
- Quarterly change: +$2,379.15
- Year-over-year change: +15.41 percent

$1,122.82/month
- Quarterly change: +0.76 percent
- Quarterly change: -2.77 percent
- Year-over-year change: +10.05 percent
- Quarterly change: +$2,453.44
- Year-over-year change: +18.46 percent

$1,143.06/month
- Quarterly change: +0.76 percent
- Quarterly change: -1.81 percent
- Year-over-year change: +4.53 percent
- Quarterly change: +$2,582.00
- Year-over-year change: +12.37 percent

Salary $1,202.25month
- Quarterly change: +0.76 percent
- Quarterly change: -6.65 percent
- Year-over-year change: +14.88 percent
- Quarterly change: +$818.94
- Year-over-year change: +17.22 percent

Salary $1,209.60/month
- Quarterly change: +0.76 percent
- Quarterly change: -0.08 percent
- Year-over-year change: +15.02 percent
- Quarterly change: +$3,553.89
- Year-over-year change: +21.51 percent

$1,229.46/month
- Quarterly change: +0.76 percent
- Quarterly change: -0.54 percent
- Year-over-year change: +17.01 percent
- Quarterly change: +$3,594.87
- Year-over-year change: +24.29 percent

$1,250.33/month
- Quarterly change: +0.76 percent
- Quarterly change: +0.93 percent
- Year-over-year change: +16.87 percent
- Quarterly change: +$4,357.24
- Year-over-year change: +25.08 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 2022 first-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 2015-2019 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.
Data for the Pittsburgh metro area was provided by RealSTATs, a locally owned and operated real estate information company.