10 Cities Where Your Monthly Mortgage Payment Could Be $1,000

In the midst of a lack of affordable housing, Realtor.com found 10 metros where it’s possible to keep your mortgage payment below $1,000.

Topping the list was Youngstown, Ohio, where the site estimates that 63.7% of the available housing stock would have monthly payments under $1,000. The median list price in Youngstown is $121,800. Youngstown was followed by Peoria, Ill., (61.2% with monthly payments under $1,000), Binghamton, N.Y. (61.1%), and Huntington, W.V. (58.2%).

To come up with our rankings, we created a hypothetical 30-year fixed-rate loan for each of the 200 largest metropolitan areas.* These loans included 10% down payments, 4.55% mortgage interest rates, 0.5% of the value of the home in private mortgage insurance payments, and a $40 home insurance payment for each $100,000 in home value. Additionally, we factored in 1% of the home's value going toward home maintenance annually, the industry standard.

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