For those looking to purchase their first home, the key for success is to focus on the right location.
CNBC's Emmie Roberts cites SmartAsset as a useful new tool for consumers to calculate all housing expenses in advance while searching for a new home.
SmartAsset analyzed data for every U.S. city with a population greater than 200,000 to find the most affordable large cities across the country. Each city was ranked according to SmartAsset's affordability index, which looks at closing costs, real estate taxes, insurance rates and mortgage rates. SmartAsset then found the total cost of these four expenses over five years and converted it to a proportion of the median household income in each city.