It’s easiest to pay off a mortgage in these 10 cities, new report finds

(NEXSTAR) — While a mortgage is widely considered a “good debt” to have, you, as a homeowner, may prefer having a faster route to paying off your home and qualifying for an eagle plaque. 

Your ability to pay off your mortgage will depend on a variety of factors, including where you live. 

Personal finance site SmartAsset recently analyzed home mortgage data and median incomes across the 40 largest metro areas in the U.S. to determine where it’s easiest to pay off a mortgage. To rank among the “easiest,” a city had to have a low income-to-housing-payment ratio. 

Nowhere was that ratio lower than in Pittsburgh. With a median property value of $265,000, a median interest rate below 7%, and a median annual income among new homeowners of $101,000, residents in the Pennsylvania city have the lowest income-to-housing payment ratio of 16.36%. 

Pittsburgh is the only city analyzed by SmartAsset with a ratio below 17%. 

The 10 most affordable cities on SmartAsset’s list did, however, all have ratios below 19.5%:

1. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: 16.36%
2. Houston, Texas: 17.09%
3. Detroit, Michigan: 17.54%
4. Cleveland, Ohio: 17.60%
5. San Antonio, Texas: 17.67%
6. St. Louis, Missouri: 17.94%
7. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: 17.98%
8. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 18.47%
9. Cincinnati, Ohio: 18.73%
10. Austin, Texas: 19.12%

For those in multiple California metro areas, the outlook isn’t as good. The five cities where it is the hardest to pay off a mortgage are all in the Golden State, from the Bay Area to San Diego. 

With the highest monthly principal and interest payments, the San Jose metro was the worst overall. There, SmartAsset determined a homeowner is spending more than 29% of their gross income on their housing payment. 

Rounding out the 10 metro areas where it’s hardest to pay off a mortgage were all cities in the West: 

1. San Jose, California
2. San Diego, California
3. Los Angeles, California
4. San Francisco, California
5. Riverside, California
6. Portland, Oregon
7. Denver, Colorado
8. Seattle, Washington
9. Sacramento, California
10. Las Vegas, Nevada

While landing in the middle of SmartAsset’s ranking, the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News area of Virginia and North Carolina had the highest median interest rate of nearly 7.4% on new conventional mortgages. Alternatively, Austin, Texas, had the lowest median interest rate at 6.5%.

You can view SmartAsset’s full list here.

Last week, the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by an unusually large half-point, a dramatic shift after more than two years of high rates that helped tame inflation but also made borrowing painfully expensive for American consumers.

The central bank’s action lowered its key rate to roughly 4.8%, down from a two-decade high of 5.3%, where it had stood for 14 months as it struggled to curb the worst inflation streak in four decades. Inflation has tumbled from a peak of 9.1% in mid-2022 to a three-year low of 2.5% in August, not far above the Fed’s 2% target.

While lower rates give home shoppers more purchasing power, a mortgage around 6% is still not low enough for many Americans struggling to afford a home. That’s mostly because home prices have soared 49% over the past five years, roughly double the growth in wages. They remain near record highs, propped up by a shortage of homes in many markets.

Mortgage rates would have to drop back to near rock-bottom lows from three years ago, or home prices would have to fall sharply for many buyers to afford a home. Neither scenario is likely to happen any time soon.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.