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- About This Answer
Our down payment calculator tool helps you understand what your minimum potential down payment could be in your geography based on the target home price that you choose. First we look at the loan limits for different mortgage types in your location, then we take your target home value and identify what mortgage types your home value would qualify for in your location. Once we identify the mortgage types that qualify, we find the minimum possible down payment that you could pay. We also show you how different mortgage types and down payment percentages impact your monthly payments and closing costs.
- Our Assumptions
Mortgage Term: We assume a 30-year fixed mortgage term.
Mortgage Type Loan Limits: We use mortgage loan limits down to the county level to identify if a user qualifies for an FHA or Conforming loan.
Mortgage data: We use live mortgage data to calculate your mortgage payment.
Closing costs: We have built local datasets so we can calculate exactly what closing costs will be in your neighborhood.
| Mortgage Type | Minimum Down Payment | Mortgage Payment | Closing Costs |
| FHA | of Home Value down payment | monthly mortgage payment (No mortgage insurance required) | total closing costs |
| FHA | You do not qualify for this mortgage type - | ||
| Conforming | of Home Value down payment | monthly mortgage payment (No mortgage insurance required) | total closing costs |
| Conforming | You do not qualify for this mortgage type - | ||
| 20% Down Payment | 20% of Home Value down payment | monthly mortgage payment (No mortgage insurance required) | total closing costs |
Most Affordable Big Cities in America
SmartAsset created an affordability index to locate the most affordable housing markets in the country. Zoom between states and the national map to see the top markets in each region. This interactive map allows you to see the most affordable big cities in the country and in each state. Also, scroll over any city to learn about housing affordability in that market.
| Rank | City | Avg. Closing Costs | Annual Property Tax | Annual Homeowner's Insurance | Avg. Annual Mortgage Payment | Median Income |
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Methodology There’s a lot more to home affordability than the price a homebuyer agrees to pay the seller. To find the most affordable places to buy a home, SmartAsset took a holistic approach, considering closing costs, real estate taxes, homeowners insurance and mortgage rates in our analysis.
Specifically, we found the total cost over five years of these four expenses—closing costs, taxes, insurance and mortgage payments—for the average home in every city in the U.S. with a population greater than 200,000. We then took that five-year cost as a proportion of median household income in each city to determine affordability.
The most affordable cities were those in which total housing costs on an average house accounted for the smallest proportion of the median income.
Sources: Bankrate, US Census Bureau 2017 American Community Survey, National Association of Insurance Commissioners, government websites, SmartAsset
*For this study we looked at all U.S. cities that have a population greater than 200,000 with available data.
