calc.one study · 2026-05-03
The $400,000 home: monthly mortgage payment in every US state, 2026
We took the same $400,000 home, the same 30-year mortgage at the latest published 2026 rate, and ran the math against every state's property-tax and insurance averages. The headline figure varies by $651 per month, just from crossing state lines.
Cheapest state
Hawaii
$2,289/mo PITI
Most expensive state
New Jersey
$2,939/mo PITI
Median state PITI
$2,533
per month, all-in
P&I (same in every state)
$2,097
6.85% · 30 yr · 20% down
The cheapest 10 states
The cheapest states cluster in the South and Mountain West, where effective property-tax rates run at or below 0.6% and homeowners insurance averages stay near $1,000 a year. None of these states crack $2,417 a month all-in for the $400,000 home modeled here.
The most expensive 10 states
The most expensive states share one of two characteristics: very high effective property-tax rates (Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, all above 1.7%), or high homeowners insurance premiums (Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, above $2,300 a year). Texas and Florida show up because of insurance pressure even though their property-tax rates aren't the worst in the country; the Northeast shows up because of taxes alone.
Median monthly payment by region
Aggregated to four Census regions, the spread compresses but persists. The Northeast carries the heaviest tax load; the South splits between low-tax states (Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee) and insurance-heavy ones (Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma). The West and Midwest sit in the middle.
What the numbers mean
Every state in this study is modeled with the same loan: a $400,000 home, 20% down, a 30-year fixed loan at 6.85% (the most recent Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 30y fixed reading at the time of this study). The principal-and-interest piece is therefore identical everywhere: $2,097 a month. What differs is everything else.
The single biggest lever is property tax. The state with the lowest effective rate (Hawaii, at 0.29% of home value annually) charges roughly $1,160 a year on this home; the highest (New Jersey, at 2.23%) charges roughly $8,920, almost an order of magnitude more. That gap alone is more than $647 a month, before insurance, before HOA, before anything else.
The second lever is homeowners insurance, and it tells a regional story tax data alone misses. Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma all carry insurance averages above $2,300 a year. That's climate-driven loss exposure, not tax policy. A buyer in Florida pays a property-tax bill close to the national average but lands in the most-expensive tier on PITI because the hurricane-exposure premium is roughly twice what a comparable buyer pays in Vermont or New Hampshire.
The third lever, income required to comfortably afford the home, follows from the first two. Apply the conservative 28% housing-DTI rule (no more than 28% of gross income going to PITI) and the same $400,000 home requires $98,082 in annual gross income to qualify in Hawaii, but $125,978 in New Jersey, a gap of roughly $27,896 per year. The monthly mortgage payment is the headline number, but the income gate is what actually keeps people from buying in higher-PITI states; banks underwrite the all-in payment, not the principal-and-interest.
A few less-obvious patterns:
- Hawaii has the lowest effective property tax rate in the country (0.29%). It looks expensive in real life because home prices are high, but on a fixed $400K home, Hawaii is one of the cheapest states to carry, full stop.
- Texas's reputation as a low-tax state breaks down at the property line. No state income tax, but a 1.58% effective property-tax rate (top 10 in the country) and an average annual homeowners insurance premium of $2,566. On housing, Texas is a high-cost state.
- The Northeast's PITI burden is property tax, not insurance. New Jersey, Illinois, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut all post effective property-tax rates above 1.7%; their insurance premiums are below the national average. The region's housing cost is a tax-policy story.
None of these numbers is a recommendation to buy or not buy in any given state. Home prices, wage levels, and quality of life all vary far more than the PITI numbers we hold constant. What this study isolates is the tax-and-insurance overhead a mortgage carries beyond P&I, on the same home, in 2026 dollars. Use the mortgage calculator to plug in your own price, rate, and term; use the affordability calculator to go in the other direction (income → home price you can carry).
Full state-by-state table
Sorted by total monthly PITI payment, ascending. Download the complete dataset (including effective tax rates and annual insurance averages) as data.csv.
| Rank | State | Region | P&I | Tax/mo | Insurance/mo | PITI/mo | Income req. (28%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | West | $2,097 | $97 | $95 | $2,289 | $98,082 |
| 2 | Nevada | West | $2,097 | $160 | $77 | $2,333 | $100,007 |
| 3 | Alabama | South | $2,097 | $133 | $117 | $2,348 | $100,611 |
| 4 | Delaware | South | $2,097 | $187 | $78 | $2,361 | $101,189 |
| 5 | West Virginia | South | $2,097 | $193 | $96 | $2,386 | $102,250 |
| 6 | Utah | West | $2,097 | $190 | $101 | $2,387 | $102,318 |
| 7 | Wyoming | West | $2,097 | $193 | $115 | $2,405 | $103,078 |
| 8 | Idaho | West | $2,097 | $223 | $85 | $2,405 | $103,089 |
| 9 | South Carolina | South | $2,097 | $190 | $127 | $2,414 | $103,443 |
| 10 | Arizona | West | $2,097 | $210 | $110 | $2,417 | $103,578 |
| 11 | New Mexico | West | $2,097 | $243 | $102 | $2,442 | $104,643 |
| 12 | California | West | $2,097 | $243 | $107 | $2,447 | $104,878 |
| 13 | Colorado | West | $2,097 | $163 | $188 | $2,448 | $104,921 |
| 14 | Arkansas | South | $2,097 | $213 | $144 | $2,455 | $105,196 |
| 15 | North Carolina | South | $2,097 | $233 | $124 | $2,455 | $105,196 |
| 16 | Tennessee | South | $2,097 | $223 | $144 | $2,464 | $105,603 |
| 17 | Virginia | South | $2,097 | $267 | $109 | $2,472 | $105,946 |
| 18 | Washington | West | $2,097 | $287 | $92 | $2,476 | $106,100 |
| 19 | Louisiana | South | $2,097 | $183 | $197 | $2,477 | $106,150 |
| 20 | Indiana | Midwest | $2,097 | $280 | $104 | $2,481 | $106,321 |
| 21 | Montana | West | $2,097 | $247 | $139 | $2,483 | $106,407 |
| 22 | Oregon | West | $2,097 | $310 | $77 | $2,483 | $106,432 |
| 23 | Kentucky | South | $2,097 | $267 | $139 | $2,502 | $107,239 |
| 24 | Georgia | South | $2,097 | $277 | $131 | $2,504 | $107,336 |
| 25 | Mississippi | South | $2,097 | $263 | $151 | $2,511 | $107,628 |
| 26 | Maryland | South | $2,097 | $330 | $106 | $2,533 | $108,546 |
| 27 | Alaska | West | $2,097 | $357 | $93 | $2,546 | $109,136 |
| 28 | Florida | South | $2,097 | $267 | $199 | $2,562 | $109,814 |
| 29 | Missouri | Midwest | $2,097 | $330 | $138 | $2,565 | $109,936 |
| 30 | North Dakota | Midwest | $2,097 | $327 | $158 | $2,582 | $110,650 |
| 31 | Minnesota | Midwest | $2,097 | $340 | $161 | $2,598 | $111,328 |
| 32 | Maine | Northeast | $2,097 | $413 | $90 | $2,600 | $111,418 |
| 33 | Massachusetts | Northeast | $2,097 | $380 | $135 | $2,612 | $111,943 |
| 34 | Michigan | Midwest | $2,097 | $460 | $107 | $2,664 | $114,164 |
| 35 | South Dakota | Midwest | $2,097 | $390 | $192 | $2,679 | $114,811 |
| 36 | New York | Northeast | $2,097 | $467 | $116 | $2,680 | $114,846 |
| 37 | Oklahoma | South | $2,097 | $297 | $288 | $2,681 | $114,914 |
| 38 | Rhode Island | Northeast | $2,097 | $467 | $128 | $2,691 | $115,343 |
| 39 | Pennsylvania | Northeast | $2,097 | $497 | $99 | $2,693 | $115,407 |
| 40 | Ohio | Midwest | $2,097 | $520 | $94 | $2,711 | $116,196 |
| 41 | Wisconsin | Midwest | $2,097 | $523 | $101 | $2,721 | $116,636 |
| 42 | Iowa | Midwest | $2,097 | $507 | $137 | $2,741 | $117,461 |
| 43 | Kansas | Midwest | $2,097 | $447 | $225 | $2,768 | $118,628 |
| 44 | Vermont | Northeast | $2,097 | $610 | $76 | $2,783 | $119,253 |
| 45 | Connecticut | Northeast | $2,097 | $597 | $125 | $2,818 | $120,771 |
| 46 | New Hampshire | Northeast | $2,097 | $643 | $82 | $2,822 | $120,964 |
| 47 | Texas | South | $2,097 | $527 | $214 | $2,837 | $121,600 |
| 48 | Nebraska | Midwest | $2,097 | $543 | $209 | $2,849 | $122,089 |
| 49 | Illinois | Midwest | $2,097 | $683 | $115 | $2,895 | $124,089 |
| 50 | New Jersey | Northeast | $2,097 | $743 | $99 | $2,939 | $125,978 |
Methodology
Formula. Monthly principal-and-interest is the
standard fixed-rate mortgage amortization formula:
M = P × [r(1+r)^n] / [(1+r)^n − 1], where P is the loan amount, r is the monthly
rate (6.85% ÷ 12), and n is the
number of monthly payments (30 × 12 = 360). The same formula powers
the live mortgage calculator;
results match within rounding.
Inputs (held constant across all 50 states).
- Home price: $400,000
- Down payment: 20% ($80,000)
- Loan amount: $320,000
- Loan term: 30 years, fixed
- Interest rate: 6.85% (Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 30y fixed, retrieved 2026-05-03)
- PMI: excluded (the 20%-down assumption removes it). Buyers putting less than 20% down should add 0.3%–1.5% of the loan amount per year on top of the figures shown.
- HOA dues: excluded. Where applicable these add $50–$1,000+ per month and vary by individual community, not by state.
State-specific inputs.
- Effective property tax rate: Tax Foundation, Effective property tax rate by state, 2024. Effective rate = property tax paid as a percentage of owner-occupied home value. State-level average; individual counties and municipalities will vary.
- Annual homeowners insurance premium: Insurance Information Institute, average homeowners insurance premium by state. HO-3 policy, statewide average. Coastal Florida, wildfire-prone California, and tornado-corridor states will run materially above these averages at the individual property level.
What this study does not include. Closing costs, origination fees, points, PMI (where applicable), HOA dues, flood insurance (a separate policy, federally backed, required in FEMA Special Flood Hazard Areas), or income-tax effects of the mortgage interest deduction. State income tax is also excluded; the figures here are PITI only, which is what mortgage lenders actually underwrite against.
Reproducing the math. Plug any row's loan amount ($320,000), rate (6.85%), and term (30 years) into the mortgage calculator to get the principal-and-interest figure. Multiply that state's effective tax rate by $400,000 and divide by 12 for monthly tax; divide that state's annual insurance premium by 12 for monthly insurance. Sum all three for PITI.
Computed and published by calc.one on 2026-05-03. The state-by-state CSV is released under CC BY 4.0; feel free to reuse with attribution to calc.one. Questions or corrections: contact us.