New study ranks Tallassee Alabama’s most affordable place to live

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A view of Tallassee’s old textile mill and the Tallapoosa River, as seen from the Fitzpatrick bridge. [Photo Credit: Josh Whitman via Flikr]

Nestled beside the Tallapoosa river, just south of Lake Martin and just over half an hour from Montgomery, Tallassee Ala., has been ranked the most affordable place in the state to own a home, according to a recent analysis from the national financial technology firm, SmartAsset.

The city jumped from the number 7 spot in 2016, while Atalla, ranked first that same year, dropped to second place in 2018.

But there’s a lot more to home affordability than the listing price. Which is why SmartAsset took a holistic approach: considering closing costs, real estate taxes, homeowners insurance and mortgage rates in their analysis.

Specifically, they looked at the total cost over five years of these four expenses — closing costs, taxes, insurance and mortgage payments — for the average home in every county and every city with a population greater than 5,000. They then took that five-year cost as a proportion of median household income in each county and city to determine affordability.

The most affordable cities and counties were those in which total housing costs on an average house accounted for the smallest proportion of the median income.

Here’s SmartAsset’s list of the top 10 most affordable places to live in Alabama: