Whether a homeowner's mortgage lasts for 15 or 30 years, paying off such a large debt can be an arduous process. But luckily for homeowners living in the Austin area, paying off a mortgage is much easier than it is in many other large metropolitan areas in the country, according to a new report by SmartAsset.

Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown ranked No. 10 in SmartAsset's new study analyzing the top 40 large U.S. metros where it's easiest to pay off a mortgage. Rankings were determined based on the principal and interest payments for conventional 30-year fixed rate mortgages issued in 2023, relative to the median income of new homeowners.

Leading the nation as the No. 1 easiest place to pay off a mortgage is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

According to the study's findings, the median property value of a home in the Austin metro is $505,000, while principal and interest payments amount to $2,549 per month. SmartAsset also determined that Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown had the lowest interest rates for new homeowners in 2023, at 6.5 percent. The median income of new homeowners (presumably by household rather than individually) comes out to $160,000 a year.

The report's single data source, detailed below, is the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for 2023. Although the City of Austin's Housing Department and Austin Housing Finance Corporation set the overall median income in 2024 at $126,000, this is for a general group that also includes non-homeowners.

Here's how the report broke down the rest of Austin's ranking:

• Housing payments as a percent of gross pay: 19.1 percent
• Median loan-to-value: 79.87 percent
• Mortgage amount: $403,351
• Number of conventional mortgages issued in 2023: 37,476

The report also reflects on the different life changes that can happen while paying off a house, such as starting a new job, starting a family, or even large economic events.

"After you qualify and buy the home, you could spend 30 years paying off your mortgage loan...So it’s important to have a strong emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses," the report's author wrote. "You may also decide to pay off your mortgage early, even when having the opportunity to invest those extra funds elsewhere."

Elsewhere in Texas, Houston-The Woodlands-Sugarland ranked as the No. 2 easiest metro for paying off a mortgage, followed by San Antonio-New Braunfels in No. 5. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ranked just outside the top 10 as No. 13.

The top 10 U.S. metros where mortgages are easiest to pay off are:

• No. 1 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• No. 2 – Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, Texas
• No. 3 – Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Michigan
• No. 4 – Cleveland-Elyria, Ohio
• No. 5 – San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas
• No. 6 – St. Louis, Missouri-Illiniois
• No. 7 – Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wisconsin
• No. 8 – Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Delaware-Maryland
• No. 9 – Cincinnati, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana
• No. 10 – Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, Texas

The report used data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for 2023, where median loan sizes and median interest rates were used to determine the monthly principal and interest calculator with SmartAsset’s mortgage calculator. This monthly mortgage payment (which excluded PMI, property taxes, and home insurance) was then compared with the median incomes of new homeowners.

The full report and its methodology can be found on smartasset.com.