As U.S. student-debt balances have soared in recent years, the ability of graduates to buy a home has dwindled.
In some states, however, the average student-debt holder has a much easier time making the dream of homeownership into a reality. To determine this, Realtor.com compared the amount of money it would cost to make a 10% down payment on a median-priced home with the average student-loan balance per borrower in each state.
Ohio had the most affordable down payment based on this analysis — the average down payment in the Buckeye State is roughly half the size of the average borrower’s outstanding student-loan debt. At the other end of the spectrum: Hawaii’s average down payment was nearly twice as large as the average student-loan balance.
Those look like car payments.