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

Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land earned No. 2 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.

The only U.S. metro to outperform Houston to claim the No. 1 easiest place to pay off a mortgage is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

According to the study's findings, house payments only represent 17.1 percent of a homeowner's gross pay in Houston. The median property value of a home in the metro is $365,000, while principal and interest payments amount to $1,894 per month. SmartAsset also determined that the median income of new homeowners in Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land comes out to $133,000 a year.

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

• Median loan-to-value: 80 percent
• Median interest rate: 6.75 percent
• Mortgage amount: $292,000
• Number of conventional mortgages issued in 2023: 77,248

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, San Antonio-New Braunfels ranked as the No. 5 easiest metro for paying off a mortgage. Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown rounded out the top 10 with the lowest interest rates for new homeowners in 2023, at just 6.5 percent, the report found. 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.