Home prices in Baton Rouge run 46% below the national median: $225,000 versus $420,000. Relative to the $56,000 median household income here, the price-to-income ratio comes out to 4.0x.
Factor in $90/month for property tax in Baton Rouge, based on the area's 0.48% effective rate applied to the median home price. That's $1,080 annually.
Louisiana levies a state income tax on top of the $1,357/month this mortgage runs. Model your real after-tax take-home before deciding how much payment you can carry.
Baton Rouge's cost of living index is 92, below the 100 national baseline. That's on top of the housing numbers above, not instead of them.
Baton Rouge's median home price runs 15% lower than nearby New Orleans: $265,000 there versus $225,000 here.