The housing market along the Wasatch Front continues to be an affordable place to live. The average selling price of a home in Salt Lake County was about $173,000 in 1999. Salt Lake was named the sixteenth most affordable housing market among 75 major U.S. metropolitan areas by the international accounting firm of Ernst & Young. Affordability is demonstrated by the fact that Utah has the tenth highest home ownership rate in the nation (72.7 percent in Utah in 1996 versus 65.4 percent nationally).In addition, Salt Lake area homeowners have some of the lowest monthly house payments in the country. According to U.S. Housing Markets, Salt Lake ranks as having the sixth lowest monthly housing payment among the major metro markets in the country.