Buying the median home in Kearney means financing $210,000. Against the area's $60,000 median household income, that works out to a 3.5x price-to-income ratio.
At a 1.62% effective rate, Kearney property taxes add $284 to the monthly payment on the median home, $3,402 a year in total.
Nebraska levies a state income tax on top of the $1,466/month this mortgage runs. Model your real after-tax take-home before deciding how much payment you can carry.
Kearney's cost of living index is 83, below the 100 national baseline. That's on top of the housing numbers above, not instead of them.
Kearney's median home price runs 18% lower than nearby Omaha: $255,000 there versus $210,000 here.