LIVING: It’s always nice to see McKean County get some recognition.

We received an email from a financial technology company called SmartAsset, which looked into the best places to buy homes in Pennsylvania.

McKean County was number eight on the list.

This is SmartAsset’s third annual study, which compares average rent and home prices in counties across the U.S. to find the places where buying makes the most sense.

The average monthly mortgage payment in McKean County is $300, while the average monthly rent is listed as $907. The average home price is listed as $115,574.

“The counties with the shortest time to break even are the best places to buy,” the website indicates. The break-even year for McKean County homebuyers, it says, is year 2.

The site has some interesting real estate information from around the country, too.

For example, in New York City, it would take 18.3 years to recoup the cost of buying a home. It’s considered the worst place in the nation to buy a home by SmartAsset. The average monthly mortgage payment there is $2,399, while the average rent is $2,056.

In San Francisco, it would take 14.6 years to break even. Monthly mortgage payments are averaging $3,643, while monthly rent is averaging $2,915.

That’s a long way from McKean County, in more ways than one.

A little closer to home, in Pittsburgh, it would take 4.3 years to break even on a home purchase. Monthly mortgage payments are $560, while monthly rent averages $1,069.

We think this study shows yet another reason to love where we live.

THIS DAY: We think it’s fun to take a look at history to see what happened on a certain date, and today in history doesn’t disappoint.

Today in 1796, the first elephant arrived in the U.S. from India. In 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial. In 1954, Hank Aaron played his first game. In 1997, Pittsburgh Penguin Mario Lemieux played his last regular game.