First off you don't want to go too cheap because you will compromise the fork, and suspension forks on bikes under $750 are heavy, do not work good, will fall apart and a new fork can cost darn near what the bike did, take more watts to propel the bike forward, just not a win win situation. I think your $1,000 range is good.
One of the best bikes for the money is a bike built in the USA called the Fezzari Wasatch Peak Comp 29er, this bike is right at your $1,000 level but it has really nice Deore components with the modern 1x10 wide range drivetrain, a good quality SR Suntour XCR 34 fork which is a $300 fork and considered to be the best of any fork anywhere near its price range. The bike also comes with internal routing for brakes, shifter and an optional dropper seat post. Also included is the much regarded Shimano MT200 hydraulic disk brakes, all reviews on those brakes that I have seen have been 5 stars. So that's a well though out and well made bike for not a lot of money.
Another really nice bike for the same money as the above bike is the Kona Blast and the Mahuna, they use a bit better front shock fork called the RockShock Silver, this has metal bushings instead of plastic like the SR, and it's about 150 grams lighter. But this bike is made in Taiwan instead of America so you will get a bit more for your money.
The only bike I would recommend that would save you a bit of money to the ones I listed is the Giant Talon 29 2. It uses the next level down fork from the RockShock Silver called the XC 30 it's below the SR Suntour XCR 34, the XC30 is heavy but this is what your going to find when you get down to the $720 range that this Giant comes in at.
So if paying $1,000 is to much, you could spend less than later when the fork goes bad replace it with the Silver or upgrade to the DFS Air Fork RLC, or the XOSS MTB fork. But here again by the time you did that you would have $1,000 into the bike but you are spreading out the money for who knows how many years before you need a new fork.
