Salary vs House Cost
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| Our mortgage is 2.5 times out gross. We pay daycare for our two kids, and that's our only debt. |
Anonymous
| We just bought with a mortgage three times the higher of our two incomes. |
Anonymous
Wow, if we did that, we'd be limited to a mortgage of about $500k. |
Anonymous
|
lol, with interest rates at 3.5%, there is no reason to think 3X is a good rule. these are historically low interest rates. some here are extremely conservative financially.
but just remember that Maryland has very high closing costs (Virginia pretty high too compared to the national average), so it is very costly to change houses. So you are not buying the house you will need/want for the next 3-5 years, you are buying the house you will need/want for the next 15-20 years. Your income will not be fixed over that period. Depending on your career and future inflation, it could/should go up considerably. |
Anonymous
| HHI $110k, mortgage $365k, home value $525k. |
Anonymous
|
I don't think I could go as high as some are suggesting. Our current mortgage debt is about 2.5 times our gross salary, but this is because we will be selling our house in the spring. That seems like a lot of debt to me. Once we sell, we'll be at something more like 1.7 times gross salary, which is a little higher than we have traditionally been.
Could we technically afford more under those tests? Probably. But I don't want all my money tied up in my house indefinitely. For a short period is scary enough. |
Anonymous
This is us, except we have one kid in daycare and 2 car payments. Wouldn't feel comfortable with a mortgage any higher than this, but ymmv. |
Anonymous
And? |
Anonymous
| HHI of 325K, mortgage of 300K. We're probably moving in the next year or so, and assuming rates stay near where they are now will probably get a mortgage of 450-500K. |
Anonymous
| HHI of $325K and mortgage $625K. HHI was the same when we bought. |
Anonymous
I think some of us are laughing at the "limited" comment.  
|
Anonymous
|
HHI $275k, mortgage $520k, house just appraised at 1.1.
No childcare, student loans, etc. |
Anonymous
| HHI $160k. Mortgage is $380k. |
Anonymous
|
We have a household income of @$135K? My income is variable because I am part-time (hourly), so it depends how many hours I actually work.
We have a mortgage just above $400K. It is close to 30% of our monthly takehome, so it is slightly tighter than I would like. But we have no student loan debt and next to no daycare expenses (1 school age child going to after school sitter a couple afternoons/week). We have one car loan and some credit card debt -mostly from the roof we had to put on 0% credit cards because the bank said no for a home equity line in the fall. We only put 10% down last year (VA Loan) and used the rest of our extra dough to do internal renovations. Didn't know that this was a problem for future home equity lines - BOO. |
Anonymous
| OP, do a mortgage calculator. they will tell you can afford a house of about $1.4MM |