Salary vs House Cost

Anonymous
Just curious, how much do you make (combined income if you are married) and how much did your house cost? Hubby and I make a combined $300k/year and we have a $350k townhouse in Falls Church. When we bought, we were on one income (mine) and I was only making about $100k. Now that we have a substantially larger income, I'm wondering how much house we can actually afford. I know there are lots of factors to this but just give me a general idea. Thanks!
Anonymous
Total Salary times 3 to 4
Anonymous
I wouldn't look at salary to home price, I'd look at salary to mortgage. I had a hefty downpayment so even though my house is worth almost five times my salary, my mortgage was exactly 3 times my current salary. I can swing that. I wouldn't have bought the same house if I couldn't have put as much down.
Anonymous
We make 350k and we bought our house last year for 440k. We are planning on doing an addition in a few years - but we also have the flexiblity to live on one income if necessary (I thought I might have wanted to SAH after baby was born)
Anonymous
with today's interest rates, probably 6 times your gross income. but to be safe, I'd go no higher than 4 times.
Anonymous
Doesn't this depend on your other expenses? We pay $2k a month in student loans, and I wouldn't feel comfortable going so high on my mortgage, even with our $300k household income.
Anonymous
Also consider - do you have any debt and what do you spend every month?
Anonymous
At $300K, depends on how much other debt you have, daycare, loans etc.

But if I were making $300K, I would feel comfortable at $800K max. You also have to factor in the possibility of job loss for one of you.
will you hold on to your townhome as an investment prop? if you sell, how much do you owe on it? sooo many things go into factoring how much house you afford.

Anonymous
$210K HHI, $700K house (although now, only worth $500K, but coming back). Put down 20% and mortgage is about 30% of net salary (take-home).
Anonymous
If the home cost should be no more than 3x the salary, then, doesn't the home prices seem out of whack with the current salaries?
Anonymous
$150K HHI, $360K house. I always say if god forbid one of us lost a job, we could still afford the mortgage.
Anonymous
OP here. I was thinking around the $600-700k range for our next house. We want to put as close to 20% down as we can, and we'd sell our townhouse first (bought it 4 years ago so still owe quite a bit on it... probably wouldn't make much from the sale). Hubby and I are both paying student loans - his are pretty substantial from law school - but we have no other debt. Our expenses are minimal although we're about to have a baby so that's going to change! I do want the option to be a SAHM or at least part-time.

Salary to mortgage is a good suggestion. Is that gross or net salary though?
Anonymous
I would not do a mortgage more than 3 times gross salary, unless you have a lot of job security and are expecting significant raises.
Anonymous
$800k HHI, value of house around $800k. Was $500k when we bought in 2004 (HHI at that time was around $300k), and we have made improvements. No debt. We are house hunting now in the 1.5-2m price range.
Anonymous
Mortgage $470k (we just re-fi'ed), HHI ~$300k. We put down a very large down-payment; our purchase price was $950k (5 years ago).
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