How much are closing costs in Maryland as a percentage of the home's sale price? Are buyers expected to pay for all of the closing costs? Thanks! |
HHI of 200k, house 500k, put 20% down, no debt other than 2k a month for daycare, 60k in savings, maxing out 401ks, not saving for college until daycare payments are gone. Mortgage and PMI $2400. We could pay the mortgage on one salary if we had to. We feel comfortable with the payment, more would have given us worry. |
and your stunning lack of connection to any reality other than your own continues... You do realize that there are people in this area who can't even afford a mortgage of $500K, right? And we actually buy houses, too! Just generally not in close in ritzy neighborhoods populated by the $300K and over crowd. Doesn't mean that we also don't enjoy good schools and nice neighborhoods, though. |
well, according to this thread, people with HHI of $300K+ are living in small dumpy houses OR they bought before 2003. |
or possibly they value things other than having a million dollar home with the mortgage to match? |
Take home after 401K maxand health care is 13,000. Yeah, I am not sure where it all goes. But we have no extravagent expenditures. And we do save, but not more than 2k a month...So maybe I should track all of our expenses for a month. I'm just not sure what we need to/could cut back on. There are no obvious large expenses. Also, all of the college calculators say that we should be saving significantly more than we are currently saving. |
$135K HHI
$400K mortgage |
OP here. Holy crap that is a lot of money. That cannot be right!!! |
Once you make $300K plus or so, its not like all of your expenses go up by the same percentages. utility costs are generally the same as the $100K HHI. college savings are generally the same. car payments the same, vacation costs close to the same. you can put a lot more of our money to housing and never miss it. that is what I find so puzzling. i.e., if you make $30K/month but have a mtg payment of $7K/month, you still have a shitload of money left over to live off of. The worry is always what happens if you lose your job. |
you have to pay to play |
We make over $300K and while we *technically* could afford a $1.4M house, we'd be really crunched. Instead, we put 20% down on an $850K house (well after 2003- and it's not large but certainly not a dump). We have some wiggle room with our expenses each month, but not a ton. If we were to increase our mortgage to near $1M, it would be really tight. I would never encourage someone with our income to buy that much house. |
Let me put that another way. Historically, a normal RE market reflects this ratio. Sometimes, it is well below that (depressed) and sometimes well above that (overheated). RE markets tend to find equilibrium at about the 3x income ratio. Remember, interest rates are being held down, deliberately, by a central bank (the Fed) that is buying massive amounts of bonds (most of them likely never to be repayed) with taxpayer (our) money. It is not sustainable and will not be sustained. Interest rates will rise, perhaps drastically, and we'll get back to 3x earnings eventually, probably below that, before the cycle starts again. If you borrow five times income at 3.5% to for your house, the buyer who comes after you, with your income level, can only borrow half of what you did should rates go to 7% and still "afford" the payments. And 7% is still below the historical rate for 30 year fixed paper. So think about who you will eventually sell to before jumping in. |
We're similar. 136 k HHI. 410k mortgage. |
where does all of your money go? |
more accurate ratio is compared to rents. prices are very low now by any historical measure. |