Are YOU able to keep your housing expenses at or below 28% of your gross pay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can now but remember when it was not the case....

yes

roughly 55k gross monthly income

mortgage 5,600 or 10%

If you could not I’d be more concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can now but remember when it was not the case....

yes

roughly 55k gross monthly income

mortgage 5,600 or 10%

If you could not I’d be more concerned.

NP. Does the 28% rule actually make sense though? It seems so random and arbitrary. At an HHI of 600K, that's $14k/month. No way I'm spending that much on housing!

[Anonymous]

It makes sense for us mere mortals w HHIs below $200K

[Anonymous]

HH gross is approx $500K. Monthly housing expense....$2500 (mostly RE taxes).

[Anonymous]

HHI gross approx $750K. Housing mortgage plus taxes is $2800 (mortgage is 1.5K and rest is property taxes). Maintenance and renovation is separate. Our house if worth ~1M outside of DC, outstanding mortgage is 300K, we could pay it off anytime, but choose to keep it due to low interest rate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can now but remember when it was not the case....

yes

roughly 55k gross monthly income

mortgage 5,600 or 10%

If you could not I’d be more concerned.

NP. Does the 28% rule actually make sense though? It seems so random and arbitrary. At an HHI of 600K, that's $14k/month. No way I'm spending that much on housing!

The 28% rule of thumb is on net income, not gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can now but remember when it was not the case....

yes

roughly 55k gross monthly income

mortgage 5,600 or 10%

If you could not I’d be more concerned.

NP. Does the 28% rule actually make sense though? It seems so random and arbitrary. At an HHI of 600K, that's $14k/month. No way I'm spending that much on housing!

The 28% rule of thumb is on net income, not gross.

That is definitely not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can now but remember when it was not the case....

yes

roughly 55k gross monthly income

mortgage 5,600 or 10%

If you could not I’d be more concerned.

NP. Does the 28% rule actually make sense though? It seems so random and arbitrary. At an HHI of 600K, that's $14k/month. No way I'm spending that much on housing!

The 28% rule of thumb is on net income, not gross.

It's on gross. E.g. https://www.cnbc.com/select/what-is-the-28-36-rule-for-buying-a-home/

[Anonymous]

Yes. Our mortgage and taxes are just under 10% of our HHI. We put down 50%, but even if we’d put down the standard 20%, it would be 12% of our monthly gross. It was a higher percentage when we bought 6 six years ago but we were in our twenties and our income has grown. We were lucky to refinance to a 3% mortgage rate during the pandemic. We also have not bought a bigger house since our income increased - a big reason being the increased rates.

Having a lower % of our income going to housing gives us financial flexibility. House is 3k sq ft - not huge not tiny. Bought an average size house for precisely this reason- so we would not entirely outgrow it and could comfortably stay it the market changed in 10 years, which it did. In hindsight probably would’ve bought a completed forever house but definitely would have been a stretch at the time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Our mortgage and taxes are just under 10% of our HHI. We put down 50%, but even if we’d put down the standard 20%, it would be 12% of our monthly gross. It was a higher percentage when we bought 6 six years ago but we were in our twenties and our income has grown. We were lucky to refinance to a 3% mortgage rate during the pandemic. We also have not bought a bigger house since our income increased - a big reason being the increased rates.

Having a lower % of our income going to housing gives us financial flexibility. House is 3k sq ft - not huge not tiny. Bought an average size house for precisely this reason- so we would not entirely outgrow it and could comfortably stay it the market changed in 10 years, which it did. In hindsight probably would’ve bought a completed forever house but definitely would have been a stretch at the time

LOL at 3000 sq ft being an average size house. Never change, DCUM!

[Anonymous]

28% of gross income seems insane to me. We moved from about 6% to about 12% and I feel house poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Our mortgage and taxes are just under 10% of our HHI. We put down 50%, but even if we’d put down the standard 20%, it would be 12% of our monthly gross. It was a higher percentage when we bought 6 six years ago but we were in our twenties and our income has grown. We were lucky to refinance to a 3% mortgage rate during the pandemic. We also have not bought a bigger house since our income increased - a big reason being the increased rates.

Having a lower % of our income going to housing gives us financial flexibility. House is 3k sq ft - not huge not tiny. Bought an average size house for precisely this reason- so we would not entirely outgrow it and could comfortably stay it the market changed in 10 years, which it did. In hindsight probably would’ve bought a completed forever house but definitely would have been a stretch at the time

LOL at 3000 sq ft being an average size house. Never change, DCUM!

PP here. 3k feels pretty darn average in our UMC suburban area. Most of our friends homes are bigger! We also have kids and two parents who work from home. So the house always feels full.

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is about 10% of gross income, before bonuses. When we bought, it was probably closer to 20%.

We bought an undesirable house on a bad lot in the best neighborhood we could find, spent much less than we were approved for, and didn’t move when our salaries increased. Slowly fixing it up as we have the inclination to deal with the projects.

I don’t love my home, I don’t even like it really, but I do love my savings accounts and the freedom living so far below our means gives us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope. We’re currently at a HHI of $16K/mo and our house expenses are over $5K/mo. Things are definitely tight.

holy crap! I would not consider this right, I’d consider it suffocating.

i’m a single mom with a loser ex who only has to pay $350/mo in support. I gross $16,666/mo and i saved and scrimped to buy a very small TH for my son and I with a PITI of just under 3k. I could not imagine having to dig out another 2k. As it is with insurance taxes and 401k I only bring home 8.5k/mo to live on. This very quickly gets chewed up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. We’re at ~21% of gross
PITI: $6100 on a 950k mortgage

Total household gross: $350k

Were also maxing 401k’s, IRAs, HSA, putting 5-10k a year each into brokerage, and putting a couple hundred bucks into extra principal payments.
Next up is funding the 529 for future babby, after saving for imminent wedding is done

This is awesome!! I hope our kids can do this. Great job!