Afford $1.8M on 300K?

[Anonymous]

Yeah no.

[Anonymous]

Seems insane. I wouldn’t recommend anyone have that high of a PITI unless they were making twice what you make. If you can’t afford more than 20% down, you can’t afford that house. You will have many additional expenses going from 2000 sqft to 4000 too - furnishing, higher utilities, lawn care, etc.

[Anonymous]

Why? Sometimes you just have to live within your means. I don’t understand how everyone believes that they must live in a $1.5-$2m house. We’re at $650HHI. House purchased at 630k around 2900 sq ft. We’d never buy a 1.8m home.

[Anonymous]

We are at $320k HHI and our take home is about $14k month after 401s, medical, etc. Then add 529s and we are near $12k left per month. It would be very, very hard or impossible to have a $9000/month mortgage. Big houses also cost a lot to maintain, heat, etc. I just doby see how you come anywhere near that payment.

[Anonymous]

How stable is your jobs and the income projection, only makes sense if you expect huge income increases.

[Anonymous]

I don't even think you would get approved for a mortgage that big on your current income.

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is $1.5 million. No way would I have a $9,000 month mortgage.

[Anonymous]

OP Here. sorry for the delay - running children around.
We have two kids in public schools and have typical UMC activities and expenses - nothing to write home about. I'm glad I'm getting alot of "That's crazy"s because I also think it's a bit crazy to buy a house whose price is 6X HHI.

We take home just under 16K a month after 401K, HSA, 529s, so after

$3.5K PITI
$1K utilities
$6K credit cards (everything including groceries goes on cards),

We have like 6K left over each month. We've saved quite a bit over the last couple of years, but the money just goes into a savings account (we don't put non-retirement money in stocks). So what to do with that money? Buy a townhouse/condo and rent it out? Or increase PITI to $9K and "invest" in our primary house?

To those asking that we just move to a less expensive house (or one that's farther away) - we've already decided where we want to live (based on schools /neighborhood /commute), so our question for DCUM is not "where can I find a 4000sqft house on my budget" but rather "I think I can afford $9K PITI - should I?"

Thanks for the responses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why? Sometimes you just have to live within your means. I don’t understand how everyone believes that they must live in a $1.5-$2m house. We’re at $650HHI. House purchased at 630k around 2900 sq ft. We’d never buy a 1.8m home.

Everything new costs that much around here. In my area you can either get a teardown for slightly less than $1m, or a nice place for $2m. Not much in between.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have kids (529s suggest yes)? How old? How old are you? What have you actually saved?

Seems totally nuts to me.

+1. I don’t understand how you can save $6k every month on that income. Do you not eat?

[Anonymous]

No. Don’t take the risk. If one of you goes, it’s too much for one.

[Anonymous]

HHI is $650k. House cost $1.2. Mortgage was $725k. Your numbers give me anxiety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP Here. sorry for the delay - running children around.
We have two kids in public schools and have typical UMC activities and expenses - nothing to write home about. I'm glad I'm getting alot of "That's crazy"s because I also think it's a bit crazy to buy a house whose price is 6X HHI.

We take home just under 16K a month after 401K, HSA, 529s, so after

$3.5K PITI
$1K utilities
$6K credit cards (everything including groceries goes on cards),

We have like 6K left over each month. We've saved quite a bit over the last couple of years, but the money just goes into a savings account (we don't put non-retirement money in stocks). So what to do with that money? Buy a townhouse/condo and rent it out? Or increase PITI to $9K and "invest" in our primary house?

To those asking that we just move to a less expensive house (or one that's farther away) - we've already decided where we want to live (based on schools /neighborhood /commute), so our question for DCUM is not "where can I find a 4000sqft house on my budget" but rather "I think I can afford $9K PITI - should I?"

Thanks for the responses.

If I understand your budget and income flow correctly, if you take on a $9k PITI then you wouldn't have any non-retirement savings each month, right? So every time you have a large one-off expense (annual vacations, new car, house repair/renovation), you would be drawing upon your existing savings rather than being able to save up for it. This doesn't seem sustainable?

Do you have a lot of equity in your current house? Can you make a higher down payment so your PITI is lower?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP Here. sorry for the delay - running children around.
We have two kids in public schools and have typical UMC activities and expenses - nothing to write home about. I'm glad I'm getting alot of "That's crazy"s because I also think it's a bit crazy to buy a house whose price is 6X HHI.

We take home just under 16K a month after 401K, HSA, 529s, so after

$3.5K PITI
$1K utilities
$6K credit cards (everything including groceries goes on cards),

We have like 6K left over each month. We've saved quite a bit over the last couple of years, but the money just goes into a savings account (we don't put non-retirement money in stocks). So what to do with that money? Buy a townhouse/condo and rent it out? Or increase PITI to $9K and "invest" in our primary house?

To those asking that we just move to a less expensive house (or one that's farther away) - we've already decided where we want to live (based on schools /neighborhood /commute), so our question for DCUM is not "where can I find a 4000sqft house on my budget" but rather "I think I can afford $9K PITI - should I?"

Thanks for the responses.

How much do you have saved in non-retirement/529s? If you have saved $6k a month for years, that’s a pretty good down payment that can lower your PITI.

[Anonymous]

Lol at paying $2M to live in Fairfax.