How much house can we afford?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have about 30k 401k savings
No worries about selling our house as is with limited cost, it’s an intense sellers market where we live in a desirable
school district.

We have a 20k bonus coming in May that would bump up down payment.

. $10k per kid will not go far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have about 30k 401k savings
No worries about selling our house as is with limited cost, it’s an intense sellers market where we live in a desirable
school district.

We have a 20k bonus coming in May that would bump up down payment.

One of the things we did was to plow most of our bonuses into the kids colleges funds. It really helped fund them and it did not take away from our monthly budget. If you get $20k a year (assuming this is post tax), it should go a fair way towards college for them- but splitting it 4 ways means you may have to supplement. We only had two, so it was easier. With your income they will not receive any financial aid and the minimal non-subsidized loans will not be enough even for in state schools.

[Anonymous]

In upstate New York, not in dc proper.

We are making Student loan payments 2,000 a month and we are hoping for public student loan forgiveness next summer or other opportunities/grants so have been waiting on paying them off more fully.

Current house worth is 300k. Bought about 5 years ago. Want to settle in a different also great district with more diversity while oldest son is still fairly young (2nd grade)

[Anonymous]

I would say 700k tops.

[Anonymous]

Where is all your money going? What are your living expenses like? You should be able to save more for a down payment pretty quickly with that income. Did you just increase your income by a lot, or did you just pay down a lot of other debt instead of saving?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:HHI 300k
Student loans 100k
Car loan 5k

20k cash savings
150k retirement
70k equity in current home

Thanks! Waiting for preapproval but just like to crowdsource!

You can afford a 100k house. Your finances for your age, income, and number of kids are a wreck.

[Anonymous]

Is your HHI new? I don’t think you can afford your current house, let alone a more expensive one. Even with the $20k bonus coming, you have only $110k, max, which you won’t have because you have to pay transaction costs from the $70k equity when you sell. Conservatively you’ll lose $20k to transfer taxes and agent fees. So you have $90k if you spend every single dime you have. That’s a $450k house if you aim to put down 20%.

But you have substantial debt, 4 kids, very low retirement savings for your ages....in short, your finances are a wreck. Moving and leaving yourself no cash to work with means you are one leaking bathtub away from disaster.

[Anonymous]

Wow, you have very little savings for that kind of income. Can’t believe you’re adding another child.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone for your time in responding.

[Anonymous]

Hit send too soon. 300,000 income is new in past three years. Have saved all of retirement during that time and will continue that saving pattern. (About 45k a year) A lot of our money is going to retirement savings at the moment, to answer another poster.

Posters who say we are having too many children, please refrain from these comments. Children are a blessing and we are not concerned about this aspect of our financial
Plan, just giving the info about why we want a bigger house for kids and hosting holidays and out of town family. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hit send too soon. 300,000 income is new in past three years. Have saved all of retirement during that time and will continue that saving pattern. (About 45k a year) A lot of our money is going to retirement savings at the moment, to answer another poster.

Posters who say we are having too many children, please refrain from these comments. Children are a blessing and we are not concerned about this aspect of our financial
Plan, just giving the info about why we want a bigger house for kids and hosting holidays and out of town family. Thanks.

2200 sqft is big enough. Why buy a house for holidays and 10% of life- squishing in is what makes holidays fun. It is fine to have 4 children, but you need to make sure they have college expenses covered as your income will not allow them to have any financial aid.

[Anonymous]

You simply don’t have enough cash on hand for a down payment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hit send too soon. 300,000 income is new in past three years. Have saved all of retirement during that time and will continue that saving pattern. (About 45k a year) A lot of our money is going to retirement savings at the moment, to answer another poster.

Posters who say we are having too many children, please refrain from these comments. Children are a blessing and we are not concerned about this aspect of our financial
Plan, just giving the info about why we want a bigger house for kids and hosting holidays and out of town family. Thanks.

They are a blessing if you can afford to take care of them. Otherwise it can a burden to both the parents and the children. Currently, your 90k (20k in savings and 70k in equity) still leaves you with a negative net worth considering you have 100k in student loans and 5k car debt. You will most likely have to exhaust most if not all of that money to sell and buy leaving you with no savings, 105k in non mortgage debt with 4 kids. What happens in case of an emergency? Unexpected medical costs? What if someone loses their job? Will you then exhaust your retirement? What if you have to unexpectedly pay for full time daycare for 4 kids? How many years will it take to build a savings back up while throwing money at the student loan, a higher mortgage, and higher daycare costs?

All of this risk for more space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You simply don’t have enough cash on hand for a down payment.

This is true we are aware and working on it. Asking more for the price house we can afford with mortgage payments at our income level.
I think only one person actually responded to that question itself...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hit send too soon. 300,000 income is new in past three years. Have saved all of retirement during that time and will continue that saving pattern. (About 45k a year) A lot of our money is going to retirement savings at the moment, to answer another poster.

Posters who say we are having too many children, please refrain from these comments. Children are a blessing and we are not concerned about this aspect of our financial
Plan, just giving the info about why we want a bigger house for kids and hosting holidays and out of town family. Thanks.

They are a blessing if you can afford to take care of them. Otherwise it can a burden to both the parents and the children. Currently, your 90k (20k in savings and 70k in equity) still leaves you with a negative net worth considering you have 100k in student loans and 5k car debt. You will most likely have to exhaust most if not all of that money to sell and buy leaving you with no savings, 105k in non mortgage debt with 4 kids. What happens in case of an emergency? Unexpected medical costs? What if someone loses their job? Will you then exhaust your retirement? What if you have to unexpectedly pay for full time daycare for 4 kids? How many years will it take to build a savings back up while throwing money at the student loan, a higher mortgage, and higher daycare costs?

All of this risk for more space.

Thank you this is a point I neglected to discuss. Working spouse is in a highly in demand medical field with zero threat of job loss (constantly being recruited if so) and we are protected by significant amounts of disability insurance and lots of life insurance if anything happens to either spouse. This is another area of signifying expense in our budget. Thank you for your concern about this.