HHI for $700K house?

[Anonymous]

We had an HHI of $200k and 550k mortgage. Easily do-able. 2 kids in daycare, but we didn't travel or buy anything extravagant. One car paid off. I quit my FT job to SAH/work PT when we had the third baby, HHI now $160 and we are still making it work.

[Anonymous]

One thing to consider too is that money is extremely cheap right now. Locking in those low interest rates on a 30-year is a benefit that might not be around when you want to trade up in 5 years. Play around with a mortgage calculator and you will be floored by how much monthly payments can change with upticks in interest. Also, in five years or whatever if you trade up you'll be buying at those dollars, rather than paying a locked in payment at 2016 dollars. And, every month you're getting equity and a tax deduction. All of this doesn't necessarily mean do it -- it's just there are a lot of things to consider that can make it tip in surprising ways (especially if you aren't carrying other debt).

[Anonymous]

We are lookzing in that range, and make around $250K. I think you need to settle on what you want to spend per month and work backwards. Those online calculators told me we could afford $1.4M. To me, that is absolutely insane. I don't know that you can trust them.

[Anonymous]

I'm amazed at all these people with under $700k homes!! You are not in DC right? We're a $200k HHI family and everything we're looking at is between $700-$800k. We're probably going to move to Virginia ultimately because of the schools, but even in the places we're looking (North Arlington and places a little further out but less than 1 mile to the metro) the houses are still in that range for a 3-bedroom place. Where do you all live? Are the schools good? Do you work in DC?

Are there really so few people on this board with $700k homes who have a $200k HHI?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed at all these people with under $700k homes!! You are not in DC right? We're a $200k HHI family and everything we're looking at is between $700-$800k. We're probably going to move to Virginia ultimately because of the schools, but even in the places we're looking (North Arlington and places a little further out but less than 1 mile to the metro) the houses are still in that range for a 3-bedroom place. Where do you all live? Are the schools good? Do you work in DC?

Are there really so few people on this board with $700k homes who have a $200k HHI?

750k rowhouse. 400k hhi. In NW dc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing to consider too is that money is extremely cheap right now. Locking in those low interest rates on a 30-year is a benefit that might not be around when you want to trade up in 5 years. Play around with a mortgage calculator and you will be floored by how much monthly payments can change with upticks in interest. Also, in five years or whatever if you trade up you'll be buying at those dollars, rather than paying a locked in payment at 2016 dollars. And, every month you're getting equity and a tax deduction. All of this doesn't necessarily mean do it -- it's just there are a lot of things to consider that can make it tip in surprising ways (especially if you aren't carrying other debt).

This is very true. Our rental wasn't cheap. In fact our mortgage is actually less expensive than was our rental when you factor in the tax deduction. Purchasing our home two years ago has saved us around 25k not taking into account our monthly equity paydown. The best part is not having our rental increase annually.

Previous rent 3,500

Mortgage 3,524
Tax deduction (1000)
Equity paydown (850)
Equals 1,664 monthly cost

Even if we have 1k in repairs and expenses each much we are still ahead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing to consider too is that money is extremely cheap right now. Locking in those low interest rates on a 30-year is a benefit that might not be around when you want to trade up in 5 years. Play around with a mortgage calculator and you will be floored by how much monthly payments can change with upticks in interest. Also, in five years or whatever if you trade up you'll be buying at those dollars, rather than paying a locked in payment at 2016 dollars. And, every month you're getting equity and a tax deduction. All of this doesn't necessarily mean do it -- it's just there are a lot of things to consider that can make it tip in surprising ways (especially if you aren't carrying other debt).

This is very true. Our rental wasn't cheap. In fact our mortgage is actually less expensive than was our rental when you factor in the tax deduction. Purchasing our home two years ago has saved us around 25k not taking into account our monthly equity paydown. The best part is not having our rental increase annually.

Previous rent 3,500

Mortgage 3,524
Tax deduction (1000)
Equity paydown (850)
Equals 1,664 monthly cost

Even if we have 1k in repairs and expenses each much we are still ahead.

We're in a $3500 rental right now. What was your total mortgage at that monthly cost? We're trying to decide how much we can actually afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed at all these people with under $700k homes!! You are not in DC right? We're a $200k HHI family and everything we're looking at is between $700-$800k. We're probably going to move to Virginia ultimately because of the schools, but even in the places we're looking (North Arlington and places a little further out but less than 1 mile to the metro) the houses are still in that range for a 3-bedroom place. Where do you all live? Are the schools good? Do you work in DC?

Are there really so few people on this board with $700k homes who have a $200k HHI?

We have a house worth between 700 and 800k and have only a $160k HHI. The difference is that we bought the house for 400k nine years ago. I can't even begin to imagine how frustrating it would be now to be looking for a first home on our moderate income here in DC. Back then, with a $120k HHI, things already seemed outrageously expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed at all these people with under $700k homes!! You are not in DC right? We're a $200k HHI family and everything we're looking at is between $700-$800k. We're probably going to move to Virginia ultimately because of the schools, but even in the places we're looking (North Arlington and places a little further out but less than 1 mile to the metro) the houses are still in that range for a 3-bedroom place. Where do you all live? Are the schools good? Do you work in DC?

Are there really so few people on this board with $700k homes who have a $200k HHI?

Our HHI is slightly over $200k. We live in NoVa, work in NoVa, own an awesome 3000+ sq ft house w/a .25 acre lot that we bought for $640k. It was a sad decision to move from Arlington out to the wilds of western fairfax county, but we have a great life for our family. Since DH works in NoVa and I WAH, there was no reason not to move to Fairfax County.. granted if either of us had to take the metro to work every day it would suck and we never would have moved here. We are zoned for good schools and live in a very family-centered neighborhood. After some soul searching, I realized that I wanted to live in Arlington/DC for me and my own sense of self, not for the good of our family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you've recently bought a house around $700K, what is your HHI? Ours is $160K, and the "how much house can you afford?" calculators all tell me we can swing a $700-$800K house. We have about $200K in equity in our current house that would be available for downpayment, and no other debt. Right now we are paying for daycare x2, so $700K sounds way out of reach. But it feels like it will be a little high even in a few years, when daycare will be over. I'd been thinking we could afford more like $600K then. But going up to $700 would really open up a lot of options for us. Are other people buying those houses with a similar income?

Work backwards--this is what we did when we upgraded. If you could sell your house and clear $200k after paying realtors, etc., would the entire $200k go into the new house, or would you want to buy some new furniture, a new car, put $$ in college funds, etc.? Lets say you want to put $150k of your profit into a house, that means that for a $700k house, you will be mortgaging $550k. So figure out what your monthly mortgage payment would be, what your escrow would be each month for taxes, insurance, etc., and then figure out whether you can work with that amount as your mortgage payment every month based on your other expenses.

We put approx $140k down on our current house, and we are in a much nicer house than we would be able to afford each month than if we didn't have as significant of a down payment. Added benefit, we didn't have to pay PMI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm amazed at all these people with under $700k homes!! You are not in DC right? We're a $200k HHI family and everything we're looking at is between $700-$800k. We're probably going to move to Virginia ultimately because of the schools, but even in the places we're looking (North Arlington and places a little further out but less than 1 mile to the metro) the houses are still in that range for a 3-bedroom place. Where do you all live? Are the schools good? Do you work in DC?

Are there really so few people on this board with $700k homes who have a $200k HHI?

Our HHI is slightly over $200k. We live in NoVa, work in NoVa, own an awesome 3000+ sq ft house w/a .25 acre lot that we bought for $640k. It was a sad decision to move from Arlington out to the wilds of western fairfax county, but we have a great life for our family. Since DH works in NoVa and I WAH, there was no reason not to move to Fairfax County.. granted if either of us had to take the metro to work every day it would suck and we never would have moved here. We are zoned for good schools and live in a very family-centered neighborhood. After some soul searching, I realized that I wanted to live in Arlington/DC for me and my own sense of self, not for the good of our family.

+1 If it were just me, I'd be in the city but this set up is great for now. Zero commute, my kids can walk to school, ride their bikes around the neighborhood, play in the backyard, walk to our pool etc. No I can't walk to the store but other than produce I get most everything delivered from Amazon anyway...

[Anonymous]

I have a $700k house with a $107K income, but I have less than a $400K mortgage. The $2,500/mo payment is manageable, but there isn't much room for extras.

I agree with the poster who said to figure out what monthly payment you could handle and use that to determine how much to borrow. I would have been more comfortable with a $2K monthly payment, but in order to get a good commute and great schools, I had to go to $2,500/mo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing to consider too is that money is extremely cheap right now. Locking in those low interest rates on a 30-year is a benefit that might not be around when you want to trade up in 5 years. Play around with a mortgage calculator and you will be floored by how much monthly payments can change with upticks in interest. Also, in five years or whatever if you trade up you'll be buying at those dollars, rather than paying a locked in payment at 2016 dollars. And, every month you're getting equity and a tax deduction. All of this doesn't necessarily mean do it -- it's just there are a lot of things to consider that can make it tip in surprising ways (especially if you aren't carrying other debt).

This is very true. Our rental wasn't cheap. In fact our mortgage is actually less expensive than was our rental when you factor in the tax deduction. Purchasing our home two years ago has saved us around 25k not taking into account our monthly equity paydown. The best part is not having our rental increase annually.

Previous rent 3,500

Mortgage 3,524
Tax deduction (1000)
Equity paydown (850)
Equals 1,664 monthly cost

Even if we have 1k in repairs and expenses each much we are still ahead.

We're in a $3500 rental right now. What was your total mortgage at that monthly cost? We're trying to decide how much we can actually afford.

585k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow! It appears we are much more conservative than some posters here. We have an HHI of $200K, and felt like $600K was the absolute upper limit we were wanting to go. We had $40K to put down.

You only had 40k to put down?!? No wonder you had to buy a cheap home. Wow.

Yes. Between student loans, a kid with special needs, daycare, and some other circumstances (and the fact that or HHI had only recently risen to that level) we weren't able to save a ton before buying. do you want me to apologize for the fact that we're not all richy rich like you, or...?

No. It's just silly to brag about buying an inexpensive home when really you dos so because you have high fixed expenses and couldn't save a lot of money. You didn't buy an inexpensive home because you're frugal.

Yeah that stuck out to me too... PP, you're not a conservative spender. You couldn't possibly have GOTTEN anything higher than $600k with a $200k HHI and only 40k down payment. Saying you're conservative suggests you had the capabilities to buy much more and chose not to out of prudence.

[Anonymous]

I think the relevant question is how much mortgage rather than total house price. Our mortgage is 600K and we make 250K. It's a little tight with two kids in daycare but will be fine once one is finally in public school next year. Op, if you get your mortgage down to 500K then you can probably swing it on your income but will have to watch spending, buy used cars etc. I think it is worth the sacrifice around here to go from a 600K house to a 700K house