SERIOUSLY - how are people affording these $1Mil+ homes with $8,000+ monthly mortgages!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of people bring home 30k a month, Like, everyone on my block does.

30k per month? That’s crazy. I just hit $4k per month and I was feeling rather rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a lower HHI. We bought later in life have a mortgage right around what you're saying. Like a PP we rented way below our means for a long time to save.

We don't live lavishly otherwise. Old car, limited vacations, limited extracurriculars, but we are happy.

If rates go down we will refi and get some of our equity out of the property and our cash flow will modify in a life altering way.

Housing prices aren't going down. Limited inventory and zoning rules that keep the nice areas nice.

Make it work.

Please explain how pulling equity out of a property, and thereby increasing your indebtedness, will improve your cash flow.

Pull out home equity. Invest in stock market. And make huge profits.
Also, pull from credit cards. Invest in stock market. And make huge profits.
Then pay off the money.

Dumb dumb dumb. Did you get this idea from Tik Tok?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I must be doing something wrong. My household income is $300K and with two small kids, I want to live in a good public school zone. It feels impossible! My mortgage budget is $4k…which is maybe a $600K home. My research says if I want a good school with that budget, I’m buying an outdated 1500sq ft home with 7.5 foot ceilings. I need to leave Montgomery county!

You can get a decent house for under $900k in Wootton cluster. If you put 20% down you’re looking at a 5-6k monthly mortgage. A house near me just sold for $760k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of people bring home 30k a month, Like, everyone on my block does.

Tech? Law? What do they do here? I'm so confuse by the salaries in this area.

Assuming the 30k refers to monthly HHI, then yes, plenty of HHIs in DC make 360k a year. I'm a manager at a professional services firm and make 160k including bonus. VPs are 200k, senior VPs 250k and it goes up from there.

You can see how a manager married to a VP can have a 360k HHI. My coworker is married to a lawyer who is not in BIGLAW but even then they must still have 400k+ in HHI.

Marrying smartly goes a very long way.

FWIW, $360K/year is only about $21K after taxes but before deductions for insurance, etc. Are people really comfortable tossing $8K of that into a mortgage payment? As for the professions delivering those salaries, I clearly need to restructure my job search because I've never seen jobs pay that well in DC. NY, SF, LA yes, but DC metro outside of big law, no.

[Anonymous]

We cleared 400K HHI this past year. Live in a sub $700k house with a $4k PITI. No family money and late starts to high earning careers (grad school for both). Our friends with family down payments in their 20s have MUCH more expensive homes relative to our salaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of people bring home 30k a month, Like, everyone on my block does.

30k per month? That’s crazy. I just hit $4k per month and I was feeling rather rich.

you are, this is the DCUM bubble , filled with women that hate sex and lawyers that pretend to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I must be doing something wrong. My household income is $300K and with two small kids, I want to live in a good public school zone. It feels impossible! My mortgage budget is $4k…which is maybe a $600K home. My research says if I want a good school with that budget, I’m buying an outdated 1500sq ft home with 7.5 foot ceilings. I need to leave Montgomery county!

How does a $600000 home end up with a $4000 month house payment?

Wait for the interest to go back down in tge next year or two

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of people bring home 30k a month, Like, everyone on my block does.

30k per month? That’s crazy. I just hit $4k per month and I was feeling rather rich.

you are, this is the DCUM bubble , filled with women that hate sex and lawyers that pretend to work.

Aw is someone mad? My husband and I have sex every week and we pull in $60K/month. Could tell you more about our portfolio but don’t want to make you even angrier!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of people bring home 30k a month, Like, everyone on my block does.

Tech? Law? What do they do here? I'm so confuse by the salaries in this area.

Assuming the 30k refers to monthly HHI, then yes, plenty of HHIs in DC make 360k a year. I'm a manager at a professional services firm and make 160k including bonus. VPs are 200k, senior VPs 250k and it goes up from there.

You can see how a manager married to a VP can have a 360k HHI. My coworker is married to a lawyer who is not in BIGLAW but even then they must still have 400k+ in HHI.

Marrying smartly goes a very long way.

FWIW, $360K/year is only about $21K after taxes but before deductions for insurance, etc. Are people really comfortable tossing $8K of that into a mortgage payment? As for the professions delivering those salaries, I clearly need to restructure my job search because I've never seen jobs pay that well in DC. NY, SF, LA yes, but DC metro outside of big law, no.

For most of us HHI = 2 combined incomes.
But op I understand what you're saying. We bought our bethesda house in 2020 for 870k, now worth 1.2, and we have a 2.35 mortgage. Mostly luck! We often talk about how we couldn't afford our house if we had to buy it today ( our piti is under 4k) nor could we get into our Alma maters today

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of people bring home 30k a month, Like, everyone on my block does.

Tech? Law? What do they do here? I'm so confuse by the salaries in this area.

Assuming the 30k refers to monthly HHI, then yes, plenty of HHIs in DC make 360k a year. I'm a manager at a professional services firm and make 160k including bonus. VPs are 200k, senior VPs 250k and it goes up from there.

You can see how a manager married to a VP can have a 360k HHI. My coworker is married to a lawyer who is not in BIGLAW but even then they must still have 400k+ in HHI.

Marrying smartly goes a very long way.

FWIW, $360K/year is only about $21K after taxes but before deductions for insurance, etc. Are people really comfortable tossing $8K of that into a mortgage payment? As for the professions delivering those salaries, I clearly need to restructure my job search because I've never seen jobs pay that well in DC. NY, SF, LA yes, but DC metro outside of big law, no.

We make more like 450HHI and contribute to just about every retirement savings, stock, and stock purchase plan available. For the first two months of the year my DH's take home pay was about $3,500 for the month, and he makes $360K. A lot of that is bonus-tax related but take-home aren't always huge for higher incomes (and that is a blessing).

Anyway, we feel comfortable with a mortgage (insurance, etc.. all in) under 5K. Our goals are to save additional cash each month on top of the savings that are directly taken from our checks. Many months we do not that do because homeownership and kids are hella expensive. We have no debt, attend public schools, no one in college yet. It's just that once you reach a certain standard of living with travel sports and vet emergencies and $250 here to fly to visit mom and $800 there to replace the brakes on a 5 year old car and $1500 here to get a new computer stuff adds up. Of course people can live and save on less income, but spending is all relative, and having a mortgage that is below your means is always the right choice unless you're mega rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We cleared 400K HHI this past year. Live in a sub $700k house with a $4k PITI. No family money and late starts to high earning careers (grad school for both). Our friends with family down payments in their 20s have MUCH more expensive homes relative to our salaries.

this is exactly us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I must be doing something wrong. My household income is $300K and with two small kids, I want to live in a good public school zone. It feels impossible! My mortgage budget is $4k…which is maybe a $600K home. My research says if I want a good school with that budget, I’m buying an outdated 1500sq ft home with 7.5 foot ceilings. I need to leave Montgomery county!

That is the kind of house we have. Slowly fixing it up including vaulting ceilings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I must be doing something wrong. My household income is $300K and with two small kids, I want to live in a good public school zone. It feels impossible! My mortgage budget is $4k…which is maybe a $600K home. My research says if I want a good school with that budget, I’m buying an outdated 1500sq ft home with 7.5 foot ceilings. I need to leave Montgomery county!

You can get a decent house for under $900k in Wootton cluster. If you put 20% down you’re looking at a 5-6k monthly mortgage. A house near me just sold for $760k.

Maryland is shredding local zononh authority, so the Wootton cluster will probably go downhill in the next decade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Plenty of people bring home 30k a month, Like, everyone on my block does.

Tech? Law? What do they do here? I'm so confuse by the salaries in this area.

Assuming the 30k refers to monthly HHI, then yes, plenty of HHIs in DC make 360k a year. I'm a manager at a professional services firm and make 160k including bonus. VPs are 200k, senior VPs 250k and it goes up from there.

You can see how a manager married to a VP can have a 360k HHI. My coworker is married to a lawyer who is not in BIGLAW but even then they must still have 400k+ in HHI.

Marrying smartly goes a very long way.

FWIW, $360K/year is only about $21K after taxes but before deductions for insurance, etc. Are people really comfortable tossing $8K of that into a mortgage payment? As for the professions delivering those salaries, I clearly need to restructure my job search because I've never seen jobs pay that well in DC. NY, SF, LA yes, but DC metro outside of big law, no.

We make more like 450HHI and contribute to just about every retirement savings, stock, and stock purchase plan available. For the first two months of the year my DH's take home pay was about $3,500 for the month, and he makes $360K. A lot of that is bonus-tax related but take-home aren't always huge for higher incomes (and that is a blessing).

Anyway, we feel comfortable with a mortgage (insurance, etc.. all in) under 5K. Our goals are to save additional cash each month on top of the savings that are directly taken from our checks. Many months we do not that do because homeownership and kids are hella expensive. We have no debt, attend public schools, no one in college yet. It's just that once you reach a certain standard of living with travel sports and vet emergencies and $250 here to fly to visit mom and $800 there to replace the brakes on a 5 year old car and $1500 here to get a new computer stuff adds up. Of course people can live and save on less income, but spending is all relative, and having a mortgage that is below your means is always the right choice unless you're mega rich.

+1 It's all the one-off expenses that eat up a good chunk of money. You can't plan for all of them, so you just need to understand that they'll come up and you'll have to pay. You might have an easy 6 months but then you need a new fridge and major car repair and the dog gets sick and needs $3,500 worth of visits all in one month.

We always kept our mortgages below our means and it's been great not having to stress about all the one-off expenses as they come up.

[Anonymous]

Why no matter where you go on this website does a simple question turn into a slew of trolling and insults.