$1 million mortgage should be no problem at all.

Hello OP! I am 14:14. You and I sound a lot alike in terms of priorities! You may be younger than I am too. (DH and i are both 43 years old.) When I read hte posts on DCUM, I tend to come away feeling bad about spending on occasion.

This is the OP - to the 14:14 poster. We have about $1k in childcare costs (extended day), $1k for cars (car payments and insurance), $500 for law school loans, and then standard expenses (food, utilities, etc) each month. Our savings is low, for sure, and we know that. We need to save more and soon! For better or worse, we've chosen to enjoy life more than save for life. That means we travel a lot (Europe with kids once/year) and do eat out. But, we don't have gym memberships, we buy clothes once/year (from the outlet malls) and don't have fancy furniture, electronics, cars etc. We're always amazed when we learn that people spend $6k on a couch - ours from Ikea works fine. Part of our low savings is also the big law school debt I incurred and the fact that we paid for our wedding ourselves ($10k) - between the two, probably around $150k.

Anonymous wrote:Don't exceed 40% gross income. The people above are annoying because they probably had a larger downpayment resulting from housing appreciation by buying before 2003.

That would be incorrect.

I am the pp who said 1.2m. I would back in to the payment amount (with property taxes) and make sure that seems comfortable. Maybe try it out for a few months while living in your current house. The jumbo conforming amount has gone down, so I would probably talk to a few lenders about how you will structure the mortgage(s) and current rates for each.

Anonymous wrote:This is OP - the purchase price for our current home was $900k and we feel we can go past that, fairly easily. $2M, probably not but my gut says at $1.2M, we'd be ok. Another option we're thinking about is doing a remodel on our current home but then we'd need a construction loan of $200k, at least.

Avoid additions, try to buy a new construction home or one built in 1990 or newer.

New poster here. OP -- this gives me hope. Our HHI is just a bit lower ($325K), and we are hoping to either put an addition on our small house or buy a bigger house. Our current mortgage is $300,000 (small house), but we're now in a position where we'd like to get more space. It's good to know someone with a similar HHI can swing a mortgage of $700K or more.

Just curious -- do you have babysitting costs as part of your expenses? (That's a big one for us at the moment because our HHI is from two full-time workers.) We've got two kids --6 and 8. My DH is happy with our little house, but I would really love more space. (Also OP, not to make you feel bad at all, but your retirement savings seem a bit low for your HHI. Is that becaude you have a pension in the future?) Thank you!

This is OP - the purchase price for our current home was $900k and we feel we can go past that, fairly easily. $2M, probably not but my gut says at $1.2M, we'd be ok. Another option we're thinking about is doing a remodel on our current home but then we'd need a construction loan of $200k, at least.

I would try to stay at the $910,000 mark.

Anonymous wrote:2 million

http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/new-house-calculator.aspx?wages=350000&investment=0&alimony=0&other=0&downPayment=250000&term=30&interestRate=4&homeownerInsurance=1500&realstateTax=11000&carPayment=0&alimonyPaid=0&creditcardPayment=0&otherDebts=0&show=true

LOL my bad, i inputted 350,000 a month

It's more like 900k mortgage.
Available mortgage payment: $ 3158.09
Affordable home amount: $ 911498.15

http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/new-house-calculator.aspx?wages=11666&investment=0&alimony=0&other=0&downPayment=250000&term=30&interestRate=4&homeownerInsurance=1500&realstateTax=11000&carPayment=0&alimonyPaid=0&creditcardPayment=0&otherDebts=0&show=true

2 million

http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/new-house-calculator.aspx?wages=350000&investment=0&alimony=0&other=0&downPayment=250000&term=30&interestRate=4&homeownerInsurance=1500&realstateTax=11000&carPayment=0&alimonyPaid=0&creditcardPayment=0&otherDebts=0&show=true

Don't exceed 40% gross income. The people above are annoying because they probably had a larger downpayment resulting from housing appreciation by buying before 2003.

$1.1m would be my number. We are at $300k and have a $350k mortgage.

$1.2m

With an HHI of $350k and a potential downpayment of $250k, what is the max house price we should be looking at without stretching ourselves too far? We have minimal debt and about $400k in retirement savings (not as good as we'd like) Right now, we're in a house with a $700k mortgage and feel fine with that. We also finally have kids in public school so are free of daycare/nanny expenses. We want to stay in our neighborhood but would like a house that's more updated with a little bit more space. Thanks.