It amazes me how many people on this board must be terrible with money and waste money on who knows what. If you are one of those people, then you shouldn't buy that much house with your income. If you are good with money and don't go crazy spending money you will be fine. Our HHI is 170K with 2 kids and we just bought a 700K house (550K mortgage, 2,900 PITI). It is about $500 more per month than our last house, so we are comfortable we can afford it.

OP, I'm sure you'll be fine and when you look at it from a monthly income standpoint, it looks like you can make it work. However, a 710K mortgage over 30 years even at a great rate still has you paying quite a bit in interest over the life of the loan. We made the choice when buying a house to set our budget at what we could afford with a 15 year mortgage because the principal is paid down so much faster on a 15 year loan. So much of your payment is going to interest in those first 10 years on a 30 year mortgage.

A few years ago when we bought our house, our HHI was ~300,000. The first mortgage broker we talked to assured us he could get is into something for "close to a million"
DH and I had run our numbers and we were comfortable with something more like 500,000.
But we knew that was relatively conservative - we didn't want to be totally house poor, and we wanted to have some buffer in case one of us lost our job or we decided to be a sahp.

You've made the lifestyle decision that a house you love is one of your highest priorities. That's a totally reasonable decision! It means you'll have to give up some other things that other people would prioritize more highly. That's OK.

I think you’re fine. Your HHI is likely to go up and the value of the home will likely increase as well. You can always sell the house if needed. Good luck!

Don't worry OP! Budget for a while, and you will be fine. Just don't have another kid, I guess.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So a person making over 150k can't even afford an old house in the dmv with good schools? What about the singles making 50 to 80k? What can they afford? A shack or tent in the woods here?

They have roommates or live in affordable housing. https://housing.arlingtonva.us/income-rent-limits/

This is not true. The singles making 50-80k can afford a condo, and a person making 150k can afford a house with good schools. You just might not like the commute to DC - like it might be out in Fairfax where I live and not a super updated gorgeous magazine-worthy house. But you can do it. I find people on here are often a little dramatic about their prospects.

I'm the PP who said people in this range have roommates or are in affordable housing. I moved here in 2009 with a $50K salary and lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 other roommates. This allowed me to pay my student loans aggressively. There is no way I could have purchased a condo.

Well you could have, you just had student loans and chose to pay them off aggressively. I was speaking in general terms about what someone can afford in the DC suburbs. I was making around $70k when I bought a condo for 3% down not even 5 years ago. There are still plenty of those available in the suburbs for those making regular incomes.

Anonymous wrote:Ouch! Our take home is around 300k, we are looking for something under $550k

Unless you have other significant obligations, you can go bigger without being house poor. We're around the same HHI and very comfortably bought a $725K house about five years ago. We did 20% down and with a recent refi to lower our rate more than a full percentage point, PITI is $2900, which is around 20-25% of take home. We also have a well-stocked emergency fund, college funds, and retirement accounts. The only time we had to belt-tighten was when we paid for several years of $40K/year SN private school when public completely failed our special needs kid. We don't live high on the hog, but we're not living paycheck to paycheck or struggling to make ends meet. You won't find me in the cars forum bragging about my 20-year-old beater car with 300K miles on it to afford my house.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So a person making over 150k can't even afford an old house in the dmv with good schools? What about the singles making 50 to 80k? What can they afford? A shack or tent in the woods here?

They have roommates or live in affordable housing. https://housing.arlingtonva.us/income-rent-limits/

This is not true. The singles making 50-80k can afford a condo, and a person making 150k can afford a house with good schools. You just might not like the commute to DC - like it might be out in Fairfax where I live and not a super updated gorgeous magazine-worthy house. But you can do it. I find people on here are often a little dramatic about their prospects.

I'm the PP who said people in this range have roommates or are in affordable housing. I moved here in 2009 with a $50K salary and lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 other roommates. This allowed me to pay my student loans aggressively. There is no way I could have purchased a condo.

Anonymous wrote:We weren’t comfortable with more than a $200k house on a HHI of $100,000/yr so that would be a big no from us. But we are resisting the two income trap and live in the Midwest.

You can’t rent a studio apartment in DC for less than $1500/mo so maybe you should stick to commenting on Midwest message boards?

Interested in how much is in those 401Ks, emergency fund, and 529s.

Even if kids will go in state, it's still not cheap, and with your HHI and mortgage (and as a fed the income probably won't go up significantly), you won't be paying out of pocket but also won't be getting need based aid.

OP it sounds like you're both overextended on the house and not planning well financially for your future. You cannot rely on SS and the pension isn't going to cover everything.

Ouch! Our take home is around 300k, we are looking for something under $550k

Our HHI that much and we got a 300K mortgage, we put over 200K down. Our mortgage payment is 1800 with insurance and taxes.
If you 3800 payment with the taxes? I presume so, but if it not I would not want to be in your position.

So no deductions for health insurance? Or are you calling that taxes?

Am I adding this up, half of your HHI is your mortgage? Take home, that is.
In that case, you have 4k per month for everything. How much are utilities, and your other expenses? 4K is not a lot in the DMV to live off of, pay bills.
I hope you have great cars and no car loans or leases.
Shop at Aldi, I guess.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So a person making over 150k can't even afford an old house in the dmv with good schools? What about the singles making 50 to 80k? What can they afford? A shack or tent in the woods here?

They have roommates or live in affordable housing. https://housing.arlingtonva.us/income-rent-limits/

This is not true. The singles making 50-80k can afford a condo, and a person making 150k can afford a house with good schools. You just might not like the commute to DC - like it might be out in Fairfax where I live and not a super updated gorgeous magazine-worthy house. But you can do it. I find people on here are often a little dramatic about their prospects.