Doable but definitely a stretch. We make the same and have a $600k mortgage, 2 kids (one who isn’t school age yet), and no other debt. It’s very comfortable. Think about your spending habits and whether you’d be comfortable with that kind of payment and still be able to absorb maintenance and repair costs easily. It would be a hard no for me though.

Anonymous wrote:How old are you and how much do you have saved for retirement? We are in our 40s with that HHI and 2 in public. I must say I love getting to buy whatever frivolous stuff I want because we kept our mortgage low. We also have 2 million net worth which the low mortgage also helped with. Is your dream house worth having to be tighter in other areas...the answer may be yes for you...and that's fine as well.

I have the same attitude.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We can't tell you that. We don't know your spending habits. My husband and I could not do it, but people more frugal than us could definitely do it. We are considering a $650K mortgage on a $250K salary, FWIW.

2nd this. We make 415 and have a mortgage of 2500/month but I spend probably 500/month just at the derm and our groceries are over 2K/month.

Are you that ugly?

Nobody can possibly be uglier than you, PP. I mean, good looking incel is a misnomer.

I would do it if you are contributing the max to retirement and have college savings. If not, its foolish.

I wouldn’t do it because I have 3 kids including 1 still requiring childcare, but I think it’s funny how many people are saying it’s not doable. We have a similar income with a $3,200 mortgage but drop nearly $1,600/month on preschool. Which I think is not very outside the norm for this area. Granted preschool payments don’t last as long as a mortgage, but you also only have to pay for one kid to go to camp, college, do extracurriculars, etc. So you’re probably spending at least 1k less per month (when you average kid expenses together) over a family with 2 kids. I think you could therefore swing the higher mortgage.

Omg no way. Save more money.

OP, We have this exact mortgage and HHI. It is too much when you get to your child's college tuition years. Think that through before you make this choice.

A 25% DTI is perfectly reasonable. As a double Fed couple at the 250k HHI, you have solid job security but limited growth potential. The retirement benefits are huge including the 5% TSP match, the pension, and the ability to keep your healthcare. When trying to compare with standard rules, i think those benefits effectively add another 5-10% to your HHI.

Anonymous wrote:Depends on how much you have saved in non retirement accounts. We have a PITI of 5200 and monthly take home of 17k, and when you add in childcare at $600 a week and extracurricular, and two nice vacations, it’s not tight but we aren’t rolling in it.

You're rolling it in for what when you missed the big chunk of housing market appreciation?

Depends on how much you have saved in non retirement accounts. We have a PITI of 5200 and monthly take home of 17k, and when you add in childcare at $600 a week and extracurricular, and two nice vacations, it’s not tight but we aren’t rolling in it.

Anonymous wrote:Shocked by how many people think this is ok. We make $380k and our mortgage is $3,900/month and I def would not be comfortable with it being any higher than that.

Maybe you have other big expenses like student loan payments? Otherwise I don’t see why that is a problem with reasonable budget planning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We can't tell you that. We don't know your spending habits. My husband and I could not do it, but people more frugal than us could definitely do it. We are considering a $650K mortgage on a $250K salary, FWIW.

2nd this. We make 415 and have a morgage of 2500/month but I spend probably 500/month just at the derm and our groceries are over 2K/month.

Are you that ugly?

Shocked by how many people think this is ok. We make $380k and our mortgage is $3,900/month and I def would not be comfortable with it being any higher than that.

You’ll be fine. Scale back on the cars.

It's certainly doable -- we started a very similar mortgage at a very similar income. BUT it was easier in our case because we also dumped about $400,000 in profit from our previous house into an investment account, and already had nearly twice that saved (thanks in part to an inheritance and in part to retirement accounts). So we didn't think we had to worry about whether we'd be able to afford to save aggressively with lots of our take-home pay devoted to the mortgage. We do max out both 401(k)s and save into 529s, too.