15% of net base pay (will be lower once we hit the SS max for the year). Bought in the fall.

18.5 percent gross. But we just bought and getting into the market was $$$.

PITI 16% of gross income

Anonymous wrote:Wow, did all of you buy 20 years ago? We have a reasonably priced house, make $250k, and are at 18% of gross which fits in our budget very comfortably.

We bought a small rowhouse in need of a lot of maintenance all the way out in Frederick.

Ours is 10% of gross, 20% of net, we only make 150k. I often wish we'd stretched more for an SFH, especially since the cost of maintenance/non-updates is pretty high, but we were concerned about being comfortable on one income, and now we're able to max out retirement accounts for the first time ever.

PITI is 20 percent of gross. We've both gotten decent raises since we bought; it felt a lot less affordable just a few years ago. Now seems fine. We put 20 percent down and invested a ton of cash we made selling our previous home, which (this last month or two notwithstanding) has been a much better use of the money than a larger down payment and a lower monthly PITI would have been.

Single parent, so one income. HHI is $375,000 mortgage with PITI is $3241.50, so under 10%, at a 2.75% rate. Bought house at 1M, is now valued at 1.2 mortgage is $580,000

Our mortgage is 34% of our take home pay.

That would be manageable on its own, but the X factor is childcare. We pay 44% of our take home pay for childcare. We're in the thick of it (two kids in full time care) so this is the worst 18 months we'll ever have on this cost). But it means we have only 22% of our income left over for other expenses, so outside of mortgage and childcare, we live very, very frugally.

7% of gross. But the plan was always for me to have the flexibility to leave my job, which is 75% of our income. If I thought I'd make this much forever we would have spent more.

When we bought in 2016 it was 13%. Raises + refinancing drove it down.

I think 25% of net is the highest I could stretch but I know I'm very risk averse.

Our full monthly payment is 28% of our net income (after taxes, health premiums and other benefits, 401k).

Anonymous wrote:9% of gross for our PITI. Our income has doubled since we bought 10 years ago. That amount allows us to travel and save towards our goals, and we like our neighborhood and schools. We could afford a lot more house, but then the increased expenses associated with it would suck. Like bigger utilities, cleaning, yard work, maintenance.

exactly.. and btw, when your zip code is in an expensive area, workers will charge you more.

12% of gross, 20% of net. We bought last year with 10% down.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on your goal, risk level.

Ours is 5% of gross. We also want to be able to pay the mortgage from one income. But, our HHI is about $300K so it kind of skews things. We're also older (50s), but even in our 40s, we didn't want the mortgage rope around our necks, so we bought below what our mortgage loan was approved for, and put a large downpayment.

When did you buy, what was your down payment, and are you in the DC area? Because a mortgage payment of $1250/month around here is so unusual it's virtually useless for discussion purposes.

Ours is 10% of gross, which is ~$500k. $750k mortgage at 2.625%. PIT is around $4100/month; that does not include insurance.

PP here.. agree. that's why I mentioned our ages. We put down a very large down payment because we could.

But even when we bought our first house in our 30s, the mortgage was only about 5 to 7% of our income. The mortgage was $500K, monthly payment (just mortgage) was about $2300 or so. Our HHI back then was higher -- $400K.

I am very risk averse. I grew up lower income, and lived through the dotcom bomb, the mortgage meltdown, great recession. I got laid off early in my career once. I wanted to be able to survive on one income (and there was a time when we had to do that). We're older than most here, and ageism is real in the workplace.

Living this way has enabled us to save a lot, and we're on track to be able to retire early. We could not do this had we had a larger mortgage.

Our income varies so much. One year it’s $700k and the next it’s 300k, so of course our net income varies. Our total mortgage with taxes and everything else included is $4800 a month.

Anonymous wrote:Ours is about 15% of our gross income.

Same. I wanted it to be less but it’s so hard to get a SFH in the area we wanted for less.

I'm the 12:24 poster....our PITI is 14.5% of net income.