Anonymous wrote:PP again. Closing costs are a huge chunk of change. Here is an example I just found on the web for a $750K purchase: http://www.homefinders.com/good-faith-estimate.html. Ours are more by a few thousand b/c our house is $900K.

Oops. The link I included doesn't work if you keep a period at the end. Try this instead: http://www.homefinders.com/good-faith-estimate.html

PP again. Closing costs are a huge chunk of change. Here is an example I just found on the web for a $750K purchase: http://www.homefinders.com/good-faith-estimate.html. Ours are more by a few thousand b/c our house is $900K.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:17:20, we are in exactly your shoes income-wise. Also have one parent home and the other working and no debt. We have 1 kid in preschool this year, will be 2 next year; oldest goes public. What does that $800k work out to as a mortgage payment? I was thinking that we'd want a mortgage more around $400k, but maybe I'm underestimating?

I'm not 17:20, but a different PP. We are about to close on a $750K mortgage ($900K house, putting 20% down). Our PI (principal and interest) monthly payment will be $3600 (i.e. before adding taxes and home owners insurance--add those in and it's $4600/mo). That's at 4.0% on the first and 4.125% on the second; excellent credit, $400K HHI. At the same rates, your PI on an $800K mortgage would be slightly more than that (not sure what your taxes would be, depends on where you're buying).

If you're purchasing a $900k house, and putting 20% down ($180k), why is your mortgage $750k?

Closing costs and RE prepaids (transfer taxes, recordation fees, settlement costs, title insurance, lender fees, etc.). They amount to approx. $24K. Mortage will actually be approx. $744K (I was rounding).

House would probably list for $800k, purchased 15 Years ago for $350k. No mortgage. Also have parental home, again fully paid for, that would propably list at $250k.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:17:20, we are in exactly your shoes income-wise. Also have one parent home and the other working and no debt. We have 1 kid in preschool this year, will be 2 next year; oldest goes public. What does that $800k work out to as a mortgage payment? I was thinking that we'd want a mortgage more around $400k, but maybe I'm underestimating?

I'm not 17:20, but a different PP. We are about to close on a $750K mortgage ($900K house, putting 20% down). Our PI (principal and interest) monthly payment will be $3600 (i.e. before adding taxes and home owners insurance--add those in and it's $4600/mo). That's at 4.0% on the first and 4.125% on the second; excellent credit, $400K HHI. At the same rates, your PI on an $800K mortgage would be slightly more than that (not sure what your taxes would be, depends on where you're buying).

If you're purchasing a $900k house, and putting 20% down ($180k), why is your mortgage $750k?

This post doesn't make a lot of sense to me. OP, are you deciding how much to spend based on how much other people in your HHI spend?

Anonymous wrote:17:20, we are in exactly your shoes income-wise. Also have one parent home and the other working and no debt. We have 1 kid in preschool this year, will be 2 next year; oldest goes public. What does that $800k work out to as a mortgage payment? I was thinking that we'd want a mortgage more around $400k, but maybe I'm underestimating?

Maybe you are. We have a HHI of just under $250k, and we carry a 400K mortgage. Save for retirement, college, two in daycare, pay student loan, take nice vacations, spend on the house, and we still have some left over to save. I'm not saying you can or should go up to $800k, but I am pretty fiscally conservative and I think I would go a bit higher than $400k if I had a $325HHI.

Anonymous wrote:17:20, we are in exactly your shoes income-wise. Also have one parent home and the other working and no debt. We have 1 kid in preschool this year, will be 2 next year; oldest goes public. What does that $800k work out to as a mortgage payment? I was thinking that we'd want a mortgage more around $400k, but maybe I'm underestimating?

I'm not 17:20, but a different PP. We are about to close on a $750K mortgage ($900K house, putting 20% down). Our PI (principal and interest) monthly payment will be $3600 (i.e. before adding taxes and home owners insurance--add those in and it's $4600/mo). That's at 4.0% on the first and 4.125% on the second; excellent credit, $400K HHI. At the same rates, your PI on an $800K mortgage would be slightly more than that (not sure what your taxes would be, depends on where you're buying).

Anonymous wrote:Our household income is just above $400,000.

We paid $350,000 for our house 10 years ago; it's worth about $750,000 now. No mortgage.

OP here. Nicely done!

Anonymous wrote:Our household income is just above $400,000.

We paid $350,000 for our house 10 years ago; it's worth about $750,000 now. No mortgage.

Wow. Nice!

Our household income is just above $400,000.

We paid $350,000 for our house 10 years ago; it's worth about $750,000 now. No mortgage.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1,325,000 in NWDC.

Did OP ask where? You DC people are such snobs.

Not the OP or either of the PPs, but I wouldn' be surprised if location partially explains the wide range of answers. We're in this income range and have a small $700K house in NWDC that feels more cramped each year as the kids get get older, so at some point we'll look into buying a bigger house in the $1 million plus range. That's a sensible choice for our family - it makes sense for us to live in the city because the shorter commute means more time with the kids, and it makes sense to spend $ 1 million to get a house we'd be more comfortable in and that's still within our means. But if we worked and lived in the outer suburbs, I think we'd probably make different choices --$700K would be plenty to get a decent-sized house and we wouldn't get much value out of living in a huge house, so there'd be no point to spending more just because we could. Another variable is family size -- if we had only one kid, I think we'd probably stay in our small $700K house, because again, we'd get more value out of putting our money into things other than extra square footage. In other words, I would guess that the posters who bought less house than they could afford had good, individualized reasons for doing so, and I would guess that the posters who bought at the top of the responsible price range also had good, individualized reasons for doing so. Everyone's cost-benefit analysis is going to be different (which is another reason OP shouldn't be relying on these posts to decide her own price point, although it's interesting to see what other financially-similarly-situated families are doing).

HHI 430k, mortgage is 400k, original house price 590k, current house value 750k.

400k HHI. Bought the house for 700k a few years ago.Income was the same

17:20, we are in exactly your shoes income-wise. Also have one parent home and the other working and no debt. We have 1 kid in preschool this year, will be 2 next year; oldest goes public. What does that $800k work out to as a mortgage payment? I was thinking that we'd want a mortgage more around $400k, but maybe I'm underestimating?