Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone on this site has a HHI of $500k–$1mil?

lol

Generally there are to people who own SFHs in this area: high earning people in their 30s and government workers 50+ who bought when a now $1.4 million home when it was $200k.

I am 51, a single income-earner, have never had an income over $180k, and bought our close-in $530k SFH in 2018. Refinanced three times down to the current 2.62% interest rate.

I saved all of the money for the 20% down payment between 2004 and 2013 and let the market do its thing.

Paid $620k with a HHI of approx $280k in 2016 with a 3.25% interest rate. Refinanced to 2.9% during Covid. House now worth $950k. Current HHI is $560k. We’ve outgrown our space, but due to our interest rate and excellent (K-12) school cluster, we’re staying put unless there’s a dramatic rate drop.

Just closed on 900K house with 25% down. HHI is 400K

Bought in 2013 for $1.2 million. Put $750k down (we sold both our condos). HHI currently around 300k not including bonuses which vary from year to year.

Anonymous wrote:$6 million house in DC - $6 million HHI

Troll

Paid 319k in Chevy Chase with about 200k in income. And this was 1998.

200k in 2014, needed renovating and put in another 120k. HHI 200-250k. Now worth about 750-800k.

$230K in 1998. Our HHI was probably $80K at the time. I became a SAHM four years after we bought the house. We've refinanced a couple of time, currently paying 3.5%. House is worth $850K and our HHI is now $230K.

$6 million house in DC - $6 million HHI

$1.05m with about $325 HHI in 2016 at 3.25%. Did a cash out refinance (took out at least $100k for a renovation) in 2020 at 2.5% and PITI was lower than before. HHI now around $400k. House worth around $1.8m. We know we have to stay here forever, but we're good with it.

$425K in 2017 on a then $160K HHI. HHI is now $240K.

300K in 1998. HHI was 120K. We have taken out a lot of equity to invest in the stock market since we got a 2.7% interest rate after a few years. MoCo. Inexpensive neighborhood because of low performing public schools. My kids however got into magnet schools so everything worked out great. HHI is 450K now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Paid $950K in 2024 with 20% down so mortgage is $750K or so. HHI $700-800K. $6K PITI due to 7% interest rate despite mortgage principal being under our annual HHI : )

why not refinance? or just pay cash? that feels crazy to me! our HHI is less than half of that and paid 870k in 2020 and refinanced to 2.35 6 months after buying. our PITI is $3600 for a house very similar in cost to yours (currently valued at 1.3). if i had that sort of mortgage and income i'd pay it off!

A couple reasons in case helpful for others:

- Refinance rates haven’t dropped below 6.5% since when we bought except for a few days here and there and each time we haven’t been fast enough to catch it. And to be fair, the lowest we’ve seen for refinance is 6% - which traditional refinance math would tell you still isn’t worth it to refinance from 7% to that.

- We’re saving/investing $300K or more annually and index funds dramatically outperform real estate in the long run so it makes since to load up our investments to take advantage of compounding (we’re early 30s so have a long road of appreciation ahead of us). If we were in our 50s or 60s we’d probably pull the cash to pay it off entirely but right now our money is working MUCH harder for us in the market even with a 7% mortgage rate. When you do the math on 10 year ROI between $750K in VOO vs our house in N Arlington it’s not even in the same universe.

Anonymous wrote:HHI 360k
Paid 680k in 2015, worth more now. Refinanced during Covid to a "now you have to stay here until you die" interest rate

Hah! I laughed. I bought in January 2021 with a 2.7% rate. Was very conservative as it was COVID and we'd just moved back from overseas. Was probably the biggest financial mistake of my life as could have easily gone up another 25% and we'd be sitting pretty now. Neighborhood is great, house is too small, and we do feel trapped by the mortgage rate. The plans to sell in 3-4 years has slowly turned to we're staying here till we can pay cash for our dream house, which won't happen till we retire.

Anonymous wrote:HHI is $600k and likely going down to $400k or so in a few years. Have 400K in the bank. What can we afford?

😩