Will my wife and I be able to afford a home? (Houston: foreclosed, insurance)

[Poltracker]

I wanted to add that you can count on 2 things in the life of being a homeowner:
1) taxes will go up
2) insurance will go up
Those two things can sink someone who is walking the knife's edge with their mortage payments. Another reason why there are alot of foreclosures. Peolpe didn't figure ever increasing costs of home ownership in their long-term plans.

[usc619]

300k is going to be more like 10k a yr. in taxes alone. 3.3 is about the avg. in Houston/surrounding areas.

[icon7]

Best thing to do is rent a apartment. get more education, training, skills, etc. 50K a year is not much. I would not even look beyond a 100K home, because of all the other expenses that will creep up. Good Luck...don't get taken by the "used" car salesman brokers.

[Hayato]

Originally Posted by rajuncajun

Just want to post my "Real World" numbers to bring the OP back to reality.
- Live in Pearland
- 30yr fixed rate is 6.75%
- Financed $310K
- Monthly mortgage including escrow (taxes/ins) is $3,400
- $800 annual HOA fees
- Electricity in the summer at peak $300/month
- Water bill $150/month

So, for a summer month this house is costing me around $3,900. Today's rate of 5% would knock off about $300/month, so if you won't have trouble paying, in any given month, $3,600 w/o losing sleep then knock yourself out.

you dont spend money on the yard/garden during spring/summer?!?

[rajuncajun]

Yep all year, $30/wk. I just wanted to list direct costs that are unavoidable. If you want to go down that road then yep it would increase even more.

[recuerdeme]

Originally Posted by parisby

I am currently doing contract work for the past 5-6 years, and my wife has a full time job as a teacher. We been wanting to get a house and move in together within the next 3-4 years. We are trying to save up some money to put a down payment on. My salary is about 20k and hers is about 30k. We were looking at houses around the 300k area. Will we be able to handle this with our salary? Please help. I never bought or owned a home before and this will be a very big step for us so we just want to get some opinions and advice before we make the move.

That would be living beyond your means.
20K + 30K != 300K house
Unless you guys have some serious money saved up... come frrom money?

[chris_ut]

If you guys go through with this deal everyone is gonna make a lot of money off you and you get nothing but trouble. I predict you will get foreclosed on within 2 years. That means the Real Estate Agents make 9k off the deal, the mortgage broker gets about 6k, then the bank gets your 60k down payment plus the 60k you pay for the mortgage over the 2 years so even if they sell the 300k house for 250k in foreclosure they make 70k off the deal. You guys in return get a bunch of stress to pay your bills then finally a ruined credit score and losing everything.

[coffeebeat]

This thread is a few months old, but I thought I would add my 2 cents also since my fiance and I are in the process of closing on our first home.

First off my fiance makes about $50K annually alone, I don't work. So we are sort of in the same financial boat. All the professionals we talked to in our home buying process recommended NOT going over $140K on a house price(and thats with a 10% down payment, also his credit is good, but not spotless). We also used those nifty mortgage calculators that can be found on the har. com website. Also, if anything goes wrong with his job, I can get a job to help out (if I dont already have one). We also hardly go out to eat (maybe once or twice a month max), never take vacations, and only go out of town once every 3 months or so. So I would consider us fairly conservative as well(other things we do, but this isnt the place to list them, lol ) .

With all the info we have obtained and things we have learned on our home hunting process (it has taken 2 years or so of collecting info and comparing things and asking professionals questions until we were sure we were ready), I would definitely go with everyone else on NOT getting a $300k house, and not even a $200k house. I have read and heard many foreclosure horror stories about people being late with one payment and having their phones ringing off the hook and people knocking on their doors saying that their home was going to be taken away if they didnt pay immediatly. I am afraid of this happening to you if you bite off more than you can chew.

If you still plan on having 20% down, I would say not to go over $150k. There are a lot of very nice houses you can get with that amount! Especially since the foreclosure boom. I have seen houses with 3500 sq ft for around that price, although I find that excessive for a starter house, lol.

Also, when you apply for a mortgage loan they will TELL you how much you qualify for and will give you a good faith estimate that tallies up everything and tells you how much a month you would pay for just the house. Remember there are many other things as other ppl have listed, that you have to add to that price though. Good luck!

[marykate1]

Hi parisby,

I do not understand why you are looking for a house 300K. This is too much for your salary. My husband and I make good money but out cap was under 200K.

You also need to understand that there are many other expenses in the house. The repairs, HOA, insurance, garbage, water, electricity, gas. These things adds up!

[asonnier]

Yoiu probably wouldn't be able to get pre-qualified for $300,000, even with your 20% down. 150,000 is probably a good start. As your salaries increase you could always trade up.