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I have a $200k mortgage and with taxes my payment is approximately $1695. If you include my association fees as I live in a condo my monthly payment all up is $2,015. My taxes are $5600 a year on a $230,000 condo that is 1200 square feet with no land. I have no credit card debt, a modest car payment and other normal expenses. I think that if you make less then $100k a year this would be very difficult...so to answer your question, for a $200k mortgage you should have a min HH income of $100k...in my opinion.
captain - i don't see why it matters to you how much i'm putting down? fwiw, i have alot in savings/current home equity, but not a huge annual HH income b/c wife is no longer working
matters to me? pretty much nothing anybody says here actually matters to me. we are just having a conversation. im just curious why you want to put that much money down. its not something id do and i think i might find your thought process interesting.
ok, well i guess my thought process is that we have a good amount of savings and using some of that to live in a better house for the next 20 years, as opposed to keeping it all for retirement/college/etc would be nice. but after taking a chunk of that $ and putting it towards a house, i dont want to continue to have to dip into it. that way i still have a good amount left in savings and hopefully growing, am living in a nice house, and ideally can still put an additional 10% each month into 401k/538 savings.
You're right not everyone is me OR you. I've been extremely fortunate and have seen my household income more than triple in the last five years and have only had one minor medical issue with my family. You've been lucky enough to recieve generous raises like clockwork.
Some people have not been so lucky in that same time span and their is no guaruntee that you or I will continue to be as luckyas we've been. It's better to leave yourself a little wiggle room than have to struggle with losing your home and destroying your credit at the same time as any other crisis.
Medical bills are one of the top causes of bankruptcy in this country but being stricken with a horrible disease or having a dibilitating accident is hardly on anyone's "to do" list.
you mean destroying one's spine while sleighriding with children, rendering them unable to work, wasn't part of their plan?!
Sigh, no im not going to buy a house by just ballparking it. I'm not quite ready to sell/move yet. For the purposes of this discussion, i was hoping to get a rough ballpark estimate, but apparently that's not feasible. Captain, the mortgage would be 200k but the houes would be 500k+ (putting down more than 50%)
i'd say, if your principle, interest, and taxes is $2100, and comparing it to my situation...$140,000 would be comfortable, less than that doable, but much less conservative, depending on your lifestyle and expenses.
i'd also say - why put that much down when interest rates are around 4%. lol
ok, well i guess my thought process is that we have a good amount of savings and using some of that to live in a better house for the next 20 years, as opposed to keeping it all for retirement/college/etc would be nice. but after taking a chunk of that $ and putting it towards a house, i dont want to continue to have to dip into it. that way i still have a good amount left in savings and hopefully growing, am living in a nice house, and ideally can still put an additional 10% each month into 401k/538 savings.
makes sense. its not a very risky thing to do (especially since prices have dropped a good amount). also, its not like there are so many safe investments these days that you can put your money in that would make it silly to lock up your money in a house.
makes sense. its not a very risky thing to do (especially since prices have dropped a good amount). also, its not like there are so many safe investments these days that you can put your money in that would make it silly to lock up your money in a house.
i think it comes down to personal preference, but with i-rates this low, also factoring in the interest tax deduction, it's pretty easy to out-earn the mortgage interest cost with a pretty safe investment. that's why i wouldn't do excess of 20-25%.
Bob, i was not the original poster. Thats why i was asking about $2100 monthly payments as opposed to $2800. Manderly, i'm looking for rough estimates - as i said i have no debt, have fairly typical bills (cable, cell, utilities), and 2 small children, plenty of reserves for emergencies. no current or imminent health problems. anyway i dont think i need to fill out a detailed budget to get some insight as to what type of HH income can reasonably buy this type of house. A $2100 monthly payment corresponds to roughly a $200,000 mortgage (assuming about 10-11k in property taxes). Does one really need $150,000 annual income to afford a $200k mortgage in NJ? I'm pretty conservative but that still seems very steep to me.
it is harder to say when you talk about putting 50% down because it sort of skews the amount of house you could get ...
if you say put 20% down on a 400k house, prop taxes around 6500 you and insurance are looking at like 2300$/month.
I'm talking about a 550-625k house. what safe investment will easily outearn 5% brady? i personally don't have any confidence that equities will outperform that, they might, they might not. i wouldn't be shocked if their return was negative over the next 5-10 years.
I wasn't trying to bust balls. Its just that one little thing can make a big difference. For example, someone might be putting 15% of their pay in a 401K vs. someone else putting in 5%. That can have a huge impact on how much house they can afford.
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