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Are there any here who are potential first time home buyers who are planning to start a family? Are you both higher income earners (assume "higher" income is north of $75,000/yr for this debate) and going to stay that way or is one of you going to stay at home and lose one income? How are you thinking about handling daycare?
What type of first time home are you planning to buy? How long have you saved up for a down payment and how much (%) do you expect to put down? Did the down payment come as a result of jointly saving after your marriage or was it the result of one person bringing in a large down payment into the marriage or was it both of you bringing in/contributing equal amounts?
Are you basing your affordability only on 1 income or are you stretching it to 2 incomes?
Are there any here who are potential first time home buyers who are planning to start a family?
Husband and I began looking at our first home purchase during the housing boom. No kids at the time, but we now have 2 wonderful rugrats and are currently in escrow to buy our first house, so you can say we are one of the lucky ones to be able to buy or as some people may point out, we are one of the foolish ones! We are buying out of necessity.
Are you both higher income earners (assume "higher" income is north of $75,000/yr for this debate) and going to stay that way or is one of you going to stay at home and lose one income? Combined income >75k, but while I think we may be upper middle, I feel we are just middle class. Compared to friends, we are one of the few to have no debt and a lot of savings...but no house!
We always planned for me to keep my job after kids came, because of the job perks and because I didn't want my husband to shoulder the full responsibility of supporting the family. We also wanted to be able to eat out and buy things when we wanted to. It's tough being on one income, but it's also hard to be a working mom.
I would earn more in the for-profit arena, but the benefits at my job were too generous to give up.
How are you thinking about handling daycare? Even before I was married, I knew I could bring my kids to work, so when they came, the babies came to the office, then off to a nearby preschool at 3 years of age. 2nd born came to work also, but was more active, so it was harder to get work done. Then office closed down and workers were sent home to work. Big blessing to work from home, but hard to juggle the boy, so as soon as he turned 2 (qualifying age for preschool), I sent him off. First it was 2 days a week, then 3, then full-time! The kids are both in the same school, so very convenient. Preschool is about $500/month. Kinder was half-off last year at $250/month and 1st grade still discounted this year at $350/month. I expect next year to be full price private education at $500/month.
What type of first time home are you planning to buy? During the housing boom when we were single, we wanted to spend $350k, but that only got us a 1 or 2 bedroom co-op in Santa Ana's Floral Park (I think). Nice area, but not good deal.
We looked on and off. Got approved for $650k or so a few years ago. Who was crazy enough to loan me that for a house? Who was crazy enough to spend that much? Ha. We still wanted $350k for a house, which we could actually get then, but they were houses only along freeways, next to busy streets, etc. Not ideal at all. Stopped looking after we couldn't get the houses we wanted.
We are now spending over the $350k we intended to get in a better area. House we are buying is 4 beds and family room, in great condition and in a pretty sought after neighborhood. We will probably die in this house.
How long have you saved up for a down payment We had the down payment for a $350k house when we were married, but have been saving more and more each year as the market bubbled up and crashed.
how much (%) do you expect to put down? Plan was always 20% with savings left over for emergencies.
Did the down payment come as a result of jointly saving after your marriage or was it the result of one person bringing in a large down payment into the marriage or was it both of you bringing in/contributing equal amounts? We always had the 70k down payment + closing costs back in the housing boom (mostly money from me prior to marriage). We had to jointly save for the down payment I'm about to hand over soon.
Are you basing your affordability only on 1 income or are you stretching it to 2 incomes? We never did find out the max amount we qualify for, but just for fun, I'm going to ask to see how crazy the figure is. We would never base it on what the lender would approve us for.
We based it on 2 incomes though. He will never have trouble finding work. I could get laid-off and while I don't make much, it would still be a significant chunk missing each month. If I lost my job, I have to do something to bring in some secondary income. We can live off what he makes, but we want security
It would be hard to find work, since I have kids and need to pick them up from school and help somewhat with homework, but I have to, just simply have to do something to find work if I lost my current job. I used to sell on ebay as a hobby and that was profitable. I'm more inclined to sell on etsy than ebay, though. I hear about how hard it is to find low-level work now, but I know there are options out there if you are creative in your search.
What does help is we will still have about 18 months of salary in our savings after the down payment. Some of my job perks were eliminated, but the free ride was great while it lasted We'll look into insurance for those unexpected life-altering events, which I realize can and do happen.
I'm nervous about the cost of home-ownership though, but also excited to have room for the kids, space for the hubby and myself, less stress, better health and a place of my own where I can organize and make my own.
Are there any here who are potential first time home buyers who are planning to start a family? Are you both higher income earners (assume "higher" income is north of $75,000/yr for this debate) and going to stay that way or is one of you going to stay at home and lose one income? How are you thinking about handling daycare?
What type of first time home are you planning to buy? How long have you saved up for a down payment and how much (%) do you expect to put down? Did the down payment come as a result of jointly saving after your marriage or was it the result of one person bringing in a large down payment into the marriage or was it both of you bringing in/contributing equal amounts?
Are you basing your affordability only on 1 income or are you stretching it to 2 incomes?
On a family of four with an combined income of $150-200K and only 20% down payment, I would not be a buyer at the moment. Obviously with a higher income level or (much)higher down payment the equation changes.
At this time, you're basically getting a home or neighborhood where a upper middle class family is out of place.
OTOH you can get a super nice rental in the $2500-3500 range which is just fine for a family with this income level. In fact its rather cheap.
On a family of four with an combined income of $150-200K and only 20% down payment, I would not be a buyer at the moment. Obviously with a higher income level or (much)higher down payment the equation changes.
At this time, you're basically getting a home or neighborhood where a upper middle class family is out of place.
OTOH you can get a super nice rental in the $2500-3500 range which is just fine for a family with this income level. In fact its rather cheap.
Yep. In OC, upper middle class income -> lower middle class house
Yep. In OC, upper middle class income -> lower middle class house
To put it in perspective, there was a 3000sq ft new build modernized home in HB for rent for $5000/mo that went unrented and eventually was take off the market as a rental.
That home would sell at the moment in the $1.5-1.7 million dollar range base not on comps(the comps are already dated IMO and 3 months old is too old in this market) but based on list price of nearby homes.
To put that in futher perspective, that ~$60K a year in rent. Thats 3.5-4% of purchase price and basically never ever happens. Property taxes alone would be in excess of $20K a year. The property owner is losing money(and can't even rent the place out at that price anyway).
This probably doesn't really apply to me but I'll respond anyway.
Are there any here who are potential first time home buyers who are planning to start a family?
My wife and I have been potentially buying a house for the past 7 years, lol. We're also trying to start a family as well.
Are you both higher income earners (assume "higher" income is north of $75,000/yr for this debate) and going to stay that way or is one of you going to stay at home and lose one income?
We are both middle income earners, and we will both work. I think we make a bit on the lower end compared to people in our same age bracket, but we live very comfortably.
How are you thinking about handling daycare?
Family. Not an assumption; we have a very close-knit family (on both sides) that is waiting on grand babies.
What type of first time home are you planning to buy?
A fixer (although these don't exist because they're being snatched up). A more simple 2-3BR, 1-1/2 - 2 Bath older single story home. We're looking to spend around 300,000-450,000(MAX). I really like craftsman style houses, and don't really want to ruin their character, but they are a bit on the small side. So far we're renting a post war 1950's house and it seems the kind of space we're looking for.
How long have you saved up for a down payment and how much (%) do you expect to put down?
...you see, that's the thing...
We've been paying down debt and have been stagnant income-wise until these past couple of years. So we're currently working on a down and even then, probably only 10% if we're lucky in about 4-5 years.
Did the down payment come as a result of jointly saving after your marriage or was it the result of one person bringing in a large down payment into the marriage or was it both of you bringing in/contributing equal amounts?
Generally speaking, I'm the saver, but she makes a bit more than me. So I guess it balances out. And we're obviously going to save the down together.
Are you basing your affordability only on 1 income or are you stretching it to 2 incomes?
I'd like to keep all of our bills to one income eventually. And once our debt is paid off, we'd be very, very close.
My wife and I were asking the same questions to each other 2 years ago when we bought our first house. Though we live in LA, we know many friends in similar situations in OC and IE. Household income for us was around $150k, but we knew that my wife would not work full time once the baby arrived. We limited our housing budget because of this. While we could have been approved for upwards of $700k, that seemed ridiculous to us. We ended up paying about $550k for our house with about 10% down. we pay MIP now, but with recent increase in home prices we're about to appraise that away (which will save us almost $500 per month). It's a nice 3/2 house, about 1600sf and is a good size for us now that we are three. we could still manage well with a second child, but we may lose the home office, which would be a bummer.
my wife was able to negotiate part time work with her employer with an increased hourly wage (she joined my insurance plan). she works 2 days a week with an optional third day that she sometimes exercises on her own, but usually at the request of coworkers. we found a nice day care near our house that watches the baby on these days. we pay $650 per month for him to go 2x per week and any additional days cost of $75 and we feel we are getting a fair price.
our current financial situation doesn't allow much saving, but we both contribute to our respective 401Ks. money is always an issue, but i feel that we live fairly comfortably, certainly doing better than just scraping by. the goal is to have my income go up in the future and and have my wife go back to work full time when the youngest begins school. buying a home on socal is difficult for a middle class family, but it is doable. we don't drive fancy cars or take annual vacations to hawaii, but we still enjoy ourselves. good luck in your new adventure!
You can live in O.C with a household income of $80,000/year; it depends on if you're a high roller or not. For instance, my friend and his wife take home about $5200/month. The bought a home in the Garden Grove area for $400k with 20% down payment and a loan of 4%. Their monthly mortgage payment, property taxes, and insurance (with interest/tax deduction at year-end) come out around $1800/month. Their utilities, internet, food, car gas, car insurance, cell phones etc are around $1000/month. They have $2400/month left for personal spending and savings. Of course, having no other debt really helps.
It's very hard for most singles to get by in O.C but if you have two incomes, you should be able to buy a decent house of at least $400k around here.
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