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Thinking of jumping into the condo / home buying market after years of renting. Finally feel confident with my professional situation and where I live. Annual income has been $45,000 the last 2 or 3 years and have been paying 500-600 a month in rent for the last 2 years and feel ok doing that. Single with no kids so I don't need a lot of room but I'm curious as to how much someone on my income could afford mortgage wise.
I would just keep renting. You really have no need for a house right now. You can buy something small but it would not be a little nicer than what you live in now.
ZIP code of where you want to buy? Neighborhood in that ZIP?
How much money have you saved up for the:
down payment
closing costs
immediate maintenance issues?
How long do you plan to live in the house?
Don't forget, not only will you have the mortgage payment, but the homeowner's insurance, taxes, all utilities, all repairs... Owning a home is great! I was 21 when we bought our first home. There's been plenty of times I wished we rented instead, lol. :-)
Difficult question to answer but the old rule of thumb was 3-4 times your income. I would say that typically you could afford a home in the $140K range.
There is qualifying for a mortgage and actually being able to afford to pay for it. You should make a budget of how much you want to spend on your total housing expense: mortgage, taxes, insurance, HOA.
If you want to only spend as much as you rent for, you'd get a loan for about $80,000 depending on downpayment and interest rate and property taxes.
The condo i'm looking at is being advertised at $58k. In the next 2 weeks will begin shopping around for a mortgage. I have a credit union I belong to back in my hometown with whom i financed my jeep through back in '08 for 18k and paid it off with 3 months left on the loan so i'm good in their eyes. Condo complex was built back in the early 70s and is 2 bed 1.5 bath. zip code is 29681 in simpsonville, south carolina. neighborhood is old but safe.
been renting now for 10 years and really would like to stop tossing money down the drain on rent with no equity being built.
Difficult question to answer but the old rule of thumb was 3-4 times your income. I would say that typically you could afford a home in the $140K range.
i've heard that old rule of thumb and while i'd love to be able to expand my price spectrum i just don't see myself being able to afford something in 120-150k range. but others i've talked to offline have said the same thing.
Don't forget, not only will you have the mortgage payment, but the homeowner's insurance, taxes, all utilities, all repairs... Owning a home is great! I was 21 when we bought our first home. There's been plenty of times I wished we rented instead, lol. :-)
the repairs and what not are what scare me the most thats why i'm probably looking at something with very little property, something condoish with no yard to mow haha. although being from the midwest it would bring back some fond memories.
Depending on what you have to put down it'll vary.
A good rule of thumb to keep your monthly payment in sync with the rest of your income is to never carry a mortgage that is more than twice your annual income. This should include property tax/insurance.
With the numbers you gave that'd be a 90k mortgage plus whatever you can put down (20% isrecommended so you can go conv and avoid the FHA fee's/hassles).
Last edited by tommy64; 04-06-2014 at 04:30 PM..
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