90K Salary, Mortgage Payment

1300 to 1500. I would stretch just a tad if you think the salary will inch up over time. One other thing to consider- the larger the place, the higher the utilities, so do everything in moderation.

My ex makes about 50k and he has to pay my 1300 mortgage. I have 3 kids which he also pays child suport on. I have no income and i barely make it. I think 90k income with a 1500 mortgage would be fine.

Like I said before in your last post, ee how much "house" you qualify for then halve that. When I was singe I was approved for a 100K mortgage and bought a house for 50K. I would have been eating dog food if my mortgage was double what it was.
Your mortgage payment should be about 25% of his NET income per month. No more. Regardless of the emergency fund that's in place. If you can put down a large down payment to avoid PMI, all the better!
NET means take home pay--after taxes.

You are leaving out a lot of information here and no O. can answer that except you & your husband. Do you have car payments? Do you have credit card payments, are you paying for life insurance, school loans, furniture loans, etc? That is pertinent info to answer this question.
IF you have ZERO other debt (no car pymt, no credit card debt, etc.) then you *might* swing it. Banks will tell you "don't order a pizza every week, cut back on the groceries a bit". If it's to that point--you can't afford it.
Will the mortgage payment allow you to continue funding retirement funds? College funds? You need to look at ALL of that to answer your question!

Combined we pull in under $90K & our mortgage is around $1050/month though we had been approved for nearly double that amount. It's really all in what you're comfortable with & what your other expenses are. I'm always in the "better safe than sorry" camp when it comes to money because I've been laid off due to the economy several times in the past & it's the scariest thing ever even though we knew we could still make the mortgage payment on just hub's money alone.

Would be too high for us. Our income is about $135k and mortgage is $1200. Depends on your spending style and your cost of living in your area. But with three kids, there will always be new cars, braces, glasses, dance, cell phones, computers.....I suppose if you have a very substantial savings to dip into when the fridge goes the day after one of you gets laid off.

tehehe, don't mean to be a downer. Of course it CAN be done, but only you guys know whether it'll work for you or not.

:)

We don't have all of your financial detail here but here are my thoughts...

We do not participate in the escrow. Why let the banks earn interest off your money. Just be self disciplined enough to be ready to pay it when it is due yearly. Our yearly house insurance is pushing $3000 and the yearly taxes are anywhere from $12,000-$15,000.

Also think about all the upkeep you will take on. What will you do if something breaks down? It will happen and you have to be ready for those expenses. Yard care (mowing, edging, fertilizers, etc), house care (updating/repairing fixtures, general house care) electric and gas expenses.

Make sure you lock in to a good rate. We refinanced back in Jan around 4 something which was unheard of. My house payment (only debt) is less than a nice 1 bedroom apartment around here.

You are smart to be thinking this out so clearly and not biting off more than you can chew. I applaud you for doing that, not everyone would... Some people would get approved on a huge note and go for it without taking into consideration all the other expenses with owning a house.

As you have already done... don't even consider the bonus in your equation because those are not a guarantee!!
Best wishes!

I think 1500 all in (property tax, insurance) would be a reasonable number.

Expect to spend roughly 200-500 a month on home upkeep. I'd factor that into their 30%, no joke too. Houses are giant money sucking voids.

Quick response:
We make roughly 110K and had a $2300/month mortgage = never would I do that again! I would stick to around 1500 if possible...you THINK you can afford it but it just straps you every month and you will feel married to the darn house. I have lived and learned and WONT do that again. I like you was qualified for closer to 3000....I thank god I did NOT go that high! Banks dont think reality, thats why we are in financial crisis concerning homes : - ) Good luck!

PS. I like the advise of looking at the rent you pay now and seeing how much more you would/could pay out on a mortgage. Are you putting XX amount into savings each month? If not, I would stick to what you are paying for rent and not much higher.

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General rule is your housing expense (mortgage including insurance and taxes) should not be more than 33% of you take home pay. Do NOT listen to the mortgage brokers/lenders as to how much you qualify for, or how much they think you can afford.

IMO, $2,000 would be way too much. I know that with my lifestyle making 90,000, a $1,500 mortgage would be no problem. So I'm sure the magic number is somewhere inbetween - maybe $1,600 to $1,700.

Prepare a budget. Remember, that when owning a house your expenses will increase. Chances are a house will be much larger than an apartment, you'll pay more for heating and a/c costs. You'll have to pay for lawn care and snow removal. You'll have to pay for maintenance, if you can't fix it yourself, you'll be calling the plumber.

I'm glad your thinking about the kids. They get more expensive as they get older, they eat more, clothing costs more. As you mentioned the activities; this year has a few special things, but it's going to cost at least $5,000 for the girls activites this year (my average is $1,700)

It all depends on your other debts..... credit cards in the thousands? $500 car payments?? If you have very little other debts, then you could inch toward the higher numbers. We make $80k and our mortgage is $1200. This seems to be a comfortable situation for us. Luckily we only have 1 car payment because my husband drives a company vehicle. We have no credit cards.

You will be house poor with a 2k mortgage.
Don't forget to take into account the
1) Utility bills (The bigger the home the higher the utilities, plus cable, internet and the like).
2) Home maintenance (If the furnace breaks, or the basement leaks, or the shingles come off plus lawn care and such)
3) Other expenses like car payments & gas
4) Lifestyle expenses (dining out, movies, vacations, kids activities, cell phones, etc.)

The best way is to write all your expenses down on paper both current and projected and figure out what you are comfortable with.

I personally am more inclined with a house bill a quarter of the net monthly income. In this case roughly $1400/mo depending or your tax bracket.

To add what I have learned from owning a home. What the bank says you can afford now may not give you any room for renovations later.

I think you have to answer this based on your own budget and what you spend, not even what you have in the bank. Our mortgage is $2200 and we have a 4bd, 2.5 bath home with a finshed basement...so more than enough room for 5 of us. It is $1000 more than our rent was before we moved in...but we have also gotten good raises in the past 3 years to make it more affordable. Just go with what works for you on your budget. I'd recommend to go with the lowest payment on a house you like. We were also approved for so much more, but why be house poor? We found what worked for us and we can afford the payments so it's no problem.

I guess I would not think so much in terms of the percent of my income as how much more than I am currently paying for rent/mortgage would I feel comfortable paying and what can I find in that price range.

From what I can tell they figure the amount they will loan you based on your credit report and don't really include other expenses you may have. They may or may not include utilities but I doubt if they consider things like child care costs, school fees, cell phone expenses, etc. At least that is the only thing I can come up with as to why we were approved for twice as much as I knew we could afford.

You have to look at the whole picture. Is that salary one or both together? If it is one, that is a large salary to replace if something happens..

We can survive on one salary (my husbands) with paying everything but daycare and health insurance.. hence I have to work. If I were to lose my job. Our bills would still be able to be paid.. I would have to have the kids out of daycare and we would need to figure out how to pay for health insurance.

I know people who have a $75K annual income and a mortgage of $3000 and others who have a mortgage of $800. you have to figure out what is important to you.

What are you paying for housing now? Is it comfortable? Too much? You could afford more if you wanted to? Sit down and draw up a monthly budget and go from there. Don't forget to add property taxes and homeowner's insurance to your monthly payment. Also you should save some amount per month for home maintenance so that you are not totally up the creek when the roof starts leaking or the hot water heater dies and so on. If you aren't sure how much those things might be, ask your real estate agent.

i would stick around $1500 a month as your total mortgage payment(as in including taxes/homeowners insurance) - we are at 137ish and our payment is $2300 and i HATE it. sit down with a pen and paper and list what's going in and going out, see what you come up with.

I would stay with $1500 personally. If you have extra money then start socking it away for College for your kids and retirement for you and your hubby. Better to underspend in this economy and be ok if something should happen then overspend and be in huge trouble.

I heard the 30% rule before and that seems to make sense but 30% of your TAKE HOME not your gross/ 90k. So say you take off 30% for taxes, you are down to only $63K. You probably have your health benefits and 401k to further reduce your take home. Figure out that number and then calculate 30%. I would guess $1500 would be your max and you would have more breathing room with less. You don't want all your monthly income to go to your mortgage because you all have a life to live as well. Good luck :-)

My husband is 70 K with bonuses that are not set in stone either. He's made up to 140,000 and let me tell you, it's no pinic all they take out of those taxes and how easy it is to lose those high paying jobs. I would NOT want to pay that much. We've done that too. When we paid 2400 per month for one mortgage, 600 of that was taxes alone! We paid 1800 in California for a Mobile home. Just do what you can to keep it as low as possible.

We currently pay 1400 per month for the mortgage, but it's set to pay out 13 years from now. Our utilities are easily 800+ per month and then the various types of insurances are 700 per month, feeding 6 people + 4 daycare kids, another 1200 per month, clothing, business expenses, and it seems to be endless.

They will always tell you the max you can afford. They figure the max on your house is your life.

Four years ago when I had to refinance my mortgage to take my ex off after the divorce they offered me full value of my home which would have given me $110,000 cash out. This was based on a three year interest only ARM, so pretty much I would have lost my home after three years. The reason was they would have got another $7,000 in fees and could care less if I could afford it. Jerks!

We pay 2600 a month. Our actual mortgage is only 1700, but an additional 850 a month goes to taxes, taxes, more taxes, school levies, more school levies, and the extra 50 towards insurance.

When we bought, 3 years ago, our total payment was only 2100... but property taxes just keep going up and up and up.

DO also take into account what your electricity, heat, water, sewer, garbage, is going to be. After we pay those, it costs us about 3500 a month to live in our home (2b 1ba starter home... Seatown is a pricey place).

ALSO make sure you have at least 2 months (and preferably 5 months) worth of mortgage in the bank before you buy, in addition to your down payment. Ideally, 5 months of *living* expenses in the bank before you buy.

Now... we chose to be house-poor on purpose, because we DO plan on selling this place, and knock on wood, by that time the value should be about double (rennovating). Like I said... it's a starter home. When we sell, our downpayment alone (much less accrued value) would buy a house in a less expensive area outright.

Let's see, $90,000 x 20% would be $1800 a month for total house payment including taxes and insurance.

Find a house that is comfortable about $1600 a month. This means it could be a bit older but in good shape. Make sure the rooms have some size to them so that they can move about when they get older. Do include your taxes and insurance for your home. You can have them in your payment where you pay 1/12 (tax/ins) with house payment principal and interest. This way you don't have to try to save for insurance and taxes when they are due they are automatically paid.

Do you have your retirement set up and are you contributing to that? Do that before your worry about what your children need for activities because you can't get a loan for retirement..

Life is about choices so that means that each kids does not get to do everything in the world and mom and dad foot the bill. It doesn't work that way so why set them up to "think" that they get to do it all? Don't feel guilty because you could but you don't do it all. This is also a lesson for you not to give in. If they want it that bad later on, they can get a job to help pay for it. Another lesson in life about delayed gratification.

Whatever you do don't plan on what the bonus will be. Never plan on something you don't have in your hand. Also don't plan on what he will get later on because again you can't count your chickens before they hatch. Work a plan with what you have now and you will not be over stressed or worried about how you will make it work.

Any extra money I would put in an investment or stock for future growth.

The other S.

Also consider property taxes tend to go up, especially in this political climate. We didn't know this. Make sure you know where you are in the assessment period (ours is every 3 years). If there is infrastructure upgrades that need to be done in your neighborhood (for example roads or sidewalks) there tends to be a added assessment to your property taxes. Our mortgage payment, which is fixed and includes our insurance and property taxes has gone up a $200 a month in the span of 3 years. Make sure you DON'T go as high as you can afford. If your husband gets a promotion, you can save that money for college or retirement. I would stick with a payment that is MORE than comfortable to you.

Given the facts you provided and circumstances, $2000 a month is very reasonable.

As a general guideline, your monthly mortgage payment, including principal, interest, real estate taxes and homeowners insurance, should not exceed 28 percent of your gross monthly income. To calculate your housing expense ratio, multiply your annual salary by 0.28, then divide by 12 (months). The answer is your maximum housing expense ratio.

Read more: Mortgage Basics, Ch. 1: Can you afford that house? Know debt-to-income ratios http://www.bankrate.com/finance/mortgages/how-much-house-...

Well, years ago they used to advise not spending more than 1/4 of your salary on housing. That comes out to $1875.00 a month.

GL with the decision! I bet now is a good time to be looking, they say it is still a buyer's market.

When we bought our home in 2008 my DH made around 90k and we ended up financing $189,000.00 on a 250K home and our morgage payment is around 1600.00 right now but after the first of the year it will drop down to 1100.00 due to an error with the bank for the past year and our escrow (sp?) account for our taxes. I think that $1500.00 is doable, we still manage to have some fun money left over each month.

Make a monthly budget of what you expect to pay out...list everything. Food, cars, insurance, electric, gas, water, phone, cable, fuel, trash, sewer, if you don't have well water. Remember that the principal on the house is the last thing that gets paid. The mortgage payment includes principal, interest, taxes and insurance. If you're buying in Charles Town, Ranson, Martinsburg...really check, you can get some great deals. Also look into first time homebuyer's programs (if that applies) to save a great deal as well.

You shouldn't spend more than 30% of your income. So...what? $2250 per month. That sum should also include RE taxes, maintenance, decorating, utilities, etc.