Reddit how much mortgage can i afford

My current monthly take home pay is $4502.

No student loan debt No Car payment One credit card paid off monthly Contributing the max to my work 401(k) and as much as I can to a Roth IRA (usually about $250 a month) Putting $1300 a month into savings (on top of the retirement money)

Current monthly expenses-

Rent $1746 (we live in a high cost area) Electric $ 130 Netflix $7.99 Hulu $7.99 Internet $72 Geico $145 Cell phones $90 Groceries and all house hold items $300 (for 2 people) Gas $200

My wife brings in about 2k a month but currently all of that money is going to pay off her student loans and we live off my salary. As such we only want to look at mortgages based on my salary.

We currently have $31k in our house downpayment fund and another 5K (building this up to 10K in the next few months) in a separate emergency fund.

What price range of houses should we realistically be looking at? I KNOW (from using rent vs own calculators) that we can buy for cheaper than we pay in rent. I would like to keep a mortgage payment (including all the taxes and insurance etc) to about 1500 or under..

EDIT. Thanks for all the input! much appreciated. it IS a little depressing though to hear people say that $31k is "not much of a payment". When did we get to a point that 31k is considered minimal?! I'm not getting at anyone, I'm just wondering how people can be expected to live and save anymore in this crazy age we live in.

I am a first time home buyer and I want to buy my semi dream home. By that I mean I want to buy a house that I will live in for a long time like 10 - 15 years on the minimum. I am planning to buy in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area. I am married with a 2 year old and my wife and I are planning on baby number two.

I am a recent graduate and got a job making $160k, my wife will be graduating this spring with a degree in Finance. We are planning on baby number 2 right after graduation so she won’t be able to seriously look for work until after giving birth.

I am looking for a 5 bedroom 3+ bathrooms, at least 3000+ sqft. I know some of you might think this is a big house for a family of four but my work is hybrid, one day at the office and 4 days optional remote work. So I am planning to turn one of the bedrooms into an office.

I have used some online tools to calculate how much can I afford and it is giving some ridiculous numbers like $700k. This number seems very high.

So how much can I really afford? I am a first time home buyer and haven’t seen the hustle of making a mortgage payment. I have been renting for almost 10 years.

Hi Reddit,

So, I have a regular, w2 job that pays ~80k/year base, which includes anywhere from a 7-15% annual bonus, along with supplemental income of ~10k/year. I expect a raise in the next 2 months (10-20% increase). I have no other debt, car/student loans etc, and my take home is ~1900/2weeks after retirement/hsa and before my expected raise. When I look at online "How much can I afford" calculators for homes, their estimate is generally are WAY above what I think is comfortable for me. What is realistic for what I can afford for a home? I have ~45-55kish when I actually look to buy, but I'm in a fortunate situation where my parents are willing to loan me whatever I need for 20%, with no interest, so assume a 20% down payment for the "estimate". In my area, though, most of the houses that I'm looking at cost ~400k. Is that too much for my situation?

Edit:

Currently I pay around $680 for rent/utilities in my area with 2 roommates, so not bad at all. I could probably keep renting at a comparable rate for a while, but house prices are rising at an unprecedented rate in my area, so I'm looking to buy sooner rather than later because of that. I also plan to have 1-2 roommates when I buy the house, but obviously I do not want a house I can't comfortably afford without roommates; I don't want to be house poor.

Update: Thank you all for the advice… We did end up buying; we closed and moved in early last month. We bought for $530K at 3.75%. Our incomes have jumped some since writing and we’re around $175K combined. I also maxed out my bonus and that helped a lot with our cash position. Retirement accounts are over $100K now as well after some more contributions and matches.

As I wrote, our rent was poised to jump up and we didn’t want to just put off the inevitable for 7 months only to end up in an even more unfavorable housing market, and every house we looked at under $400K seemed to be going for $40K over asking… so when we found this house and could get it for $20K under asking, we felt really good about it. My income this year is around $110K with the potential to jump another 10% in August, and my wife is bringing in another $66K so we felt like we could make the leap now and hopefully I can make up most of the income ground by the time we have a 2nd child and my wife hopefully stops working. Not ideal but nothing is, and with more space and a safer environment needed plus rent being so expensive, I felt all the trade-offs were worth it. Hope I was right, and we love it so far!

Original post: Hi all, my wife and I are looking for our first home and I'd love some different perspectives on what price points y'all would be looking at.

We're 32 & 27 and just welcomed our first baby this month. Our combined annual income is $160K, only debt is a $20K SUV loan, payment ~$350/mo. We pay $2,350/mo for a very nice 2-bedroom apartment downtown, lease is up March 31st. With the new baby, plus the fact that we both permanently work almost exclusively from home, we're looking for a nice suburban home with more space to settle into. Options are either buying in the next month or signing a 7 mo. lease extension at $2,400/mo and buying in the fall.

Our cash position isn't amazing - we have ~$30K in cash + $15K crypto which I can liquidate if necessary. For retirement, we have $90K combined and are only maxing employer matches at the moment but looking forward to upping that once we're in a house.

As far as house prices, I think we're looking in the $500K range. A $500K house at 5% down would put us at $3,000 a month all told between PMI, insurance, and high Wisconsin property taxes. Is that too high for our situation if we maintain this income level? There's also the risk of my wife deciding to stay home with our daughter, especially if/when we have a 2nd or 3rd child. I would support that if it's at all feasible and it's what she wanted, but our income would drop to around $100K if that happened. At what monthly mortgage payment would we be totally screwed at $100K annually?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.