Current Events > IYO what is a reasonable price to own a home?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Something modest, enough to raise a family in, and affordable for someone with a decent job ($45,0000-$65,000) and a steady income.

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My 3200 square foot 6 bed 3 bath house with a two car garage was $260,000

Wife and I make ~80k a year

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Depends entirely on the market. Reasonable in Iowa isn't reasonable in NYC.

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s0nicfan posted...

Depends entirely on the market. Reasonable in Iowa isn't reasonable in NYC.

In hindsight I admit this topic was colored by my own locale.

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depends on the location, where i live you cant really find anything good for sub 400k

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110,000-140,000

at least thats the price range Ive been looking around lately and my income is in that range. Although Im single so I think I could realistically afford more since my other bills are relatively small. Im just kind of on the cheap side and pretty confident I can find something I like in that range around here.

Solid Sonic posted...

In hindsight I admit this topic was colored by my own locale.

In general, the ideal is to put 20% down on your home, and have your mortgage (plus taxes) be no more than about a third of your paycheck.

What you get for that will depend on your priorities. Some people will take a smaller place with a drastically reduced commute, whereas some people prefer more space and are willing to drive more to work for it.

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The old rule of thumb is that the max you should offer as a purchase price is 3x the annual income of the household.

So at the quoted $65k income, your ceiling should be $195k.

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man i don't even know, i own a mcmansion in the houston suburbs so my shit's so outta wack

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Romulox28 posted...

depends on the location, where i live you cant really find anything good for sub 400k

Well I guess that calls into question if the mean income level in your region reflects the cost of housing (or rather if someone taking out a home loan at their current income level will not be chained to it beyond a reasonable space of time to pay it back).

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littlebro07 posted...

My 3200 square foot 6 bed 3 bath house with a two car garage was $260,000

Something like that would be like $500-600k here

I'm currently looking to buy a house myself, I'm single tho so it's just my income. My price range is ideally under $400k. I make more than post 1 but less than post 2.
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Can you do work yourself? You can get a hell of a bargain if you are willing and able to do dirty work. I bought a 3,000 sqft Victorian for $40k, needs work but totally livable. I'm about $10k into it for repairs but could easily sell it for $60k with just the work I've done so far (upgraded electrical, new shower/master bath, new ceilings, repaired parquet floor, landscaping).


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AvlButtslam posted...

$500-600k here

i paid less than 600k for a brand new home of almost 5000 sq ft, 5 bedrooms, a swimming pool, a movie room
on a half acre massive culdesac lot

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Solid Sonic posted...

Well I guess that calls into question if the mean income level in your region reflects the cost of housing (or rather if someone taking out a home loan at their current income level will not be chained to it beyond a reasonable space of time to pay it back).

for my area its a combo of both, people tend to have higher salaries and housing is in high demand (new york metro area). my starting point was to make sure that my mortgage payment was under 30% of my monthly take home income

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It'd be useful for people to mention where they live too.

Here in MD, not too far out from DC, 300k would be a pretty shitty 1000ish square foot house.
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houston baby

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