4/18 Free advice sought from soda financial advisors.
I'm a single guy making about $120k with no debt and about $150k
saved. What would be a ballpark estimate of how much house I can
afford in the Bay Area. Any other major variable to consider?
Thanks!
\_ Um, STFW? There are mortgage payment calculators on the web.
Second, do you know your own budget? How much of a payment
can you afford? And remember to figure in $250/mo for utils,
and monthly payments for house insurance and property tax.
Not to mention a monthly expense to "buy stuff" for your
house, like furniture, and don't forget house maintenace.
\_ http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/houseafford/houseafford.html
assumes 33% payment-to-income ratio for "aggressive".
for san jose this comes out to a ~ $585K house.
\- that calculator probably assumes dependents [children]. if you
you are single, and not a cokehead, or driving "teutonic rolling
stock", it's probably ok to shift toward the aggressive side,
tempered by factors like job-relocation flexibility and what
your beliefs are about the future of the mkt [i say beliefs,
because you dont want to end up in an investment that causes
you stress because it's at odds with your appetitie for risk].
there are also difficult, person-specific choices like borrowing
against 401k/403b etc [how common is that for 20-30somethings?
different people have very different expectations of future
income from salary increase reates, inheritance etc.].
btw, i think the calcultor there has some other issues.
the house price changes by exactly the same amount as
the down payment. i.e. for a downpayment of $150k, the house
price is exactly $150k more than $0 downpayment. but it's
certainly reasonable for a ballpark [i.e. you can do better than
a $350k house in the sticks but probably not a million dollar
place in sf]. it's kinda funny that with those stats, buying
a place in "90%" of the country is a non-issue [the land of
<$350k houses]. if not sf, not palo alto, not nyc, not ...
\_ Well *I* think you can go up to about $1M, but you probably
can't get a bank to lend you that much. What are your current
expenses? You should be able to do the math on what you can
afford. People in the Bay Area have always spent more than
33% on housing. |
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