ON Canada, I did a quick number crunching and if the interest rate we use is 3.19%, 30 years, 12K down payment and you have no other debts, property taxes is 3000, you can qualify for 341K property. Using the same scenario, if your income is 62,400 per year, you can easily qualify for this amount. This is for calculation purposes only and does not mean a mortgage approval. It still depends on a other factors such as down payment, credit score, and your tenure with your current company plus the type of employment.

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That spent beyond their means? i am just getting fed up with tax payers subsidizing stupidity. i didnt buy a home...why? because i cant afford one! anyone who truly thought they could afford a $400,000 mortgage with no money down making at best 60k a year or even 80k a yr.needs to learn their lesson. sorry. wow thanks greg. great input. i dont think that horse could really get any deader or more beaten. subw - i am totally against bailing out wallstreet as well...lets stay on topic here. i personally worked as a loan officer for a home equity dept. people were taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in "equity" which wasnt real and getting tummy tucks, buying boats, jumping on the "flipping property bandwagon"...those people need to suffer the consiquences of the risk they took upon themselves...same thing with home buyers...too bad so sad. they chose to buy more house then they could afford. period. wise- awesome answer...seriously. bullshavit dude- ?? yeah...i guess?? grogan- totally!! people can build where it floods, but they just cant buy flood insurance...then the government pays for there home that floods because it was built where it floods...then they rebuild where it floods...lol...wtf???? crazy. very similar to...hey lets build lots and lots of homes in the desert....uh oh! we ran out fo water...ha! for - owning is not cheaper then renting where i live...especially since property values are sinking....so you mean to tell me that let say i pay 400gs for a house and i pay $700 per 100k...so thats $2800 a month or ok lets make it $2100 (lerts assume i put 20% down ha!) then you take property tax which is 1% so thats another $334 a month. then hoi which is a couple hundred a month...thats roughly $2600 a month. now i am responsible for all upkeep, which that total could be astronomical. and say i am losing 5-10k a month in equity like so many people are vs. keeping and gaining interest on my 100k down payment and paying $1400 month for rent and putting $1,200 in the bank in more ....hmmmm...well im no rocket scientist but the tlatter looks like a better option. i meant 25% whoopsy

I guess they should be rewarded for having the forscence to expect they'd be bailed out for their stupidity. They know their government well.

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If i do a 30 year fixed rate mortgage propbably a 6% rate and i make about 30,000 a year if not more and im renting the other 3 bedrooms for 400 a month, can i afford this? thanks everyone, its hard to choose the best answer

AT 6% over 30 years, that principle and interest (PI) would be 959.28 per month. Remember, the monthly payment will also include 1/12 of the annual taxes and 1/12 of the annual insurance. You could probably estimate 65/m for insurance. Check out the taxes for your property to get the tax portion of the payment. BUT if the taxes are 120/ month the payment will be 959.28 + 65 + 120 = 1144.28 Can you afford that? 1144/2500 = 46% of your gross monthly income...better get a roommate!

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Hello! i know this question is hard to ask w/o knowing the specifics, but i just want a roundabout estimate. my fiance & i make about 100k annually combined. our credit is very good (700+ averaged together). we currently rent on li, but want to buy a co-op or condo in queens (bayside area..or whitestone..somewhere nice). we have already been pre-approved for a nice amount, but i'm curious about the maximum amount we can afford... but keeping our monthly fees to $2k/month or less. we will have a downpmt of less than 20%, so we will be paying pmi. is 400,000 out of our range? won't that be more than 2,000/month? monthly fees to consider: "maintenance fee" of about 600 "pmi" of about $150

Don't sweat it, there are tons of mortgage calculators on the net for free. The good ones let you plug in all sorts of costs and variables to see what works. Here's one example http://www.bankrate.com/brm/mortgage-calculator.asp Otherwise, you need to get some actual prices by doing some shopping. Time to hit the net or call a realtor.

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For example, suppose you live in a house worth $200,000, and you can afford and qualify for a house worth $400,000, and you find someone who has a house worth $400,000, and wants to trade for a house worth $200,000, because he has money problems, and can no longer afford his $400,000 house. the question is, how would you go about trading houses, such that each of your would end up with a good mortgage you could afford? the main problem is that the person with the $400,000 house, who needs to trade it for a $200,000 house, probably has bad credit, because of the same problems that make him want to trade for a cheaper house. hoiw would you work around that problem?

The only acceptable and proper way to handle such a situation is the same way any other buyers and sellers would handle it. Each person gets a new mortgage on the 'new property' for each. If one of those people does not qualify for a mortgage, then the deal falls apart. Of course the person getting the more expensive house could offer to provide the financing for the less expensive house out of pocket, but that's not a very bright thing to do. If a bank won't extend credit, then neither should a private seller.

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Okay, so i am 20 years old. if i put away $400 every month until i am 30 i will have at least $48,000 in the bank, not including interest. i plan on buying a home at the age of 30. what price ranges should i be looking into with a $48,000 down payment? i know about having excellent credit and making enough money to afford the mortgage. could someone give me an amount? i was thinking maybe $450,000? please give me a star! please!

sounds goodto me

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Ok, so our combine income is around $140,000. we both have debts(my car loan of 343.00/mo which falls off in 12/09 and her student loan 600.00/mo for 5 more years). we don't have debt in credit cards as we make full payments every month. we're looking at buying a $400,000-$450,00 house for the 2 of us. ideally, we want something nice(if we have kids and planning to live for 10yrs+). we both like to travel and buy things. being that said, could we afford that price of home and still have money to save and purchase things? i did some calucations and after $2500 mortgage, debts,utlitles, spending of $1400.00 for entertainment etc, we'll still have about $1500.00 to save. what do you guys think? we're both going to be 1st time home buyers.

Rule of thumb is 2x to 3x your income on a mortgage which is $280,000 to $420,000 for the two of you. $400,000 will be a stretch and $450,000 should be too much. A more detailed guideline is to spend no more than 28% of your gross income on a mortgage payment and no more than 36% of your income on your total debt service. These used to be the ratios that banks would use, but in the real estate run up the rules became looser and I would suspect they are tightening back up again. The 28% of your income comes out to be $3260. The 36% ratio for you is $4200 and every debt payment has to fit in under that, mortgage, car payment, student loans, credit card minimums, everything. So, you have 5 more years of $600 per month and a car loan for 343 per month which means that even using the 36% with your other payments that a $3260 mortgage payment is ok. Let's assume for a minute that your mortgage is 400,000 (and you are putting 20% down on the house to avoid PMI - that's an $80,000 down payment). Your principal and interest on a 30 year fixed loan (don't get an ARM or an interest only loan) would be $2400 per month. Add in $150 per month for insurance (could be more or less) and $600 per month in real estate taxes (1.5% of home value per year - could be less, could be MUCH more) and now you are at $3150 per month. Still technically affordable, but I would guess there wouldn't be too much left over for fun and travel. Try this, pretend you have a $3150 payment (save the difference between your rent and this payment) for a few months to find out how affordable it is. Also think about your future and if you want a family and if your wife might want to stay at home with the kids... You might want to choose to buy something less expensive to keep your financial options open. good luck!

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I have noticed a huge lack of personal responsibility in america over the past years. now, naturally, nobody likes to admit their faults and admit they messed up, but trying to blame somebody else for your blatant screw up doesn't seem right. when i purchased my house, i made sure i would be able to easily afford the monthly payments and that if something happened to my job that i had enough saved up to pay my bills for many months/years so i had time to find a new job. this was rather easy to do by simply figuring out my annual salary, checking to see how much money i already had in the bank, and then finding houses in my budget. since my purchase, i have never missed a payment and continue to build my savings account bigger and bigger. in all honesty, i could have purchased a much larger house because of how much i saved instead of adding it to the down payment. however, i "settled" for the house i have now so that i feel secure with what i have. while i do feel bad for the millions of americans suffering and losing their homes, i can't help but wonder how many of them caused this by themselves. when i went to get my home loan, i barely had to prove anything. all they wanted to know was how much i made a year (without any verification) and to make sure i had the money for the down payment in my bank account for the past 60 days. i could have told them any number for my annual salary, but i told them the truth. it appears that many people lied about their income, or at the very least, padded it a bit. i saw a lady on 60 minutes or dateline a few weeks ago. she was broke and jobless. she applied for a loan by lying to the loan company and got herself in to a nice house. this being while she was flat out broke and jobless. it didn't take long before the house was foreclosed (obviously). she was then complaining that it wasn't her fault. as clearly as i can remember, her words were something along the lines of, "just a tiny bit my fault," when the interviewer asked her, "how much do you think you're at fault for your house being foreclosed?" how could she say it was just a tiny bit her fault? so now it's, "if you can fool the loan company, it's not your fault when things go bad!" or "it's not your fault if you get away with it". ridiculous. she knew she didn't have the money to pay for the mortgage (or anywhere near it), but decided to go ahead with it anyways. now, obviously i can understand that loan companies need to make sure the people they're giving loans to are financially ready for the loan. so they're partly to blame. however, this all seems to stem for a lack of personal responsibility. the lady i was talking about seems to be an extreme case. however, there are plenty of people with a less extreme case. maybe they wanted a $400,000 house instead of a $200,000 house, so they lied about their income. they were able to easily afford a $200,000 mortgage but decided to risk a $400,000 mortgage and then when things went bad, they didn't want to blame themselves for something they knew was a risk. instead of keeping some money in a savings account for a rainy day, they just decided to use all their pennies as a down payment to get the best house possible with no regard for what "could" happen. even removing

Some people bought houses using loans structured with the assumption they would be able to sell the house for a profit before 3 years was up. They gambled on an investment and lost. Some of them didn't know what they were getting themselves into, which you can see as their own fault (they were adults). They were also the victims of unintended consequences of programs designed to increase home ownership among poor, poorly-educated minorities. Some got the loans through fraud - at least according to the "60 minutes" program you saw. Do you really think very many people were able to get home loans via fraud? However, the current situation has gone far past anything in your "question" complaint. The USA may see unemployment rates above 10% by the end of the year, and that borders on a Depression and not just a Recession. People are losing their jobs at rate not seen for more than 60 years, and being out of work for more than a few months will financially ruin almost anyone. It's very nice that you are able to "pay (your) bills for many months/years" without a job. How many people do you think can do that? Please look around your "never missed a payment" house to see if you can find your heart.

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I live in atlanta, ga. where we can get a good size home for under $200,000. when im looking at homes in larger cities, especially on the west coast, homes average at around $500,000+. granted, these houses are smaller than the $200,000 homes over here, but the thing is, its the average joe making the average salary that owns these homes. in atlanta, $500,000 gets you a mansion and only the wealthy can afford that. how can the average person on the west coast afford homes that expensive? i know they make more than us because of the ocst of living, but not that much more. do the mortgage companies work out better deals for home owners in these expensive cities? my parents pay about $1,200-1,400 a month for their $180,000 homes, on their average salary. do home owners, like in california, get better monthly rates so they can afford the rent????

It's all relative... location with higher home prices are also likely to have higher salaries. I live in CA and own a home worth $500k. Although CA is one of the most costly places to live in the country, I do agree to that, the median household salary here is also about $80k per year. It's probably much lower in places, such as Atlanta, GA. ;-)

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Mortgage calculators confuse me. i am young and admit i am almost completely ignorant when it comes to things like this. i do know, in my location, i could build my dream house for 400,000 --maybe even a bit less. will a 150k salary be able to afford this... comfortably?? i don't care about money for traveling or going out a lot, etc. i would just like the security of knowing i have extra money in the bank. i would like to have (at least a little) amount of money for my future kids college expenses (though, this will be 20+ years in the future!) i lived on my own when i was in college, but i still don't think i have a good understanding on how much it really costs to "live" monthly. i never went out, barely ate (ramen noodles, anyone?) and utilites were included in my (very cheap) unit. my car is paid off, so basically, the only bills i had were my university bills. my husband and i are very eager to build our home as soon as we can. he is a former marine, so he gets good va benefits. can we afford a 400k house?

You are speaking of building a home. You might would want to check out homes in the area that were built in the last 3-5 years to see if some would meet your needs. Property is not that expensive. You might remodel after a few years to bring the property more in to line with your ultimate desires. You said little of your husband's income. Is the $150,000 a combined income? As a former Marine your husband would be able to obtain a mortgage loan with no money down. to purchase a house of to have one built. Your husband would be eligible for a VA no no where closing cost and mortgage origination points and fees for the mortgage loan would be rolled into the mortgage loan. This is an excellent way to obtain a mortgage loan for the veteran. The actual out o pocket expense could be around $1,500 to $2,500 to close your real estate transaction. These cost would be property insurance and any possible taxes that would be owed. You should check with a local mortgage lender that is authorized to do VA mortgages, to find out your options as to which would financially benefit you. You would be able to make an intelligent decision as to build a house or buy an existing one would benefit you financially. To determine the amount of house you would be able purchase or build a formula is used that take in consideration your debts both of you would have on your combined credit report and the combined annual income you would have. The underwriter then would establish a mortgage ratio. This ratio should be between 34% and 36%. This ratio could be higher based on certain circumstances on your credit report. From one combat veteran to another veteran thanks for serving I hope this has been of some benefit to you, good luck. "FIGHT ON"