Could you afford to buy your own home now?

[disykat]

Not us. We live in what I consider to be a middle working class neighborhood, but the neighbor's house just went on the market. That always makes us talk realities. Seems weird to be happily mortgage free, but realize that there's no way we could buy our own house if we were financing it. (Only if we sold it to ourselves and paid for the transaction, which would be totally stupid.) We're so happy we have this asset, but boy is it weird to think what buying it now would cost! (4x what we paid 25 years ago while our income is about 2x what we made 25 years ago)

Our kids are in their 20's, entering their 30's. Our older son and his wife are working hoping to get their mortgage paid down enough to get rid of their mortgage insurance before they have kids and our younger is still saving for his 5% down payment! (I was 30 when we bought our first house, so I don't feel so sorry for my kids on that front, but at least we could afford rent in our area prior to buying. We live in a high COL area and they almost have to buy because the rental market is nuts right now - especially since Covid!)

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Could you afford to buy your own home now?​

No.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

duplicate

 

[luvnwdwgal]

No

 

[fla4fun]

No. It’s doubled in value from two years ago, and I couldn’t afford it then. I have lived here over 30 years and it’s paid for. I won’t be moving any time soon . . .

 

[Southernmiss]

Yes, but it's now valued at the upper end of what I would spend.

Our home is also paid off.

Same model home 2 doors over, with no big upgrades went on sale a few weeks ago and was pending sale within a couple of days.

Unless the neighborhood drastically changes, I think we'll do updates and stay here forever.

We did build a 400 square foot deck in the fall that we absolutely love and that deck would make it tough to leave.

 

[Allison]

Yes

 

[DisneyHardin]

We probably could, but it would be more than I would want to spend and I would be nervous about taking on a mortgage that big.

 

[disneychrista]

Nope. My house would likely sell for double what I paid for it 13 years ago.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

Yes but it would hurt our retirement savings. Mortgage payment would be ~1k higher per month. We bought our current house in 2017 and comps are about 50% higher than what we paid currently.

The wild part is half of that increase is just the difference in interest rates.

 

[cheryl.UK]

Nope, my house has increased 5 x whilst my wages since I bought it have only increased 2X. To buy it now, I'd need a deposit of 50K which I don't have.

 

[Robbie Cottam]

Yes, but I make 4 times now what I did when I bought the house. So I guess it is all relative..... However, with inflation at 9 or 10 percent. I'm not sure how long I will be able to say that.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

When the interest rates were lower, maybe. But in reality I don’t think we’d spend that much. Ours has quadrupled in value. (And our interest rates were 11.5% w PMI when we bought.) We are in a high COL area.

Our kids are trying to save, too. But it’s tough. I look at what the young people I work with are spending on these homes and I just don’t know how they’re going to do it - unless they make a lot of money, which usually means working a lot. (We’re talking ~ $700K for a decent 3BR, 2Bath house.) It seems like the option of working part time or not working when kids come along may be difficult to manage unless people get creative.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I was 30 when we bought our first house, so I don't feel so sorry for my kids on that front

Kinda a bit of a weird comment, no?

Our older son and his wife are working hoping to get their mortgage paid down enough to get rid of their mortgage insurance

Have they looked into refinancing assuming they've gained equity in the home? We refinanced 2 1/2 years into our mortgage to get rid of PMI.

 

[tvguy]

Nope. My house has gone up six fold in value. Before I retired last year, our income had (only) tripled in the same time frame.
My last mortgage was 15 years at $625 a month.
Zillow says at current rates a 30 year mortgage would be $3,074 a month.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We were priced out of a new build quickly enough in our area after our house was built as the market shifted to a seller's market. In our neighborhood for a while we would have been able to afford resale. Doubtful now with resale unless we sold our current home. This is me just considering putting a down payment no prior home sale to help with that, basically starting from scratch and considering my neighborhood. Resale is basically about 200K more than it was when we first moved in.

 

[Disneylover99]

My own home. No.
We might be able to afford a shack In the neighbourhood if one goes up for sale. Lol. But even then, probably not.

 

[Sleepy425]

We would more than likely get approved for a mortgage for it. But we would never do it. We bought it as a foreclosure at $208k 5 years ago and now houses on our street are going for $350k+. We recently refinanced to an 8 year loan, so the mortgage payment on a 30 year with the higher interest rates right now would be roughly the same payment. But for 22 more years. Yikes!

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Yes, but barely. We got an amazing deal right at the start of COVID and it's now worth about $150K more than we paid after just two years. We bought on a 15 year mortgage and if we bought it now we'd probably have to do a 30.

 

[Schneewittchen37]

Yes, we could afford it. I think it's nearly doubled in value. We paid around 275k and houses around here are now going for 500k. We bought the house 9 years ago.

If we sold, I think we can afford about 700k these days. We could afford to buy more house now, but we're happy with what we have and will only move if we absolutely have to when it's time for the kids to go to high school. I prefer to waste money on vacations.