Housing costs

[WVMomof3]

I know this varies so greatly by region. Just curious how much people pay for their monthly rent or mortgage. Also curious as percentage of income. I feel ours is very low, but still struggle with having enough for extras and sometimes necessities.

 

[kymom99]

I live in a low COL area. its about 10% of our gross monthly income

 

[Alexle2007]

It's about 20% of our income in a higher COL area. We have a 15 year mortgage at 2.625% and don't pay extra. When I looked at the amortization schedule and added extra principal to it, we would have to put like $1000 a month extra for it make a difference. The majority of our payment goes towards principal.

 

[wendow]

We live in the Denver area which has a higher COL. Our mortgage is 35% of income.

 

[CalDisneyMomof2]

We live in an outrageous COL area (Orange County, Ca) and pay about 30% of our income towards our mortgage. We still pay a PMI though and it will be off in another year decreasing our mortgage payment by over $400 a month. Can't come soon enough!

 

[bladiator]

We live in an outrageous COL area (Orange County, Ca) and pay about 30% of our income towards our mortgage. We still pay a PMI though and it will be off in another year decreasing our mortgage payment by over $400 a month. Can't come soon enough!

$400 a month in PMI??? WOW, that's horrible.

 

[Caseheidi]

We just did a refi to consolidate some debt and lower our interest rate. Even with a higher mortgage balance, we are now paying less each month. We were surprised when our appraisal came back that over the last 14 years, our property value has almost doubled. Property values around here are sky rocketing, and our monthly payment is low for this area. We are paying around 15% of our monthly income for our mortgage.

 

[dolewhipdreams]

We live in a pretty average COL area and our housing payment is about 10% of our monthly gross income.

 

[tvguy]

House has been paid off for 17 years, so zero now.

We bought our house in 1983 when 30 year mortgage rates plunged from 16% to 12.25%. Payment was $1,100, 27.5% of our gross combined income ( I had to pull out my Social Security summary to find out what me made back then).

We refinanced in 1987 to a 30 year mortgage at 9% and payment was $900, 16% of our gross combined income.

We refinanced again in 1991 to a 15 year mortgage at 6.25%, payment was $625 a month, 10% of our gross combined income.

 

[melanielll]

Ours is just over $1200. That's all taxes and insurance. The house has been paid for for years.

Edited to add - We are in Houston. That 's about 3.5% of our gross income.

 

[wendow]

We live in an outrageous COL area (Orange County, Ca) and pay about 30% of our income towards our mortgage. We still pay a PMI though and it will be off in another year decreasing our mortgage payment by over $400 a month. Can't come soon enough!

Did you guys look into refinancing to get rid of the PMI? Our PMI was $300 until last year when we were able to refi and get rid of it. The housing market here in Denver has increased so much that all that built in equity really helped there.

 

[CalDisneyMomof2]

$400 a month in PMI??? WOW, that's horrible.

Tell me about it We have about 40% equity in our home but it's never made sense to refinance because our interest rate is SO low (3.25).

 

[LYSE]

Luckily no Primary Mortgage here, just a HELOC (which sadly is loaded up) so ~400 if I pay the minimum ...+ property taxes and insurance like everyone else.

 

[Bree]

It more than varies by region. Your down payment, credit score and length of loan have a huge impact on your payment.

Our 15yr mortgage payment (@ a rate of 2.825%) which includes property taxes & insurance is about 10% of our monthly gross income.

 

[FireflyTrance]

I live near San Francisco, highest COL in all of the USA. Our house is very small and basic and our mortgage is about 30% of our income. We have a big housing crisis here.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We live in an outrageous COL area (Orange County, Ca) and pay about 30% of our income towards our mortgage. We still pay a PMI though and it will be off in another year decreasing our mortgage payment by over $400 a month. Can't come soon enough!

Yipes! Our PMI was just over $160 per month.

Tell me about it We have about 40% equity in our home but it's never made sense to refinance because our interest rate is SO low (3.25).

Yeah we refied to get rid of PMI. The interest rate was only 0.125% lower than what we originally due to interest rate levels at that time which weren't all that much different than when we closed on our home but we still saved thousands over our loan term. Luckily we were able to get rid of PMI about 2 1/2 years into our 30-year loan due to equity in the house (with the currently housing market).

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Our mortgage rate fluctuates year over year due to homeowners insurance rates and property tax (which goes up every year) so we've been in a 2 of the brackets in the poll before depending on the year. Getting rid of PMI helped though.

 

[.landry]

we live in Brooklyn which is almost as bad as SF in terms of COL. our mortgage/taxes/maintenance/insurance on our condo is about 10% of our income. We bought our place before our neighborhood got fancy in a building that was new construction and had a tax abatement. We originally had a 5.375% and refinanced a few years ago to a 3.25%. We have been paying down the principal and i think were about 1/3 of the way done. We decided not to upgrade to a bigger place because trading up would make our monthly costs go through the roof. our place is small but efficient and we have a killer backyard!
its really interesting to see how everyone's situations stack up based on location.

 

[loves to dive]

I don't pay anything now, but when I owned my parents home it was about 15% of my income, my honey pays the mortgage in our home but we aren't married so I have no clue (we have lived together 24 years). I live in a college town so rent can range from $500 per month to $1500 per month depending on what you want. My son lives in a 2 bedroom townhome in a mixed neighborhood and pays $700 per month.

 

[portcityw]

We live in southern Alabama. Mortgage is 340 at about 3% of gross. Low COL here, and we try to live cheaply also. We built the house ourselves too, so our home was cheap. Have considered upgrading, but don't know if we could handle all the physical work involved at this point in our life. Insurance and taxes add about 150/month.