Housing costs

[Viking7641]

Roughly 50% of my net pay goes to rent here in Massachusetts. I'm single, (Being a DINK would sure help.......) and a 500 sqare foot 1 bedroom apartment costs me $1100 a month.


For comparision the cheapest 1 BR condo right now on Zillow in my city is $219,000 at $498 square feet.

In my current profession, with my student loans, I will literally never be able to not be renting.

 

[Happy_2_B]

deleted- remove plz

 

[agavegirl1]

I am in the unique position of owning two homes. The townhouse still has a mortgage and the lake house we only have utilities, insurance and taxes. Taking out the additional $450 per month we pay toward principle on our 15 year fixed mortgage at 3.25%, we pay about $1562 per month all in. This represents 29% of our gross income. We have no other debt though...no cars or credit accounts.

 

[runwad]

No mortgagebut when we did, it was 20% of our take home pay in Ohio.

There were a good number of years when we only had a few hundred dollars of discretionary income a month. It got better for a while but now with 3 kids, 5 cars & insurance, and 2 in college, I'm right back there again. So thankful our mortgage is paid off or I don't know how we'd be doing it!!

 

[mrudman]

Mine's about 25% of my take-home pay. My property taxes are rolled into my mortgage so that's included as well. I'm a single mom with no child support or other money coming in. Live in a moderate COL area. It's tough some months, but we make it work,

 

[ashley0139]

I'm a single person in Los Angeles, at the moment pay about 30% of net pay on rent. I live alone. LA is fun!

 

[sk!mom]

Our home has been paid off for several years so currently zero. When we bought it in 1996, maybe 10% of our income. I was a stay at home mom then and went back to work in 1997 so that percentage went down. We considered upgrading but stayed in our modest 1700 sf home because we love our location, neighbors, and being debt free. Staying put made it possible to travel more and cash flow college for our kids.

 

[BLAZEY]

Our mortgage is $825 per month, we bought before housing market took off. Our house has more than doubled in 14 years and the market isn't slowing down. Our mortgage is less than most 1 bedroom apartments rent for. Most 1 bedroom suites are $1200+. Insurance and tax is about another $175. The cost of living here has skyrocketed. There is no way we could afford to buy if we were looking to buy now. We are on pace to finish paying off the house 6 months before DD graduates secondary school. We have a separate RESP for her University, and both of us contribute to pension plans at work, so retirement is taken care of.

 

[Momoftwins+1]

We pay $3,100 per month in Seattle. About 19% of our gross income per month.

Ah Seattle COL...love it here, but would love it more if it wasnt so damn expensive and rIsing every day!

 

[NinaBella]

Our mortgage is about 12% of our net monthly income. We have a VA loan so no PMI.

 

[tvguy]

Roughly 50% of my net pay goes to rent here in Massachusetts. I'm single, (Being a DINK would sure help.......) and a 500 sqare foot 1 bedroom apartment costs me $1100 a month.


For comparision the cheapest 1 BR condo right now on Zillow in my city is $219,000 at $498 square feet.

In my current profession, with my student loans, I will literally never be able to not be renting.

With zero down payment at 4% interest on a 30 year mortgage, you'd be saving $50 by buying that condo.

If you can come up with 10% down, you'd save $150 a month over what you are paying in rent. And that isn't including the savings on your income taxes.

DS and DIL just went through that. They've been married 1 1/2 years, and lived together for 4, rent was killing them, and they said "we'll never be able to afford a house". They sat down with a realtor and a mortgage broker and discovered they couldn't afford NOT to buy. They went from a 2 bedroom 2 bath 1,000 square foot condo for $850 a month rent, to a 3 bedroom, 1 bath 1,100 square foot house for a payment of $650 a month, and again, not counting the savings they will get on their income tax with the mortgage deduction.

 

[havaneselover]

With zero down payment at 4% interest on a 30 year mortgage, you'd be saving $50 by buying that condo.

If you can come up with 10% down, you'd save $150 a month over what you are paying in rent. And that isn't including the savings on your income taxes.

DS and DIL just went through that. They've been married 1 1/2 years, and lived together for 4, rent was killing them, and they said "we'll never be able to afford a house". They sat down with a realtor and a mortgage broker and discovered they couldn't afford NOT to buy. They went from a 2 bedroom 2 bath 1,000 square foot condo for $850 a month rent, to a 3 bedroom, 1 bath 1,100 square foot house for a payment of $650 a month, and again, not counting the savings they will get on their income tax with the mortgage deduction.

The mortgage deduction is not really all that IMO. It really benefits the upper middle class.

In addition, if the proposed tax reform gets passed, the standard deduction doubles which means even fewer people will itemize.

Condos have condo fees as well to consider.

I've owned since I was 25, but the case for homeownership isn't that clear imo. Look at states like CT. My parents sold their house in a very nice NYC suburb in 1998 for $1.475 million. That house is on the market today for $1.4 million (still in very good condition on a fantastic lot with an updated kitchen in a town with excellent schools) and has been sitting forever.

My mortgage payment (including taxes and insurance) takes up 17% of my gross income. Higher than I like, but I'm a single mom, so only one income

 

[disneymagicgirl]

We are in the Nashville area and are at 16% of income, incl taxes and insurance.

I am glad you had me calculate hat because we moved last year and doubled our mortgage payment. I always think it is outrageous as far as dollar amount, but I guess 16% isn’t so bad.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Ah, not familiar with FHA. Been 34 years since I bought a house, and the houses we looked at then all had the note that the seller would not accept any offers with FHA financing.

Having sold a house that we were holding as a rental property I can see why. It was such a hastle compared to selling our primary residence that is fortunately well out of fha limits.

 

[DisneyHardin]

We are in Louisville, KY and our mortgage is about $1100/month (that includes the taxes and insurance). It is about 22% of our take home pay.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The mortgage deduction is not really all that IMO. It really benefits the upper middle class.

It makes a pretty big difference to us.

When we moved into our house we paid 3 months worth of mortgage interest but it wasn't enough to allow us to itemize and take the mortgage interest as a tax deduction.

The next year we were able to itemize and it made a difference since we could count other things that require itemization to be able to be counted.

In addition, if the proposed tax reform gets passed, the standard deduction doubles which means even fewer people will itemize.

Correct and my husband figured it out it would cost us at least $1,000 more in taxes.

 

[Shanti]

My city has a very high cost of living. That's a bummer, but it's a nice place to live.

 

[havaneselover]

It makes a pretty big difference to us.

When we moved into our house we paid 3 months worth of mortgage interest but it wasn't enough to allow us to itemize and take the mortgage interest as a tax deduction.

The next year we were able to itemize and it made a difference since we could count other things that require itemization to be able to be counted.

Correct and my husband figured it out it would cost us at least $1,000 more in taxes.

This is a 4-year old story but it probably is still very true. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fo...es-middle-class-taxpayers-all-of-51month/amp/

I'm sure there are a lot of people who do benefit significantly. When I was married and our income and mortgage were twice what my current income and mortgage are, we certainly benefited tremendously. Now it helps me a little, but not much. What does help me is a 3-bedroom apartment in our neighborhood rents for $1,800ish and my mortgage is $1,250.

Yeah, there still isn't a calculator since the senate and house plans differ, but I'll probably not come out ahead since I can no longer use head of household rates.

 

[wendow]

I'm sure there are a lot of people who do benefit significantly. When I was married and our income and mortgage were twice what my current income and mortgage are, we certainly benefited tremendously. Now it helps me a little, but not much. What does help me is a 3-bedroom apartment in our neighborhood rents for $1,800ish and my mortgage is $1,250.

This is us too. We are a single-income home and my dh works for a non-profit (aka: low pay). We have also been homeowners since we were 23yo and while the mortgage deduction on our taxes helps us a little, it's not a huge deduction for us. What helps us the most is that a 3-bedroom apt (which would be teeny for our family) would cost at least $500 more per month. A house rental would be even more. The rental market is nuts here in the Denver area because they haven't built many new homes and gobs of people are moving to this area.

 

[tvguy]

The mortgage deduction is not really all that IMO. It really benefits the upper middle class.

In addition, if the proposed tax reform gets passed, the standard deduction doubles which means even fewer people will itemize.

Condos have condo fees as well to consider.

I've owned since I was 25, but the case for homeownership isn't that clear imo. Look at states like CT. My parents sold their house in a very nice NYC suburb in 1998 for $1.475 million. That house is on the market today for $1.4 million (still in very good condition on a fantastic lot with an updated kitchen in a town with excellent schools) and has been sitting forever.

My mortgage payment (including taxes and insurance) takes up 17% of my gross income. Higher than I like, but I'm a single mom, so only one income

With my DS and DDIL just saving $200 a month over renting has been a huge help to their budget. Any tax savings would just be gravy, as would building equity.