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$100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

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Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#281

Post by freehunter »

Tehchops wrote: post #40
sjdb77 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote work is becoming more "real" by the day, so it's certainly possible in the age of the internet to work remotely in a low cost location while making a salary competitive with a higher cost of living city like SF/NY/LA.

Oh I totally agree. I'm doing this very thing: SF salary, live in Western MI. But that's really only available for a small subset of the population.

On a team of 50 (all remote workers), I have four coworkers at my multi-national tech company who live in/around Grand Rapids. It might be more common than you think.

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#282

Post by ccvannorman »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #103
jriot wrote: post #98

I am 34 years old working remotely as data scientist, making $107k TC. My wife who I've been married to for 13 years is a stay-at-home mother as we have two children in grade school. Since they are in the school she is turning in our half-acre into a sustainable garden with chickens. We own our home, are financially comfortable while saving $1500 a month, and travel. We were planning a 2-month trip to Japan this upco…

How much did you pay for your home? $100k/yr gross household income would make it rough to own a 3/2 single family home in South Florida.

How about some facts: This is literally the first result on RedFin with no filters[0]

3158 SW 153rd Path #3158 Miami, FL 33185 $329,900 3 Bed 2.5 Bath Est monthly $2620

[0] https://www.redfin.com/FL/Miami/3158-SW-153rd-Path-33185/uni...

It's not a walk in the park, but it's not "rough" either; 2620 a month after a ~6000/mo post-tax draw leaves you with 3380/mo for food, saving, etc.

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#283

Post by ccvannorman »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #273
jriot wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our home was $348k - 4 bedrooms, 2 baths in Louisiana.

20% down on $348k is $70k At $1,500/mo savings rate, it would take 46 months (3.83 years) to save up for your down payment (before closing costs/lending fees, but I'm not sure if those are rolled into your mortgage) This would leave you with a rough monthly payment (mortgage + interest + takes + insurance + HOA fees) of $1.8k-$2k (assuming 30 year mortgage at 4% interest rate) $100k gross is roughly $76k net (before…

20% down is only for investment properties, not Single Family homes. 3.5% for FHA is the norm. 3.5% * 348k = $12,180, plus closing costs, maybe $20k in all. At 100k+ per year, you're making 6,000 per month, so you should easily be able to save enough for a 3.5% downpayment.

Does nobody understand how to buy homes on this thread?! It's pretty easy if you make >100k In My Opinion!

Plus, there are multiple downpayment assistance programs (google it) that will let you buy your first home with 0% down. Some of them have income limits, but I know some of them do not, as I qualify for one and I make >100k.

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#284

Post by jriot »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #273
jriot wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our home was $348k - 4 bedrooms, 2 baths in Louisiana.

20% down on $348k is $70k At $1,500/mo savings rate, it would take 46 months (3.83 years) to save up for your down payment (before closing costs/lending fees, but I'm not sure if those are rolled into your mortgage) This would leave you with a rough monthly payment (mortgage + interest + takes + insurance + HOA fees) of $1.8k-$2k (assuming 30 year mortgage at 4% interest rate) $100k gross is roughly $76k net (before…

As one of the posters mentioned I have a VA loan.

0% down with a 3.5% interest rate - you don't pay PMI with a VA loan and $0 down ($8k total in closing costs which were mainly taxes). This is the biggest aid in building wealth as we were able to save everything (minus moving costs) from the sale of our previous home.

Right now NFCU estimated our property taxes high so our mortgage is $2100. Next year our property taxes will drop due to LA exemptions that will drop our mortgage down to $1800 - 1900 range.

I have well water so no costs there, electric and gas are $150 combined a month, this is the highest we will pay due to A/C in the summer. Also no pool - lawn is being transformed into a functional space, garden of vegetables and fruits with chickens.

Plenty of places to locally travel; Japan is a little stretch for us so we will see. Walking distance from my house is local jazz/blues hall, been here since 1885. Every other Saturday from 6 - 9pm you can sit and listen to live music, get a plate of fried chicken/catfish with jambalya, greens, potato salad/colslaw, cornbread, and cake for $20 a person ($10 entry, $10 for food). Plenty of festivals which are free offering a range from Festival Acadiens et Creoles 2 hours away to Blues and BBQ in downtown New Orleans next weekend. So our costs here are around $150 for weekend family fun, some weekends we stay at home as we need a break.

All in all $3k a month is spot on which in Lousiana goes far. Plenty of culture, arts, food, and outdoor activities.

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#285

Post by aledalgrande »

refurb wrote: post #177
aledalgrande wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that is a problem in any place where it is desirable to live these days. Locations I've experienced first hand: London, Sydney, Bay area, Los Angeles, Vancouver... and I'm sure there are many more where you can't buy on that salary.

When I first moved to the US a decade ago, I got a job in a mid-sized city in Michigan paying $52,000 per year. Had zero problem saving up a down payment in a couple years. Brand new houses were $150k and older, nice home were $90k. Of course the job prospects aren’t as good as a major city, but housing isn’t a major issue.

> When I first moved to the US a decade ago

Isn't that around the time all the housing price dropped?

> mid-sized city in Michigan

That might not be in the list of the places where most people desire to live.

> Of course the job prospects aren’t as good as a major city, but housing isn’t a major issue.

I think this is not following my comment. The point is not to talk about where affordable places are, but about how affordable places where a lot of people want to go can be.

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#286

Post by MuffinFlavored »

ccvannorman wrote: post #283
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20% down on $348k is $70k At $1,500/mo savings rate, it would take 46 months (3.83 years) to save up for your down payment (before closing costs/lending fees, but I'm not sure if those are rolled into your mortgage) This would leave you with a rough monthly payment (mortgage + interest + takes + insurance + HOA fees) of $1.8k-$2k (assuming 30 year mortgage at 4% interest rate) $100k gross is roughly $76k net (before…

20% down is only for investment properties, not Single Family homes. 3.5% for FHA is the norm. 3.5% * 348k = $12,180, plus closing costs, maybe $20k in all. At 100k+ per year, you're making 6,000 per month, so you should easily be able to save enough for a 3.5% downpayment. Does nobody understand how to buy homes on this thread?! It's pretty easy if you make >100k In My Opinion! Plus, there are multiple downpayment a…

Will you have PMI for the duration of your FHA loan, or do you wait to refinance by the time you have 20% equity?

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#287

Post by MuffinFlavored »

jriot wrote: post #284
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20% down on $348k is $70k At $1,500/mo savings rate, it would take 46 months (3.83 years) to save up for your down payment (before closing costs/lending fees, but I'm not sure if those are rolled into your mortgage) This would leave you with a rough monthly payment (mortgage + interest + takes + insurance + HOA fees) of $1.8k-$2k (assuming 30 year mortgage at 4% interest rate) $100k gross is roughly $76k net (before…

As one of the posters mentioned I have a VA loan. 0% down with a 3.5% interest rate - you don't pay PMI with a VA loan and $0 down ($8k total in closing costs which were mainly taxes). This is the biggest aid in building wealth as we were able to save everything (minus moving costs) from the sale of our previous home. Right now NFCU estimated our property taxes high so our mortgage is $2100. Next year our property ta…

> Right now NFCU estimated our property taxes high so our mortgage is $2100. Next year our property taxes will drop due to LA exemptions that will drop our mortgage down to $1800 - 1900 range.

What do you pay in homeowner's insurance?

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#288

Post by aledalgrande »

hogFeast wrote: post #148
aledalgrande wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that is a problem in any place where it is desirable to live these days. Locations I've experienced first hand: London, Sydney, Bay area, Los Angeles, Vancouver... and I'm sure there are many more where you can't buy on that salary.

This isn't really the case. First, to talk about the place I know best, cities in the UK outside London are pretty expensive too. The UK has a disproportionate share of the world's expensive cities, despite being a relatively middle-income country. Demand isn't rising fast, it is just impossible to build (usually due to "environmental" planning regulations). That is an unforced error. Second, there are examples of la…

> The UK has a disproportionate share of the world's expensive cities, despite being a relatively middle-income country.

How is that a counter example?

> Second, there are examples of large cities that don't have these issues. Berlin is probably one of the most well-known examples,

> and guess what...rents are going up

It seems you are contradicting yourself, or it is not clear what you wanted to say.

> part of the problem is local policy causing a problem in aggregate

Definitely a problem. But I would say there's not many cities that can escape it. As for NYC, which you mentioned, in the last 10 years the average price nearly doubled [1]. While salaries didn't grow that fast.

[1] https://www.zillow.com/new-york-ny/home-values/

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#289

Post by aledalgrande »

glandium wrote: post #265
soren_dahl wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gitlab, for example. You can see the multiples in the json used for the salary calculator (eg. Vancouver 57.367 % of a SF salary): https://about.gitlab.com/salary/data.json

Angola 120.056?!

Meanwhile if you live at the Bermuda you can get more than if you lived in LA... I think they are just messing with us! lol

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#290

Post by thrower123 »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #286
ccvannorman wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20% down is only for investment properties, not Single Family homes. 3.5% for FHA is the norm. 3.5% * 348k = $12,180, plus closing costs, maybe $20k in all. At 100k+ per year, you're making 6,000 per month, so you should easily be able to save enough for a 3.5% downpayment. Does nobody understand how to buy homes on this thread?! It's pretty easy if you make >100k In My Opinion! Plus, there are multiple downpayment a…

Will you have PMI for the duration of your FHA loan, or do you wait to refinance by the time you have 20% equity?

Once you hit 22% of the principle paid off, the PMI must be automatically ceased. Once you have hit 20%, even if that is ahead of schedule, you can request that it be cancelled[1].

In many cases, however, if property values have gone up, or you have done work to the property, you can get the property reassessed, and refinance into a new loan based on the newly assessed value, and get rid of the PMI even faster than that.

This is what I did on my house - between the real estate market bouncing back after the financial crisis, and some renovations I did, after two years the value of my house increased almost 50%. My credit score had also gone up, and interest rates had gone down, so I also was able to get a better interest rate.

[1] https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/when-can-i-remove-p...

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