House Mortgage Question, 1st house please help!?
I have been offered a 60K job in Sierra Vista, AZ. And my wife and I are having trouble figuring out how much home we can afford! Most online calculators are showing us from 120s all the way to 220s!!! We would like to stay within the in the 26%/33% or close to the rule of thumb when it comes to debt. We will be able to use a VA home loan, since I am prior military. We have approx. 10K to put down and have approx. $800.00 in school debt, cars payments, CC payments, etc. Any help on getting us a solid number would really be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Jason
With a VA loan you don’t have to pay PMI correct? But a VA loan is not the way to go? That’s interesting. Also we are thinking a 30 yr loan which is between 6.3 and 6.5 I believe. Does this help narrow it down at all?
So much of that is going to depend on your interest rates, property taxes, private mortgage insurance, and homeowners insurance. If you don’t put down at least 20% you will have to carry private mortgage insurance (which is a load of crap because the only one it covers is the bank). 60K/year works out to 5K/month. After taxes you’ll have less than 4K, so you should probably try to cap all the home expenses at about a grand. That probably means you’re going to be a lot closer to 120K than 220K when shopping for a house.
For example: some friends of ours just put in a 90K offer on a house that’s going to end up costing about $780 month with property taxes, PMI, homeowners insurance.
