Looked at the sidebar, didn't see this anywhere.
The vast majority of "how much house can you afford?" calculators out there on the internet ask how much down payment you will make, what your annual income is, and what mortgage rate you'll have. That's it.
My understanding is that buying a house is so so so much more than just calculating your mortgage payment and figuring out if that's less than a third of your income.
I'd love to see a widget that includes variables for closing costs (how do you even calculate that?), property taxes (does this vary by zip code?), HOA fees (can you even reasonably find this info publicly, based on an address of a potential listing?), other stuff (do most houses come with refrigerators, and if not, is that like a $2k expense I should plan for?). Plus moving vans, new furniture, inspections, repairs, etc...
Is there a rough guideline out there? If the house I want is $250k, and my mortgage lender asks for 20% down, I get the feeling $50k isn't actually enough savings. But what is? $60k? $80k? $100k? I'm mostly concerned about the first year (downpayment, closing costs, buying furniture). I'm quite capable of budgeting regular predictable expenses (mortgage, property taxes, etc.)
Quick about me: Never bought a house before. I'm on track to have a 3-6 month emergency fund + $50k downpayment + zero debt in 2020. Would like to know if buying a house in 2020 is realistic for me.
Submitted February 15, 2018 at 04:37PM by ZoraSage http://ift.tt/2F7s4vA
