My wife and I are feeling pressure to buy a home (both from family and personal), but the closer we get to buying, the more it feels like home ownership may not be worth it.
A little background. We are in our mid-30s and live in a VHCOL area. We make $255K gross and net around $13K/month (after taxes, 401K, health insurance). Our expenses are around $6500/month ($3300 rent, 450 utility/internet/car insurance, 2750 food/pet care). We also recently had our first child and are looking at a minimum $3k/month in child care. Total expenses later this year will be around $9.5-10K/month. We have no debts and around $200K in retirement/investments and 1.5yrs+ emergency fund.
Outside of that, we have put together $400K for a down payment on a home. The median home price in the area is $1.4M, but the most we think we could reasonably afford is $1.1M At that price, we are looking at max of 1200sq feet, which is only slightly bigger than our current rental. Is taking on a $600K mortgage financially responsible seeing as it would start to push our monthly expense up an additional $2400? Should we keep just keep renting and invest our cash elsewhere? Hate the feeling of buying just to own when the quality of home at $1.1M in our area isn't great.
Submitted February 28, 2024 at 10:18PM by Fearless-Sky3143 https://ift.tt/dRUaNTH
