$4000+ mortgage payment

How many people have a mortgage payment over $4000 a month (incl. taxes and insurance)? If so, what is your income level like and do you find it tough to be able to pay all your monthly bills? My husband and I are looking at a house but I am scared of the mortgage payments!

Re: $4000+ mortgage payment

I would think your monthly income would have to be well over 200K to make a $4000 mortgage payment.

Re: $4000+ mortgage payment

your mortgage payment shouldnt be over 28% of your income.

with a $4000 payment, that works about to approx $170,000 per year.

Re: $4000+ mortgage payment

you might want to make it a poll, some people might not want to publicly share such personal information. If you did a poll it would be anonymous. JMHO

Re: $4000+ mortgage payment

As we always say with this topic - I think that you need to lay out all of your finances and do a budget to see what you can afford. You have to make sure that you leave enough money in savings and enough extra money each month for all of the surprises that come up with home ownership. Good luck!

Re: $4000+ mortgage payment

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Good idea- thanks!

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except a poll doesn't take into account any debt... so if there are other expenses besides the mortgage payment, you would need a bigger monthly income to be able to make the mortgage payments.

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We didn't go by the rule of thumb. If we did that it said we can't afford anything. I would say over $150,000 combined.

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Our mortgage is alittle under $4000 a month with taxes and insurance.
1st mortgage:$2,267.00
2nd Mortgage: 520.00 and we send at least 7.50

All of our expenses per month including my student loans which are $1000 a month equal about $6000 but we also have some financed credit cards in there so it is a little higher than it should be.

But like other posters said it is all about what you are comfortable with and how you want to live the next couple of years or when you want to have a family. There are a lot of factors to consider.

We make between $150,000 & $180,000.

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i think our mortgage and taxes are $3800 a month and we make between 150k and 190K and we are fine, we're doing a lot of work on the house (all ourselves) and live pretty well.

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ours is going to be over $4,000 by quite a bit. we are moving in today, so i'll let you know if we survive the payments

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Up until a few months ago, we were just over the $4k mark. We just paid down a HUGE chunk of the mortgage (on a IO mortgage) thanks to the all profit sale of DH's condo and a very good bonus year, and it dropped our mortgage payment considerably. However, DH is very anxious to pay down the mortgage quickly, so we still pay what we paid before paying that huge chunk and apply the extra towards the principle.

We've been fortunate that we haven't really had to make many changes to our lifestyle, but that's mostly because I've always been cheap and don't like to spend $$

Message edited 8/30/2006 9:48:35 AM.

Re: $4000+ mortgage payment

My husband and I just closed on our house last month and our mortgage/taxes are over $4000 and I am completely freaking out. We make a combined income of between $200k and $250 but we both have roughly $500/mo in student loans. We have enough to just cover all our bils and then maybe have $2000 a month left over for savings, and that's if we don't indulge on anything like going out to dinner, or for me shopping for clothes and makeup just on a whim. I'm also concerned that if we run up against any emergencies, we'll be in big trouble. Then there's kids. AFTER we did this I realized that when we have kids I'll never have the option to be a stay at home mom because we need both incomes to get by. Sorry I hijacked your post. It's just really hitting home right now.

On the bright side, all my friends say it's a struggle for the first year, but then it gets easier as each year goes by. I guess it's just the initial shock.

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My DH and I make close to $300k without bonuses. We just moved into a new house and now pay a little over $4k a month for mortgage & taxes. However, this was double our old mortgage and we were VERY nervous about taking on this kind of debt. I would suggest to anyone buying a house, regardless of the mortgage payment, to first list all your income and every expense, including cc debt, loans, train passes, and how much you currently save, to see what you will be left with at the end of the month. That is the only way we KNEW we would be okay, still have money for savings and not feel lilke we couldn't go out to dinner. We actually saved every recipt for a month including groceries, cabs, restaurants, clothing - everything. It was an eye opening experience!

Like someone else said though, I will not have the luxury of staying home with my kids for a very long time unless we both pull in some huge bonuses and can pay down our mortgage to almost nothing. Something to wrok towards, I guess!