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| Benjamin |
 Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:34 pm Post subject: How much house can you afford? |
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According to this little calculator my wife and I could probably afford a home worth $247,093.19. Our actual home cost us about 100,000 less than this but we hope to have it paid off a lot sooner than 30 years. 
How much does it say you can afford?
http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/houseafford/houseafford.html |
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| vetelmo |
| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:46 pm Post subject: Re: How much house can you afford? |
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| Benjamin wrote: | According to this little calculator my wife and I could probably afford a home worth $247,093.19. Our actual home cost us about 100,000 less than this but we hope to have it paid off a lot sooner than 30 years.
How much does it say you can afford?
http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/houseafford/houseafford.html |
Mine was so embarrassing, I dont even want to share, lmao! The sad part is that i live in Cali and the rpices of home are outragous where i live. I could move, but then I dont have the beautiful ocean to nearby.
I pay a third in rent what it SAYS I can afford, lol. |
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| Benjamin |
| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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Well the double income is very nice. We did try to work it out though that we could afford the house even if one of us lost our job.
Cali is very expensive...what part do you live in? |
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| geb9696 |
| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:02 pm Post subject: |
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| I doubt that it is very accurate. |
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| Benjamin |
| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:04 pm Post subject: |
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| geb9696 wrote: | | I doubt that it is very accurate. |
It does seem a bit inflated, but interesting never the less. |
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| vetelmo |
| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Benjamin wrote: | Well the double income is very nice. We did try to work it out though that we could afford the house even if one of us lost our job.
Cali is very expensive...what part do you live in? |
I live near Santa Cruz, Ca. It's one of the more expensive places to live in the state. Likely in the top ten anyway (for the state). I lived in Monterey for awhile too. There, the majority of the population is making alittle above minimum wage but the homes are just too far out of reach so they end up buying homes an hour away for about two thirds the price in Monterey. |
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| DKnightSr |
| Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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Member of the Month
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| an8skate wrote: | | Benjamin wrote: | Well the double income is very nice. We did try to work it out though that we could afford the house even if one of us lost our job.
Cali is very expensive...what part do you live in? |
I live near Santa Cruz, Ca. It's one of the more expensive places to live in the state. Likely in the top ten anyway (for the state). I lived in Monterey for awhile too. There, the majority of the population is making alittle above minimum wage but the homes are just too far out of reach so they end up buying homes an hour away for about two thirds the price in Monterey. |
Well, ya'll can sure mosey on up our way. There's only 1 million people in the whole state, and that makes for pretty reasonable housing. Only thing is, ya' gotta love clean air and lots of wildlife. No malls here (at least not like Cali), and nothing over a couple of stories tall. My Mrs and I just came up last September, and bought a home and acreage that in Cali would cost near $1 Million. Here, it's less than $250,000. So hey, come on up.... I can use the real estate appreciation (aka Poppa's Hedge Fund  ) |
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| Dave Rathbun |
| Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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Cost of living is so important when you're considering a relocation. I was working in Louisiana and getting ready to move to Texas. I was told over and over that it would cost more to live here (TX). Well, guess what... the cost is higher, yes, but so are the salaries. But a substantial amount. My wife went from making 18K to 30, I went from 25 to 40. That's a 27K raise for moving several hundred miles west. And Texas has no state income tax.
Montana is a beautiful state. But my wife would never be able to take the winters there. |
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| frusnak |
| Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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Montana sounds so much different than Florida.  Before we moved to Florida from ohio we heard the cost of living would be lower along with wages. Well, I know I'm making $10,000.00 more per year and my wife is making $7,000.00 more. Housing was when we came here in 92 was cheaper but that has changed! We also pay no state or local income tax and have a homestead realestate tax break for primary residences. But people are coming in bus loads every day and the roads are clogged during rush hour that rivals anywhere. But other than housing it is fairly cheap to live here.   |
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| Dave Rathbun |
| Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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Umm, yeah, you could say that Montana is a bit different that Florida. 
Affordable housing is very relative. My folks live in Denver, one of the hotter real-estate areas in the country in the past decade. We have a house in a suburb of Dallas that has more square footage and cost about half as much as theirs does. I'm going to sound like a commercial for Texas, here, but it's been a great location for me. I travel a lot and you can't beat living in the central time zone. I would hate to live on the east or west coast and do what I do. And while D/FW airport is a bear when you have a connecting flight, it's actually very convenient for an origin airport. The weather is not bad, not nearly what you get further north.
There are plenty of resources on the web that help you calculate cost of living in different areas. When we were looking, I found a site that graded areas on a percentage scale. A "normal" location was 100%. Anything over 100 was higher than average, under was lower. If I remember correctly, Denver graded at 118% and Dallas was 82% at the time we moved. I have no idea what they're like now, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were even further apart. |
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| Dave Rathbun |
| Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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CFO
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| Anybody want to guess what is the least populous state in the country? I mean the state with the fewest total people... for bonus points, pick the state with the highest population density. Not the state with the most people, the state with the most people per square mile. |
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| Im Not Warren Buffett |
| Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Dave Rathbun wrote: | | Anybody want to guess what is the least populous state in the country? I mean the state with the fewest total people... for bonus points, pick the state with the highest population density. Not the state with the most people, the state with the most people per square mile. |
I'm tempted to say Alaska or Montana, but I thought it was Wyoming?
The most densely populated state is New Jersey, where I live. I hate NJ. |
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| Dave Rathbun |
| Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 4:40 pm Post subject: |
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Correct, on both counts.
Most people assume a smaller state like Deleware or Rhode Island has fewer people. Wyoming is the state with the least total people. And New Jersey has the highest population density of all states. It's something like over 1800 per square mile. Someone told me a joke about NJ... the conversation goes something like this. Two people meet at a convention. One finds out the other is from NJ, as he is, so he asks, "Oh really? Which exit?"
I guess that's supposed to be funny if you live there.
I'll dig up the link I got last time I needed this info, it's really quite interesting. Alaska has the fewest people per square mile, as you might expect. Believe it or not, even the District of Columbia has more people living there than Wyoming does! Seriously, it's true! |
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| geb9696 |
| Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 7:38 pm Post subject: |
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Investing VP
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| Turnpike exits. I live at exit 3. |
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| Im Not Warren Buffett |
| Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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CFO
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| Dave Rathbun wrote: | Someone told me a joke about NJ... the conversation goes something like this. Two people meet at a convention. One finds out the other is from NJ, as he is, so he asks, "Oh really? Which exit?"
I guess that's supposed to be funny if you live there. |
I've heard this before, and I don't find it funny... the joke is supposed to be that between the Turnpike, Parkway, 295, there are so many exits?
I don't know.
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