What mortgage based on income?

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry if this is redundant. I'm trying to figure out how much house people go with based on their salary. For example I make 150k but have a child support payment so I went with a 400k house to stay in a comfortable range.

I want to sell my house and a buy a new one in a few years with my new wife and have a "forever home". I expect to be making around 200k between the two of us and my cold support payment will go away for one child. No other debt or auto loans. Just an $800 a month CS payment for one child. Taxes are high in my area. Around 15k a year. Would it be to much to take on a 550k mortgage with 5% down? We have a healthy savings and parents with $ to help us if we got in a jam. Sorry for the long post. I saw an article online that sparked my interest and I was wondering everyone's opinion. One typical rule of thumb is 2.5 salary for a comfortable mortgage or 25% of income or something right?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

*child *too lol

[Anonymous]

Your DTI should have plenty of breathing room with your income and that mortgage payment. Just make sure to check your county's loan limits.

[Anne1208]

My husband and I are going with 2.25 times our income (no child support payments here, but rather - student loan payments). We have a household income of $175,000 and just bought a house for $392,500.  We were looking in the $425k or less range (so, almost 2.5 times), so about what you are doing relative to your income. If you get to $200K then $550k should be very doable (a big factor also is property taxes - ours are only 1.1% so $4000 ish a year).  

[leahkline86]

We will make approximately $130,000 this year. We are purchasing a home and the loan amount will be $380,000. We have 4 children.