@wa3more wrote:tac,
your are right, Assume this monthly 1950 is 10% of OP's income, it would imply an income of about 240k a year.
To offer a different perspective.
If you're single and living a moderately minimal lifestyle you don't need anywhere close to 240K a year to get to a million dollar property. 10% is an arbitrary savings line, and 50% is an abnormal downpayment in the modern market.
This is the market that qualified me for a 1.1M house on 130K in income and 250K in assets in 2015 with my credit problems, and they've loosened since then with 10% jumbos now and suddenly we're down to qualifying for a 900k mortgage size, which implies an income of 140K-160K a year 43% DTI currently assuming ~3.92% interest and a lack of other significant debt so it's just you and your mortgage (made SWAG for full PITI, nobody cares about front end anymore as near as I can tell and jumbos can be cheaper than standard conventional too rate wise). It all gets easier if you have a longer timeperiod to save up more than 100K too, and that just doesn't take that long at the income levels we're talking about if that's your focus.
If you have income it's just not as hard as it's made out to be if this is your primary goal. So the point of focusing on income is definitely the right one, but if you have it, million dollar property is obtainable even with people who aren't anywhere close to the 1%, and that pool expands when we're talking dual incomes.
At least that's all how it plays out in the S. Cali housing market.
@wa3more wrote:good points, my comments were to give some context to the numbers.
I'm not sure how land purchase would work from an underwriting perspective. Some areas, and so cal may be one, are seeing bubbles again. Talking to someone in florida who told me it's getting crazy in some areas.
I'm actually not certain on a land purchase either, but presumably a ranch style home would be similar though there are special financing offers like USDA which make it even more attractive.
California real estate is flatly stupid. I won't get into reasons as that would slide into a specific state proposition which smacks of politics, Florida is somewhat similar actually though I think that's demographics rather than regulation but there's plenty of money there too likely without enough available real estate so I can see it.
Friend of mine is moving to just outside of Wichita, KS, and a 3K square foot house on 2 acres of land, 2008 construction with all the modern amenities, is a 1:1 price with what I paid for my "cheap" condo in 2015.
Then for giggles I started looking at Kansas City as one example, and I really don't know what I'm going to do when this 1 year contract gets up, but I may go really test the idea that I can work from anywhere as I know my income is virtually the same wherever I'm at within 10%, and I'd be saving roughly the same 10% on income tax, and an equivalent price property while higher property tax most likely, is going to get me 2.5-3x for my cash. To say nothing of needing to use Airbnb for short-term living arrangements near my employer when I am in town to optimize out a ~2.5-3 hour round-trip commute... bleh.
To someone's point on another thread I may indeed be stupid for living here: I've dealt with both heat and snow before, I can do it again, and the Pacific doesn't have any intrinsic hold over me so, well, yeah.