POLL: How much do you spend on your housing?

[jigsy]

Because it is poll day here, and because I want to feel better about my impending rent increase.

How much of your gross income is spent on your housing?

Bonus Question - Do you feel like you could/should downgrade or upgrade?

[Violet]

22%. It's not ideal, but imo it's okay since we are in HCOL. I would be good if I didn't have student loans tying up income too. It's the first year of our mortgage so we are still adjusting our spending. I also feel like we have a lot of room for income growth which helps the big picture.

[jigsy]

To answer my own poll
I just got a new job with a raise. If I stayed where I am, I would only be putting 20% of my gross income towards housing.

But...I am going to move because while it would be nice to stay in that zone financially, I also feel like now that I have more money available, I might as well move somewhere that 1 - has A/C and a washer/dryer in unit and 2 - doesn't have an infestation problem that the landlords don't seem to want to take care of.

So, now I am moving, and looking at spending closer to 30-35% - which, is still falls into the "suggested" range, but it feel like I should just spend less.

[woodgnome]

13% including our monthly escrow money

[dreamcrisp1]

Ours is 35% right now but we are one income. We live in a HCOL and live in a great area with a 900 sq.ft apartment. I love our place. Everything else is relatively cheaper so we save money in other ways compared to when we lived in Toronto so it’s not that hard.

Once I get a job again, it’ll likely decrease to 21%, on the low end of the pay scale. Our old place was 20% and we lived happily.

[goldengirlz]

I definitely feel like we should have spent more but hindsight is 20/20.

When we first bought our house, it was 25% of gross (which when you consider that we live in a high-tax state was a pretty large chunk of net.)

Now our salaries have doubled and it’s closer to 11%.

[eclaires]

Right at 15% including our escrow money - eta: this was actually based on net. Based on gross it's 11%ish.

I really do want to move, but don't want to pay much more. I'm not a very frugal person, in general, but I like keeping our fixed expenses as low as possible.

[stephogirl]

We're spending just a hair under 15%.

Sometimes I fantasize about upgrading to a bigger house. Then I remember that we can barely keep up with home ownership needs as it is. Cleaning, yard work, general upkeep. With a bigger house, that would only be worse. Plus, we don't need to. We have a good floor plan with adequate room for our family.

I just need to stay away from HGTV when I'm bored.

[firedancer10288]

27% using DH’s base salary, however he typically works overtime or nights and makes more.

[katb]

I highly suggest using net - because what you make and what you bring home to spend on rent is two different things. Now that you got a raise, your tax bracket may jump, you may need to spend more on clothing regularly, etc. I'm not suggesting you don't move, just saying use your net income to determine percentages. You may find 35% of gross is really 40% or higher of net and can make the month tight. However, it also depends on your other bills.

[dancingirl21]

26% of gross - that’s only DH, I’m a SAHM. We bought this house last year and it’s likely our long term home. We are a high property tax state so that is a lot of the number.

[eddy]

16% of net including escrow and insurance. 

I have have to remind myself this when I start to get itchy and want a bigger house. Our house is perfectly sized and more like importantly very affordable. 

[TR]

I just looked and PITI is 20% of our gross, but closer to 32% of net from my very rough calculations. I wish we had spent less, but we knew we really wanted this neighborhood which is a higher price point that most in the immediate area and I do really love our house. If we had had more time to look we may have found something smaller come on the market, but we were moving and didn’t want to rent temporarily with two dogs (it was hard to find an option for that anyway) so we jumped on this one.

[lilafowler]

87%

[Vespasia]

PITI is around 11% of our estimated gross. We were able to buy a very inexpensive home in a decent area of the city. 


I love our house itself, with a few minor annoyances. We would like to be in a cooler neighborhood but our house would have cost 2-3x as much. We just use all the money we saved on quick Lyft rides to breweries and restaurants.

[WOUNDTIGHT]

14% PITI. We pay more for daycare. I'll feel so so rich when that's over next year.

[fernweh]

About 10%
We found when the housing market was bad so we got a steal.

ETA: or income has also about doubled since we bought. We have considered moving but we like having such a small payment. It allows us to travel more, gives us a piece of mind that if there was job loss we could still afford it on one income, and since and don’t have or plan to have kids we really have no need for more room.

[Gato]

I could have written your post word for word, stephogirl

[mccallister84]

We are at 17% of gross. But we net less than half of that after healthcare, HSA, and retirement so it’s 33% of net.

[brooklyn]

About 35% of gross. In a VHCOL and I’m a SAHM.

[edavis]

Oct 19, 2018 15:59:05 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

I definitely feel like we should have spent more but hindsight is 20/20.

When we first bought our house, it was 25% of gross (which when you consider that we live in a high-tax state was a pretty large chunk of net.)

Now our salaries have doubled and it’s closer to 11%.

This is us exactly. We currently spend around 11% month (and that’s with high property taxes) and I wish we had spent more when we bought because we really need more space.

I could probably Google, but what’s a conservative recommendation for how much of gross should/could be spent on housing? Is there anyone who feels they achieved the “perfect” percentage where they have enough house with a decent amount of $ left over?

ETA: I see most recommendations say to keep PITI under 28% of gross.

[Moe]

Ugh, I know this is not your point, but this always drives me to the whole affordable housing crisis and it saddens me that it really doesnt exist.

[lolalolalola]

We we just doubled our mortgage, but I increased my work hours significantly at the same time so our totally payments are about the same. 22%

ETA. Oops I used net, not gross. It’s 14%. Can’t update the poll though.

[pooh8402]

17% of our net, so less than 15% of our gross. We probably could upgrade if we really wanted to, but a) we haven't been here 2 years yet, b) we have another kid on the way so more daycare expenses, c) I'm expecting a small income loss next year after maternity leave (going to PT), and d) we're really working on retirement savings right now.

[namasteak]

33% net

[jigsy]

Oct 19, 2018 17:00:47 GMT -5 mofongo said:

I hate these convos! Give me numbers or it means nothing lol.
Not good with math

lol. I could, be then I will just be sad because I will get the flood of "my 5 bedroom mini-mansion's mortgage is less than your rent on a 1 bedroom!?!?!

katb, I am definitely considering what the rent looks like in terms of my net income...I just went with gross for poll purposes because there are so many factors that effect net income. And the standard advice is 30% of gross income should be where your housing costs are. 

But...this poll is doing the opposite of what I had hoped. I am just going to ignore all the dual income comments.

If people want to comment on my specific situation and chime in on what they might do, well, here are more details (nothing you all say will likely change my plans, but, hey, never know, lol)

So...PDQ as I will remove numbers later
thank you all for the input. Part of me was wondering if I was over reacting. I think I found the right place for me. Snd, bonus, I'll get 8 weeks free and 1 year if free parking. They basically deposit the 2 months of rent as a credit on my account, so I can either space it out for lower rent, or I can just take a few months off. I'm going to weigh my options, maybe do half and half - use some of it to replace furniture, some to lower my monthly rent payment.

[kitkat1502]

Rent, $1800 3bed 2bath top floor of a duplex. It was new construction when we moved in, HCOL so we feel we have a great deal on this. We’re saving for a home but it’s going to take a while for this area. Right now this works for us.

[krystee]

18% of gross, but 35% of net, which is higher than I would like it to be.

[onomatopoeia]

A little over 10%. I actually thought it was higher. It’s an old house so we’re constantly putting out money to fix and change stuff.
ETA: we are in a HCOL area, in a small modest home. Most people here spend 25-30% on housing.

[gummy]

9%. Yay for living in a shit hole LCOL area:/