When buying a home, how much extra?

[Jem]

Hi and a first post from one of those lurkers finally coming out...

When you purchased your home, how much cash (or Efund or easily accessible money) did you have "leftover"? Meaning, after your DP, closing costs, moving costs, etc., how much did you still have? I'll take $ amounts or # of months of monthly expenses.

[lanyac]

Honestly, we only had about $7k to our names. We put down $23k on the house. Maybe not the smartest move, but buying was $100 cheaper/month than renting.

[ejpint]

We only had about one month of living expenses left in extra liquid cash. We had other savings, but it was all earmarked for our wedding, which took place about four months after we closed on the house. We've never really had a huge e-fund, though.

[BNL2]

We only had about 3k, which absolutely no one would recommend on this board. We live in a VLCOL area so we didn't see it as super risky. We did have to pay just under 1k for a repair in the first 3 months so that was 1/3 of our efund. It worked out for us, but I wouldn't do it again.

[aerowife2010]

They say you should have 6 months worth of expenses after everything is said and done. But I can tell you that we didn't have that. Our goal consistently is a 3 month emergency fund so we probably had closer to 1.5-2 months after we bought our house. But that was just cash, we still had retirement investments, etc elsewhere.

[SpicedApplePie]

We had ~2 months of income left in savings.

[flygirl22]

The first time we bought, we didn't have much but we were completely unprepared. We were lucky we didn't have anything happen to the house.

It depends on your comfort level really, also depends on the age of your home, and if you anticipate that you have to do major work on the house in the near future. I like to have at least 3 months full budget/ 6 months basics in an e-fund at all times.

[FishChicks]

We closed in March. We started out with around 8 months full expenses left after closing, but got hit with an unexpectedly large income tax bill that April. As in, it was a five figures large tax bill and estimated payment. That dropped us to 2-3 months full expenses, but we built back up quickly after that, despite over 10k in unexpected house repair bills in the following 12 months.

HCOL. We did have family who could have lent us money if we had needed it, which helped with our overall comfort level.

[Deleted]

We're in a HCOL area. We had around 50K leftover when we closed. However, 20K was earmarked for our portion of the wedding (which was 4 months later). We got that back in wedding gifts, though. Then we spent 15K on renovations.

We only put 10% down though. Not sure if that was dumb or not, since we had enough for 20%- but would have wiped us out.

[amity]

We wiped out our savings to put a full 20% on our home when we moved to a new city. We were young and dumb. Thankfully, we made it through that period without any major calamities and were able to build our savings back up pretty quickly.

Speaking from experience, this is a bad idea and you should not do it.

[Deleted]

Honestly, nothing. We put 15K down, plus had about 3K is closing costs (seller covered the rest). I think he had less then 1K left in savings. Smart? no but it worked out for us.

Our mortgage is so low (and we have no other debt) that we were able to put all the money back within a few months. However, if I was doing it over again I wouldn't cut it that close. I would just wait the few extra months until we had that extra money.

[chessie]

3 Month efund and 20k for repairs/supplies/tools for first year. That 20k went quick...

[magdala9]

I bought my first house before I was married. I put 15% down and paid PMI. I had $10k left after moving. It was not enough. My house was older (1950s) and these old repairs kept nibbling away at my savings. That first year of homeownership money was very tight and I was very stressed about keeping it all together.

[Jem]

Thanks for all the responses - they are really helpful!

We are in a very HCOL area and we are just so used to renting that we are having a tough time coming to terms with spending so much of our savings. DH and I know we are too conservative, and the savings has been earmarked for a house, but it is still tough to see it gone. Here's hoping we take the plunge soon!

[megs193]

I would want to have a 6 month e-fund after all expenses. When we bought our house we had a 12 month e-fund because I was pregnant and we knew I would be quitting my job to SAH for awhile. We also live in a HCOL and it is painful to lose so much of your savings. Between our downpayment and closing cost we spent $115,000.

[juris11]

We currently have $20K leftover after down payment. However, quite a bit of that is going towards furniture, paint, and carpet. We will probably have about $10K left. (We have like zero furniture, hence the large expense)

[simpsongal]

About $45K - but we've used half of that for repairs and improvements. We're aiming to have 3 months of mortgage payments in liquid cash. Beyond that, we have other investments we could liquidate, if the need arose.

[anna7602]

Our co-op boards at the two places we've bought required we have a certain amount of money in our savings account- completely liquid- as a condition of board approval. At our first place, I believe it was 6 months' worth of maintenance fees (which were about $700/month at the time) and at our second place, it was a lot higher. Because we still had our first property listed, they wanted us to have 6 months' worth of mortgage on both places and maintenance for both places available in a savings account. We ended up taking a loan against DH's 401K to meet this requirement, something we would never have done if the board hadn't asked for it. We paid it back as quickly as we were able to.

[stephlove]

I know it's not very MM at all, but we close in a couple weeks and after all is said in done... we'll only have about 2k left over.

I'm not worried about it. Our savings will skyrocket with buying, since our PITI will be half of what we're paying in rent. We're losing money by renting, so it makes sense to buy.

[Jem]

May 21, 2012 9:21:47 GMT -5 anna7602 said:

Our co-op boards at the two places we've bought required we have a certain amount of money in our savings account- completely liquid- as a condition of board approval. At our first place, I believe it was 6 months' worth of maintenance fees (which were about $700/month at the time) and at our second place, it was a lot higher. Because we still had our first property listed, they wanted us to have 6 months' worth of mortgage on both places and maintenance for both places available in a savings account. We ended up taking a loan against DH's 401K to meet this requirement, something we would never have done if the board hadn't asked for it. We paid it back as quickly as we were able to.

This is why we didn't buy in the city. It seems that requirements are pretty strict now and they are asking for a year's worth of mortgage plus maintenance/tax in liquid funds.

[Deleted]

May 21, 2012 7:10:08 GMT -5 Jem said:

Thanks for all the responses - they are really helpful!

We are in a very HCOL area and we are just so used to renting that we are having a tough time coming to terms with spending so much of our savings. DH and I know we are too conservative, and the savings has been earmarked for a house, but it is still tough to see it gone. Here's hoping we take the plunge soon!

We had a really hard time with this as well, between out DP & closing costs, we had to put out $70k. DH is a saver and had a hard time letting the money go, but it was worth it in the end.

We live in a HCOL area and had $10k left after our purchase.

[minniebee]

The first time I bought, I only had about $5k left in savings after all was said and done. That was kind of dumb. I was single then, and although my job was pretty stable, if I lost my job, 100% of my income was gone since it was just me. I didn't have any debt other than the mortgage, but still. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. It worked out ok, but I would never do that again.

Second time - we had 12 months of expenses saved.

[countthestars]

We hope to have about $25k leftover when all is said and done, which is probably a ~6 month efund.