[lbo-talk] 15 clams+

jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com
Wed Mar 23 10:56:41 PST 2005



> I thought the old rule of thumb was that you could afford a
> house priced at 3-4 times your pretax income.

That was before FICO :-)

Anyway, you can see quickly how that can't possibly be true; it would have to be how much _mortgage_ you can afford. A $30k income can "afford a $12M house" if they have an $11.9M downpayment ...

But yes: housing costs are expensive, whether you own or rent. Unless you have been living in the same rent-controlled apartment for the last 15 years :-)

(Just imagine if you shopped at a grocery-bill-controlled store!)

I think the problem with looking at percentages is that it doesn't scale. What someone with a $50k income can afford is not half what someone with a $100k income can afford: if you make more, you're often more willing to devote a larger percentage of your budget to housing, since getting twice as much house doesn't (typically) mean you pay twice as much for gas.

I think it's a lot more useful to try to figure actual [net-of-tax] monthly costs when comparing own/rent scenarios.

/jordan



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