15%. 

Was 29% in Boston for a few years, renting. 

posted by Ironman92

36%...whoa

Indeed. I suspect there's a lot of people who are buried in debt out there. I just looked up the median home selling price in my old zip. 483k.

No thanks.

posted by MontyBrunswick

Indeed. I suspect there's a lot of people who are buried in debt out there. I just looked up the median home selling price in my old zip. 483k.

No thanks.

Indeed lol

posted by gut

To each their own, but why are you guys doing 15-20 year mortgages?  You're just accelerating paying down the principal which is returning a lousy 2-2.5% after taxes.

You can debate paying a little more to lock-in a rate for 30 years, but when you crunch the numbers it's hard to beat the savings on a 5 or 7-yr ARM.  Rates have been low for 10+ years, and I don't see that changing significantly over the next 10 years.

The 15 year rate was a point below the 30 year rate and I can afford it, a house should be a risk adverse investment

posted by gut

Rates have been low for 10+ years, and I don't see that changing significantly over the next 10 years.

Should be paid off before 2025

No house payment here. But damn!, property taxes are more than making up for it.

Paid off house in March of this year.  I’ve done a lot of things wrong in life.  But one right thing was never buying too much house.  

posted by gut

To each their own, but why are you guys doing 15-20 year mortgages?  You're just accelerating paying down the principal which is returning a lousy 2-2.5% after taxes.

You can debate paying a little more to lock-in a rate for 30 years, but when you crunch the numbers it's hard to beat the savings on a 5 or 7-yr ARM.  Rates have been low for 10+ years, and I don't see that changing significantly over the next 10 years.

Oof, this didn't age well.

posted by Dr Winston O'Boogie

Paid off house in March of this year.  I’ve done a lot of things wrong in life.  But one right thing was never buying too much house.  

Congratulations, I can't wait for that day to come.

Down to around 8% of "net" (gross minus taxes), 11% if based on actual deposit (401k, insurance, etc taken out as well). Income gone up a lot, taxes have as well, my monthly mortgage has gone up from about $150-200 since 2020 in both taxes and insurance premiums going up.

about 7 ish years left on the mortgage.

Just sold in December of '22 and bought in February '23. Our old house went for almost 70% more from what we bought it for in 2018. Crazy.

We're sitting at roughly 28%-29%. A little higher than we'd like, but this is most definitely the place where we will be at for the next 20-25 years. Almost tripled our square footage, have a basement and two car garage now, kids have a huge backyard to play in, and closer to work for my wife.

We did go with a 5 year ARM through our local credit union and got it at 5% for years 1 and 2, then can only go up half a percentage after that. Will look to refinance around year 4 or so.

posted by jmog

Oof, this didn't age well.

LMAO, even at 6%, it's still a lower after-tax return than conservative investments have been yielding.  And mortgage rates have been below 6% for 20 straight years (while ARMs are even lower).  It will probably temporarily bump above with a couple more rate increases coming. 

Aged just fine, some people's math on the other hand...Bottom line is if you've been building equity in your home over the years, you've lost a significant amount of money with an inferior return. Everyone mocked Boatshoes for investing in treasuries...

Nevermind the next recession will send rates back down.  There's another issue most people aren't aware of, which is the difficulty (if not impossibility) of getting a mortgage in retirement.  And so the only way to tap that equity without selling is to do the uber-stupid "reverse mortgage".

I'm still paying 3.0%, but it begins adjusting up at the end of the year .  I could pay off my mortgage, but I'll give you one guess why I don't.  My neighbor, a former equity analyst, refi'd last year...give you one guess why he took equity out when he did that.  Only reason I didn't do the same is I plan to sell in a year or two, and when I do I'll be looking at interest-only mortgages.

posted by birddog23

We did go with a 5 year ARM through our local credit union and got it at 5% for years 1 and 2, then can only go up half a percentage after that. Will look to refinance around year 4 or so.

The 28% is a very generalized rule.  People with higher incomes can certainly go above, though lenders seem to use that, maybe up to 36%, as a pretty universal rule now.

But, yeah, a 5-yr ARM right now was probably a good move.  I'm sure rates will be back down in a few years, probably not historic lows, but I think the 30-yr will get back down to around 4%.

posted by birddog23

Just sold in December of '22 and bought in February '23. Our old house went for almost 70% more from what we bought it for in 2018. Crazy.

We're sitting at roughly 28%-29%. A little higher than we'd like, but this is most definitely the place where we will be at for the next 20-25 years. Almost tripled our square footage, have a basement and two car garage now, kids have a huge backyard to play in, and closer to work for my wife.

We did go with a 5 year ARM through our local credit union and got it at 5% for years 1 and 2, then can only go up half a percentage after that. Will look to refinance around year 4 or so.

just closed last week. 18% of my take home right now. I'm planning to knock the whole thing out in the next 2-3 years assuming I keep getting bonuses in the ballpark of my past bonus payouts. the worst case is 4 years which is when the last of my unvested stock matures and that amount will for sure cover the mortgage we currently have. Once the recession sets in and rates drop back to like 3.6-4% i might re-finance if costs are low enough and drag it out. but 6% interest on this new loan is a major motivator to get rid of this note.

like Winston said, many mistakes in my life, including the first house i bought in the midst of the 2008 housing crisis (i lost 98k on that house, but never foreclosed on it) i've never bought too much house.

posted by j_crazy

just closed last week. 18% of my take home right now. I'm planning to knock the whole thing out in the next 2-3 years assuming I keep getting bonuses in the ballpark of my past bonus payouts. the worst case is 4 years which is when the last of my unvested stock matures and that amount will for sure cover the mortgage we currently have. Once the recession sets in and rates drop back to like 3.6-4% i might re-finance if costs are low enough and drag it out. but 6% interest on this new loan is a major motivator to get rid of this note.

like Winston said, many mistakes in my life, including the first house i bought in the midst of the 2008 housing crisis (i lost 98k on that house, but never foreclosed on it) i've never bought too much house.

I bought my house at the end of that 2008 crash, the values in my area bottomed out at about $105k, I bought my house for $110k (was originally listed for $150k). 

6-12 months ago when the market was insane, the house across the street (same lot size, same cape cod house built in the 60s) sold for $199k after all houses on the street from 2008 until 2022 sold for $100-$125k.

Its probably now more like a $175k rough estimate if I wanted to sell my house tomorrow (currently owe about $80k). When the rates go back down I am thinking of taking a HELOC and putting it in mutual funds (ala gut's buddy) but I won't do that with HELOC rates at 8.5% right now.

posted by jmog

Congratulations, I can't wait for that day to come.

Thanks.  A good feeling.  I've worked hard to have no debt currently - no cars, no house, no loans, no credit card.  It allows me a better night's sleep.

posted by Dr Winston O'Boogie

Thanks.  A good feeling.  I've worked hard to have no debt currently - no cars, no house, no loans, no credit card.  It allows me a better night's sleep.

Did you use any particular method, like Dave Ramsey, snow ball, another called the annihilation method or something?

My goal is 7-8 years, no debt. I have no CC debt (use some but pay off each month just to keep credit score going up), no student loan debt, etc,  so I have 2 cars and house. Wife's car will be paid off next year, my truck and house both in 6-7 years is the goal. That will put me right around 50 maybe 52 and debt free.

If I can do that, then my wife's next car will be paid for with saved up cash from said debt removals.

posted by jmog

Did you use any particular method, like Dave Ramsey, snow ball, another called the annihilation method or something?

My goal is 7-8 years, no debt. I have no CC debt (use some but pay off each month just to keep credit score going up), no student loan debt, etc,  so I have 2 cars and house. Wife's car will be paid off next year, my truck and house both in 6-7 years is the goal. That will put me right around 50 maybe 52 and debt free.

If I can do that, then my wife's next car will be paid for with saved up cash from said debt removals.

we did the ramsey mehtod until we got to where we only had house debt.  at that point we stopped with the debt snowball and focused on investing. with my job moving us every few years we had been just using equity gains and whatever we had invested to make larger down payments on each subsequent house. We just put 550k down on the house we bought last week by doing that method since we eliminated all non-house debt in 2016.

We are somewhere around 30% right now of our take home pay. I wish it was lower but this is our dream house and unless we move again for a job we should be here the rest of our lives. 

We are in Dublin schools so the taxes are high as hell out here. I miss Texas and no state income tax right about now. 

We have also been incredibly lucky with our housing situation. Bought in 2014 our first house for $180k sold it in 2020 for 325k. Bought second home for 490k in 2020 sold 1 year later for 693k. Bought our current home for just under 800k and the new ones around us a year later are selling for 875k for less sq footage

posted by jmog
Be careful, many ARMs, like HELOCs, can "only go up 0.5%" each month...not in total. Might want to double check that.

Yep - we're set. We made sure to double check a lot of the "fine print" stuff.

The car payments, or lack thereof, is huge for us too. We have one vehicle completely paid and our 2nd vehicle is almost paid off. 

A nice feeling when you're not losing $500ish ea. month to auto loans. Made our mortgage somewhat more affordable. 

Only debt is the house. Still glad i refinanced to 2.85% a few years ago into a 20 note. No reason to keep paying interest. One more month we free up daycare at 1,500 a month (still have another one :(), gonna be silly. Sold our boat as well, for a gain. I’m cheap, and love money, so this will be great. Owe about $250k on our house but could sell for around $750k. The south is killing it currently. 

About 3%. Pretty close to debt free. No car payments.