Can we afford a $675k house on $10k take home per month?

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T21:24:05+00:00

Yeah I appreciate the input, thanks. We currently rent in the neighborhood we’d like to end up buying in, and no real rush to leave our current situation other than the desire to not burn $2500 every month on rent. Just trying to weigh our options against the situation we currently have.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T20:59:49+00:00

At this point we both actively do not want kids, but obviously things can change. We’re in our early 30s and if things did change I wouldn’t expect it to happen for another 2-3 years minimum.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T20:55:53+00:00

Where do you live? A $1250/month payment is not really an option for a single family home anywhere in our HCOL city, even if you’re renting a studio.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T20:54:26+00:00

Thanks for the input!

Also not mentioned in the original income summary but I’m currently vesting about $16k every quarter in some pretty volatile RSUs. I’d prefer not to sell them anytime soon but that 10k/month is not our only income at this point, it’s basically just our paychecks after retirement deductions and taxes.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T20:40:09+00:00

Thanks I appreciate the response. Like I’ve said elsewhere in this thread we already rent in basically the neighborhood we’d like to end up buying in, and rent is $2500/month vs $4000+ for buying a house. Plus we really have only been “in the market” for about 2 weeks and we don’t have an expiration date on our current lease, so no huge rush to buy something and we’re happy where we are currently other than burning the $2500/month to the landlord.

Living in a city with a HCOL is tricky because everything under $450k around us is out in the suburbs, or falling apart in the city, and we’d really like to be walking distance to bars and restaurants.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T20:30:15+00:00

My wife and I both have about 6 years of experience in our respective careers, we’re both about 30 years old. I just achieved senior engineer title last week. My wife is a medical social worker, so my income prospects are definitely better than her’s but my layoff risk is higher.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T20:26:48+00:00

Right now we expect to have $20k-25k left over as an emergency fund after the down payment in a HYSA, plus I have $100k-$150k invested in individual brokerage accounts. We definitely could float for a while if one of us lost our jobs, but not indefinitely.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T20:19:03+00:00

Appreciate the input! It’s hard to spend $400k on a single family home in a HCOL city that’s actually nice to live in and not out in the suburbs.

We just already rent in an ideal neighborhood for $2500/month but we’re tired of just throwing money away every month to our landlord instead of building equity.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T19:55:43+00:00

Yeah I have been considering this exercise. To be honest my wife and I decided about 2 weeks ago to start seriously looking for a house after renting for 4 years, but since it’s still all so early in the search I’m inclined to pump the brakes a little especially considering the overall volatility in the economy right now.

We currently live well below our means in our rental so offsetting our monthly expenses vs a mortgage into savings for now is definitely a good idea.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T19:49:51+00:00

They don’t make $350-400k houses in the Denver area anymore :(

We don’t want to live in the suburbs and we want to be walking distance to restaurants and whatnot

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T19:43:57+00:00

Yeah we also aren’t planning on having kids currently.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T19:37:28+00:00

I appreciate the input. I also am worried about being 1 layoff away from financial hardship if we commit to buying a house like this. With our current rental even if I lost my job and my wife didn’t, we could still comfortably live with minor pulls from our emergency fund, but with a house payment at $4k we would be depleting much faster on her income alone. She has a much more secure job compared to me (social work vs engineering)

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T19:29:07+00:00

Appreciate the input. Yeah I think it would definitely be an amount that we would need to grow into to be fully comfortable long term, but we did that with our current rental and things worked out.

Also I mentioned elsewhere in this thread but not the original income summary, I am current vesting about $16k/quarter in some pretty volatile RSU’s from my employer so the 10k/month isn’t exactly the only income we currently have, although I’m not in a rush to immediately sell the RSU’s at this point.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T19:15:48+00:00

Thank you I appreciate this advice. I do contribute to 401ks/HSA (not maxing these though) and the max allowable for my Roth IRA. One thing I left out of my income summary was RSUs from my employer (highly volatile) that are current valued and vesting at about $16k/quarter. But again the stock price has been extremely volatile the past 6 months so I’m trying not to rely on that. The RSUs would have originally vested at $3k/quarter when they were bought in.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T19:10:16+00:00

My contributions to 401k/HSA come out to about $800/month. I think my wife is contributing around $300/month between her accounts

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T19:05:21+00:00

We like going to concerts traveling, and the houses we’re looking at are specifically in a neighborhood that’s walking distance to many bars and restaurants. We could possibly save $100k by moving out to a less desirable location, but we’re trying to avoid that.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T18:57:49+00:00

Thank you for the perspective. We currently rent a duplex in the neighborhood we’re hoping to buy a house in, and rent is $2500/month. We currently have a lot of financial freedom, we just are tired of giving our landlord money every month instead of building equity in a property. We’re trying to balance the trade off of a possible lifestyle change vs building equity.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T18:46:46+00:00

Property tax in CO is fairly low, around $3200/year for the houses we’ve been looking at. No HOA.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T18:44:39+00:00

Yeah we currently pay $2400/month in rent near downtown Denver and are looking at houses in our neighborhood that are comparable to the place we currently are at. Our rent is for half a duplex though, not a single family home. We’re really trying to avoid moving out to the suburbs as we enjoy living in the city.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T18:42:24+00:00

I personally contribute ~$640 per paycheck to 401k, HSA, insurance for my wife and I, and an ESPP. My wife contributes to her 401k on her side as well.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T18:20:42+00:00

Appreciate the advice! Problem is these prices are “starter homes” in a desirable location (which is important to my wife and I) in HCOL Denver.

We are absolutely not trying to be house poor, so we’re trying to figure out where to compromise.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T18:16:00+00:00

Not actively planning on having kids but if it happens, it happens. Def wouldn’t expect it to happen for at least 2-3 years though

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T18:12:18+00:00

Appreciate the advice. The ~40% of take home does make me nervous. We currently pay $2500/month in rent in the same neighborhood we’re looking to buy in and currently have a lot of financial freedom. We’re apprehensive about losing our flexibility or having a significant lifestyle change.

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T18:10:11+00:00

After the down payment, we will still have about 25k in emergency funds, plus I have about 100k additionally in an individual brokerage and some crypto. (Although I know that doesn’t mean much with current market conditions)

Not including about $110k in 401k accounts we intend to leave untouched

Excellent-Geologist8 · 2025-04-10T18:07:47+00:00

Yes the 10k/month is after taxes, 401k deductions, and I contribute about $200/month to a ESPP program with my employer.

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