Buying or Selling a Home/How much house?

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Expert: - 1/14/2012


Question
Hi, we could sell our home for about $380000, we have a $245000 mortgage.  My question is how much should our budget be when looking for a new home?
Thank you

Answer
Hi Gabi;
It all depends on your income.  With a good down payment you can either keep your monthly payments lower or afford to go a little higher.  If you consider a monthly payment it should be about 1/4 of your income.  I would suggest that you visit a lender to get a pre-qualification where they will look at your income and credit to determine what you can afford.  You can probably get a loan that is 80% of the home value so when you consider what you have as a down payment a home at $450,000 with 20% down would be a $360,000 mortgage.  Looking at the interest rates, possible taxes and insurance your monthly payment might be somewhere around $2400 per month.  If that is about 1/3 to 1/4 of your monthly income you will be fine.  If not; then you need to adjust the price a bit.

I hope that this helps.

Jessica Bryan  

Buying or Selling a Home

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Jessica Bryan

Expertise

buying and selling process such as:
General questions from first time buyers
How to market a home
Why choose a REALTOR
How do I find a REALTOR
Should I consider buying or selling without a REALTOR--how much can I save
Should I remodel or move
How much can I expect to gain by fixing up my home before selling
Helpful tips when selling
Helpful tips when buying
finding a good mortgage loan
what is the difference between banks, mortgage bankers, and mortgage brokers
Questions from the general public, people thinking about getting their real estate license, newly licensed.
Fellow professionals who have interests in networking and how to get started
What is a market evaluation and how does it differ from an appraisal what are the different loan programs
services a REALTOR can perform
when to use a lawyer
when to use escrow
what are the regional differences in the buying and selling process
what is the MLS and how does it work
how can the layman access information on the web--listings and other information
These are just a few of the questions. I can suggest that if I am unable to answer a question I will refer the inquiry to a source that can.

Experience

Anyone who is in this business and who dedicates oneself to professionalism has continued to take classes and along with it,additional credentials, awards and honors. I can list a host of them, but my greatest accomplishments happen to be those of getting first time buyers (who didn't think they could afford to buy a home)into a home of their dreams. The look on their faces when I hand over the keys is worth all of the hard work.

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