When we went for our mortgage, they offered us a max of 375k. We were about 30k in debt (student loans, credit line) already and our house hold income was around 75k (mine being contract and thus non existant to the bank). Every day I'm glad we didn't overstep our actual means and take that mortgage (we settled on 240k with 5% down - oh 2009). Meant we had money to actually live a lifestyle as we wanted rather then being "house poor". Being "house poor" is one of the dumbest concepts I've ever heard of.
(helps that we bought a place that is more then enough for what we wanted and exactly where we want to live. Also helps we can walk to everything so transit got cut out of the equation. Dunno why people live outside the core - Beltline is the shiznizz)
Few years later - household income has gone up quite a bit, and our monthly payments have actually shrunk as debt loads keep getting reduced. Just gotta keep the eye on the long term prize and not get tempted into spending all the extra monthly income we have now.
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