Our mortgage is higher now that we refinanced to pay off debt, so we are at about 2.9% of our yearly income. Before we refinanced we were at 2.3%, so not too big of a jump to get out of debt.

__________________

Gosh ours is way less than 2x. I don't think we could afford any more. There are too many other factors!

__________________
~Happiness is a large family~

ours is about 3x our income. And thats is the best we could do. Houseing in our area is so expensive its very hard to live here. My dh brings home 32K after all deductions and our monthly payment including taxes and insurance is 1,089.00. Thats 55% of hsi monthly take home and thats the cheapest we could find without living in the slums. We looked at renting and It was going to be about 1.100. a month for a tiny house with no garage. So we bought and we live very frugal to make the ends meet. we only have to make it until next fall when I go back to work.

I never thought about it, but I guess we are close to target. My dh's income is 140,000 and our mortgage is 400,000. And that is with a townhouse! It's just the area we live in. We could have bought a single family home but at over 600,000 for an old run down one we would have had no money for anything else!

__________________

A woman is like a teabag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.-Eleanor Roosevelt

Our income is 30K and our mortgage is $150,000K so we are more than 4x. This is for a 1000 sq foot townhouse. We only did this because renting in the area was going to cost twice the amount of a mortgage payment.

Now I have that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach realizing how unusual we are are to have such a big mortgage with such a little income. Ugg

__________________

Don't worry about being unusual....you are doing what is most suitable for your family in your area. We all do the best we can.

__________________

Our balance is only a little over what my dh makes each year...so a little over 1X. But we were lucky that we had a lot of equity from our previous home and had a large savings since we both worked until we were practically senior citizens and finally had kids!! LOL But I'm glad it's so low because that way we can manage to stay debtfree except for our remaining mortgage. Plus since we are older with two kids to put through college soon I don't think we could afford anymore. We can barely stay even with as little as ours is. I don't know how you all with bigger percentages manage it.

__________________

Hmmm are you all talking about actual mortgage... not the cost of the home? For some reason I thought that figure (the 1:3 ratio) was for the price of the home.. I guess not?

The cost of our home was 6X dh's income

BUT

We had some equity from the sale of our other home, so only mortgaged 4X the amount, perhaps a little less. So, between 3.5 and 4 X. Home prices have doubled in the last 2 years in Arizona, so it has been a big change. Before we moved, we were at a 1.5 X his income. REAL big change.

__________________
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." ~ Dr. Seuss

We are at about 1.5 and less than 25% of our monthly income. But we bought before the big housing boom and if we ever want to move into a bigger house there is no way we could keep it at probably 3x. Houses in our area rent for 400.00 to 600.00 MORE then our mortgage. To me that is so sad how are you supposed to start out with the odds stacked against you like that?
We will probably stay where we are. I don't want a bigger mortgage and I love my jobs and don't want to commute

__________________
Karen

Mine is about 3 times more than my income. When i was married, it was about 2 times more...