Comments on Christian Unity: Mortgage Nonsense

Yes we were approved for much more than our house....

2008-11-12T05:15:00.000-08:00

Yes we were approved for much more than our house. And we could of gotten away with it, and gotten something new but far away from the highway. I am so glad we never got something too big. At the time we bought we were both working, however I knew one day I might like to be a stay at home mom and even later when my dh got a raise he considered a bigger house but all I could think was what if he lost his job, we would have a bigger note to cover. Our house seems kinda small to us (kinda 3 bedroom) but I remind my dh that families with 8 lived in this neighborhood 40 years ago, just fine.
Didn't I hear somewhere that we could of done a bailout for the half the cost by just turning those mortgages into 30 year fixed? And everyone could of kept their houses?

I'm with you, though we haven't been as conservati...

2008-11-11T14:23:00.000-08:00

I'm with you, though we haven't been as conservative. We bought our home about 8 years ago. We had been foolish in the years prior. We had just finished 4 years of paying off a 5 figure credit card bill. our balances were near zero, but we had no savings. We were shocked at how hard it was to get a loan with no debt and no cash. Had we $10K in debt but $10K in cash we would have had an easier time.

We found a reasonable no money down loan and bought our home for nearly 3x my salary. Since, we've paid some down and I've gotten raises and our balance is about 1.8x my salary.

Our cars rotate on a staggered 10 year plan. The van is about 7 years old and paid off. Still runs fine and tows our camper fine, even at 170K miles. We're almost 3 years into the loan on my car. Once paid off, we'll look at a new van, but not before.

There are times I look at my home (mostly my tight garage :-P) and long for something bigger, but in reality we have more than enough.

Hi Harmony,What really matters is the ratio of the...

2008-11-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

Hi Harmony,

What really matters is the ratio of the mortgage balance to your annual income. On that basis it's probably not far from 2x.

The house we bought two years ago (what an awful t...

2008-11-11T09:43:00.000-08:00

The house we bought two years ago (what an awful time to buy a house...) was at the time just under 3x my husband's annual income, but we put 20% down. Because of raises and the reduction in our principle over the past 2 years, the current balance of the loan is just at 2x his annual income.

Because we put 20% down, we are not upside down in the house.

Of course, we got great advice from our parents first, so we were sure to make good decisions. :-)