Your Household Income vs Mortgage Size

[realazy]

You’re asking household gross income to initial mortgage principle right?

That would skew the numbers a lot, especially when you consider larger downpayments. My wife and I are 2.5x using that logic..

[tch7]

1.0 currently, 4.6 when I bought 6-7 years ago and it was easy enough to manage with no other debt. 4-5x is what I'm thinking for my next place.

[dirtsniffer]

I'm assuming gross base pay in my answer. Total cash comp would change it in good years

[thinmyster]

2.4x Gross vs mortgage principle purchased in 2013

[ExtraSlow]

This house was maybe 3.5x when we bought it ten years ago. Household income has gone down, but amount owning has gone down too. Probably around 3.5 these days too.

[Little Dragon]

Yes, assuming a "consistent" gross pay (ignore large windfall bonuses that are once in a few years). Too many variables to account for (big bonuses, down payment %, etc.) so we'll ignore those for this poll.

Mainly just want to see how much people are/have been comfortable with in relation to their consistent gross salary.

[jwslam]

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He's asking household income tho. If avg is 67k like someone mentioned then it would make it 130 combined.

You're out in lala land if you think the average dual income family in Calgary is at 130k.... Every household you know is DINK?

[ExtraSlow]

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You're out in lala land if you think the average dual income family in Calgary is at 130k....

Yeah, way lower than that.

[Misterman]

If I was a first time home buyer right now in this market and what appears to be inevitable housing bubble. I would leverage myself up a bit farther to get a home with a basement rental suite. Mortgage isn't much more, and the rental income more than makes up the difference. So then you're essentially making equity compared to buying a regular home and covering the entire payment out of pocket.

[Little Dragon]

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If I was a first time home buyer right now in this market and what appears to be inevitable housing bubble. I would leverage myself up a bit farther to get a home with a basement rental suite. Mortgage isn't much more, and the rental income more than makes up the difference. So then you're essentially making equity compared to buying a regular home and covering the entire payment out of pocket.

Thought about this too initially and if I could soundproof the basement I would 100% do this. Don't want to hear the person below (and vice versa) or have to worry about having friends over.

[lasimmon]

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If I was a first time home buyer right now in this market and what appears to be inevitable housing bubble. I would leverage myself up a bit farther to get a home with a basement rental suite. Mortgage isn't much more, and the rental income more than makes up the difference. So then you're essentially making equity compared to buying a regular home and covering the entire payment out of pocket.

We thought about this, but the thought of buying a home and STILL having to deal with people renting and sharing walls with us was just a total turn off.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Assuming we're talking gross combined income and initial mortgage principle (purchase price - DP), we bought our house in 2014 at 2.5x.

[rx7boi]

Wife and I bought our place at around 2.75x.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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He's asking household income tho. If avg is 67k like someone mentioned then it would make it 130 combined. which 2-3X would get you up to 400K. with 50K down that's not out of range.

btw: what's your X on the new 700K purchase? (I'm sure you weren't bragging about it).

Household is what I said above. There is no way the average Alberta household is making ~$130K, especially these days. If they are I'd be shocked.

We haven't bought anything yet and I don't know what our final budget will be. I moved in with the GF temporarily and the ratio is quite favorable (cheap place/small mortgage - less than 0.5X) - that will change with whatever we buy but I have no idea what it will be.

When I bought my condo downtown 10 years ago, my ratio was around 3X on the post down payment amount.

[brucebanner]

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Assuming we're talking gross combined income and initial mortgage principle (purchase price - DP), we bought our house in 2014 at 2.5x.

Assuming those factors, we purchased 2x.

[Xtrema]

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Household is what I said above. There is no way the average Alberta household is making ~$130K, especially these days. If they are I'd be shocked.

We haven't bought anything yet and I don't know what our final budget will be. I moved in with the GF temporarily and the ratio is quite favorable (cheap place/small mortgage - less than 0.5X) - that will change with whatever we buy but I have no idea what it will be.

When I bought my condo downtown 10 years ago, my ratio was around 3X on the post down payment amount.

Not $130K but pretty close before the downturn for Calgary:

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...B1=All&TABID=1

"Median total income of economic families in 2015 ($) 115,576"

May be household is more realistic vs economic family?

"Median total income of households in 2015 ($) 99,388"

[killramos]

Not to mention I would imagine the dist is right skewed and the mean is well above the median.

130k doesn’t sound like such a bad estimate anymore if you consider that.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Not $130K but pretty close before the downturn for Calgary:

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...B1=All&TABID=1

"Median total income of economic families in 2015 ($) 115,576"

May be household is more realistic vs economic family?

"Median total income of households in 2015 ($) 99,388"

But we are in a downturn....4 years ago doesn't really matter IMO. I still don't believe the average household in 2018/19 is bringing in ~$130K. If there is data that shows that I would be interested to see it and gladly change my view.

[msommers]

That data is going to be next to impossible to obtain at the moment. The latest I can find is from 2016.

[blownz]

I consider myself fortunate to have gotten into the housing market so long ago.

My first house was purchased in 2000 with a mortgage just over 3 times my wage at the time (112K mortgage while making $35K) - I think the house was only $115K but the CMHC made it so it was almost 100% financing lol

Second house was in 2004 after I was married and the mortgage was just over 2 times our combined wage (230K mortgage while making $112K) - purposely less than we could do but at the time we knew we were going to try to have kids soon and weren't sure if my wife would go back to work right away (she ended up off for just over 5 years). So it was kind of the smart decision but I do wish we had spent more considering how much pricing went up. Now though we are at the point that even though we would like a bigger/nicer home and can afford it, it is no longer a priority since I think I would rather retire earlier or buy a second property.