how expensive was the house/condo you bought?

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dragonfly99

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This is a question for current residents (and students?) who have bought a home or condo within the past 3-4 years (or just now/recently). I am curious as to the price range(s) because I'm still toying with what is the max I can comfortably afford on my fellow salary (plus minor amounts of moonlighting income).

I was initially thinking 130-150's, but it seems tha most of the properties that I like are more like 160's-170's. Factor in homeowner's insurance, condo or townhome fees, and property taxes and we are probably talking about $1200/month even with a 5.25% or so loan. I don't care about living in a super fancy neighborhood, but at the same time I don't want to be in a run down place or a bad neighborhood that makes it hard to sell 5 years down the road if I end up leaving.

I'd be particularly interested to hear from current residents/fellows about whether they feel they stretched themselves too thin w/buying a house or condo in the 160k-190k range.

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This is a question for current residents (and students?) who have bought a home or condo within the past 3-4 years (or just now/recently). I am curious as to the price range(s) because I'm still toying with what is the max I can comfortably afford on my fellow salary (plus minor amounts of moonlighting income).

I was initially thinking 130-150's, but it seems tha most of the properties that I like are more like 160's-170's. Factor in homeowner's insurance, condo or townhome fees, and property taxes and we are probably talking about $1200/month even with a 5.25% or so loan. I don't care about living in a super fancy neighborhood, but at the same time I don't want to be in a run down place or a bad neighborhood that makes it hard to sell 5 years down the road if I end up leaving.

I'd be particularly interested to hear from current residents/fellows about whether they feel they stretched themselves too thin w/buying a house or condo in the 160k-190k range.

I doubt this will help you much, but FWIW, my husband and I (both residents so 2 salaries) bought a 3 bed 2 bath house c garage for $155,000. Mortgage including insurance/taxes is $1092 monthly. This is easily doable for us. Actually initially we were looking more in the 200-220,000 range c payments more like 1600 which still would've been fine for us. I would think anything over 170,000 or so would really be stretching it on one resident salary unless you have a substantial downpayment/savings. Remember avg. intern salary is roughly 42-45k depending on location. My salary is about 45k and my monthly paycheck is about 2850 after taxes, etc. You do the math, it will depend on whether or not you have a car payment (we don't), have credit card debt (we don't), have expensive tastes/hobbies and like to spend on clothes, food, going out, etc (we do tend to splurge in this category).
 
If you have money it's a great time to buy right now, especially if what you're looking at isn't potentially volatile half million dollar coastal real estate.
 
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randommedstudent, thanks for the info. Sounds like you are making prudent financial decisions. I'm a fellow, not an intern, so I make 51k.
That is good that you were able to get such a house for 155k. I wouldn't be able to do that in my area, unless it was WAY out in the burbs, probably further than I could afford to live and still make it back to the hospital in good time while on home call.
 
my wife and i bought a house for just under 150K the summer between M1 & M2 (I just finished M2 now). My wife is a teacher so you know she brings in the big bucks, our combined salaries (my salary being cost of living loans) is around 50K. Our monthly mortgage payment is $1110 (FHA loan at 6%, ~20K down) and we don't have any trouble paying that and all of our other expenses.
 
We bought our second home when I was a PGY-2 making 55K and my spouse was making 70's. We spent 295K with 10% down payment (in NYC). It was not a huge stretch financially, but we were also paying for a full-time nanny which was a uniquely large monthly expense.
 
Settled on a 3br/2.5 bath house in around your price range, not including the 8k for first time buyers. It's a few blocks from a big med school so I have others paying my mortgage and then some

If you can rent to a reliable class of people, that's the way I'd do it

I can afford this because I'm older with savings and decided to buy a house instead of pay for med school because of the great deals out there now.

Good luck
 
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