Monthly take home ~$8,700 (Fully funded retirement accounts) . Planning kids within a year. No debt other than mortgage, vehicles all paid off
Current home:
• \~$60k equity after fees (Assuming we get market estimates)
• \~$1600 month including escrow (4% interest
• Will be tight once we start having kids, not great school district
Considering putting offer for $435:
• \~$2,200-$2450/month + higher costs
• Twice sq footage as current home, perfect for raising a family
We have ~$130k HYSA + $60k brokerage(taxable) + ~20K emergency fund.
Would you upgrade now for space/long-term fit, or wait until after kids and keep things flexible?
Curious what others have done and if you’d do it differently.
Edit: some clarification “fully funded” is referring to we contribute (15-18% of our gross to our retirement accounts before our take home)
Current home is under 1600 square feet. We would lose our guest space with the first child.
We are contemplating using the 130k for down while we wait to sell our current home (considering the market)
Purchase ‘Family Home’ we like or wait?
byu/Great-Tomato8253 inpersonalfinance
Posted by Great-Tomato8253
9 Comments
Really depends. What does “fully funded retirement accounts” mean??
Regardless, yes you can afford it quite comfortably
How much of a down payments will you put down to get the PITI you mentioned?
What are your ages and total retirement account balance?
Babies and toddlers don’t need much space. Personally, I’d have the kids first to get a sense of your budget with children in the picture.
“will be tight”
I guess it’s a decision between the space being tight or finances possibly being tight. I’d probably stay longer and save up a bit more. The kids don’t need much space early on and it’s 6 years until they’d be going to kindergarten, right? Hopefully you’d be consistently saving the additional mortgage costs AND anticipated child care/kid costs.
People will say school districts don’t matter, but they absolutely do. If you can do it without being house “poor” then it’s a decent opportunity.
Ours is $2200 with similar take home and feel very comfortable every month
I think you really need to consider if a new house is a need or a want.
1. You are only planning to try in a year. At the absolute minimum it’s going to be 1.75 years before you have a child. Likely it’ll be 2-3 years.
2. The first 3-6 months minimum the baby is going to be sleeping in your room. After that, you only need one more room in the house for the nursery. So if you currently have a 2 bedroom house it will be sufficient for at least the first 2 years after your baby is born.
3. Daycare/nanny will run you at least 2k per month unless you have family helping out or some sort of subsidy.
4. In terms of school district, unless you are actively in a bad area, kindergarten/elementary school doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. So realistically for educational purposes you probably don’t need to move until middle school.
5. You have no idea how difficult it will be to get pregnant (costs for fertility treatment) or any birth complications for the mother or child.
6. The only caveat to all of this is when you need a bigger house it may be more expensive / difficult to find.
This is not to dissuade you but consider if you absolutely need a home right now or just want it.
Personally I would wait till after you have the first baby. Agreed with all the comments that you’ll have a better sense of what your budget will be after daycare or having one parent stay home or starting to save for college etc. Kids don’t need good school districts until they’re 5.
We bought a home well under our budget and then had our first 3 years later (2nd on the way) and I’m so thankful we did because the costs add up quicker than you think. $2500/mo going to daycare for 2 kids, and college savings, urgent care and frequent doctor visits for when he got sick and had ear infections every other week.
For now we just make our small space work but if we get a bigger house eventually we’ll wait till we’re at least just sending one kid to daycare and the other ones in public school.
I wouldn’t extend financially right before having children.
I would find a way to maintain guest space by making the kid’s room suitable for guests and have your child come in with you when you have guests visit.
1600 is not a small home and small kids don’t need a lot of space. If you stay there, you can save more money and move in 5 years when your kid is 4 and you actually need a good school.
Right now, financial flexibility will either help you to afford daycare or allow one of you to stay home if career plans change after having kids.
If you have all your kids before you purchase your family home, you will know better how big a house you need. For example, if you have 2 kids the same gender then you could choose a 2 br and they can share if you have boy and girl you would want 3br.