Hello all. My husband just made non equity partner at his law firm (biglaw). He was making $440K base as a senior associate before making partner and his pay is now going to be closer to $1M
We have been renting a little place way under our budget for the last 6 years and have saved pretty aggressively. Obviously now we’re excited looking into what we could potentially buy, but I’m wondering is it better to keep renting and save to buy something in cash or look into buying now? Also what could we realistically afford with his salary plus our savings (just shy of 1M)?
FWIW we have 3 little kids too.
Massive salary jump. Buy now or wait and save?
byu/Individual_Ad_938 inRealEstate
Posted by Individual_Ad_938
16 Comments
I always take the approach but when you can. Idk if there’s a “right time” to buy. Good luck and congrats to your husband on the promotion!
You should downsize. Tiny home.
Stfu and buy a house
What would be the value in waiting?
You could probably buy a $4mm house but do you really want to live house poor? (BTW, if you ask a mortgage broker/lender, they might give you a similar number. Don’t pay attention to them).
You have to come up with a budget, see what mortgage you can afford, and then work backwards.
It all depends on the location. And how big you need your house to be. In the Bay area you can put down a significant down payment and get a decent 3-4 bed house. In some some other place you might buy 2 homes all cash!
By the way, a good time to buy is always now, provided you can afford the down payment and have steady income. Refinance later if rates go down.
Buy!! I always tell my clients, think about how much you’re spending on rent while you wait to buy the “perfect” home or a “better” one. That’s thousands you could be putting back in your own pocket. Those two years you waited, you could have built up some equity and then upgraded. You can afford it, don’t waste your money!
In your case you’re waiting to potentially buy cash, you’re still bleeding money in the interim. Your finances are great, you can get a good rate and always refinance or pay off early (make sure no prepayment penalties though). If you can’t pay off early, you can sell and buy again when you’ve saved up the cash and that money you’d have spent on rent you’ll get back when you sell
As long as you cap the home price to ~$4M or less, you should be fine.
From ChatGPT:
You do not need to wait to buy in cash. On roughly $1M of income and just under $1M saved, you can afford to buy now.
Realistically, I’d think of your range like this: around **$2.5M to $3.0M** is a comfortable target, and you could probably stretch into the **low $3Ms** if you really wanted to. I would not frame this as “keep renting until we can pay cash,” because that’s probably too conservative and keeps you out of the market longer than necessary.
So my call is: **yes, buy now if you find the right house, and think in terms of roughly a $2.8M budget**.
My advice to you is to separate these two conversations. You’ve got money. Good for you. It gives you options.
The real question should be where do you wanna live and when do you wanna live there? Maybe the answer is now. Or maybe you give it a year to save up some money and figure out what your tax liability is going to be at the end of the year. But just because you’re getting a windfall doesn’t mean you need to do anything with it. You could bury it under the mattress and continue renting your place and the money ahead by the time you pay utilities and property taxes.
You belong to the social class which represents 1% of society. You don’t need reddit advice… you can afford to speak to a financial advisor. I suspect your financial advisor will be ok with you buying a house.
Honestly you should be embarrassed to ask this question making the kind of household income u do already…
Don’t buy crazy just because you can. Buy like he’s making $500k.
“Should I buy a new car or stick with my 16 yr old beater car? My salary just increased 100000% and now equals then GDP of a small country. Can I afford a new car or should I wait and save?”
With that income jump, this is less a “can we afford something?” question and more a “how fast do we want lifestyle inflation to hit us?” question.
If I were looking at it conservatively, I would not rush to buy in cash just because you technically could someday. At your income level, cheap long-term debt can still be a useful tool, especially if keeping liquidity matters. But I also would not immediately let a near-$1M income trick me into buying a house sized to the new paycheck before you have lived with that new compensation for a bit.
The main thing I’d want to understand is how durable that income really is. Biglaw partner income can be very high, but it can also come with volatility, expectations, and golden-handcuff dynamics. So I’d probably give the new comp some time to season, keep renting a little longer if your current setup still works, and decide from a position of clarity rather than excitement.
As for what you can realistically afford, the math will say a very big number. The better question is what house payment still feels comfortable if one year is weaker, bonuses are lighter, or you decide you want more freedom later. At your income and savings level, the risk usually is not underbuying. It is locking yourselves into a lifestyle that quietly becomes expensive to maintain.
I have never been a fan of renting. You spend your money and have zero equity. Buy if you can. And remember you can buy less than your income will allow you to finance. Just because you can get more money doesn’t mean you have to borrow more.
You really need to talk to a financial planner, not the real estate sub on Reddit.