david, 6 figure income is nice, but not nice enough for the type of prices available these days.
let’s just assume you make $120,000. Monthly would be $10,000, but take home after tax would only be $6600.
Most of the decent places out there still command $600,000. Let’s assume you have 20% down and your credit allow you to get a 30 year 6.5% fixed. you’re now looking at $3000/month of mortgage. property tax would take up another $500/month and let’s shave off another $100/month for HOA. now you are down to $3000/month for you and your family. (note I didn’t count mello roos because I don’t know if you have it or not).
You’ll be significantly dependent on the need for this house to appreciate because at such high cost of owning you are looking at maybe only saving $5-6000/year. Renting a similar home for $2000/month will enable you to double that saving rate.
escondido may be fine in your mind, but when there’s a downturn it will get hit hard. Lennar didn’t decide to drop their Eureka Springs prices down by $100,000 between June to August across the board for no reason.
