Decide how much you can afford for a home before you shop for it, not after. It is unfortunate that many people do not perform this exercise and then spend countless hours shopping for a house they cannot afford, only finding out when they apply for a mortgage.
Understanding how the process of how a bank knows what you can afford to pay for a house will make it easier for you. Your total expenses will also come into play, since they will have an effect on how much income you have leftover to pay your mortgage each month.
To do this, banks use certain ratios that tell them what you will be able to afford, ratios based on income, expenses, debt, down payment and closing costs.
You can do these calculations yourself, or you can enlist the aid of a mortgage consultant to do them for you.
The first thing that most folks have a problem with is having enough of a down payment to begin with. Today, people don’t put aside a certain amount of money into a savings account to save up for things they need. Banks are no longer offering the dangerous no down payment mortgages now that credit is tight and they have to be more careful.
A minimum of a 10% deposit will normally be required. If the home you are looking for is in the range of $200,000, you will need $20,000 for a down payment and more funds for closing costs. A lender can give you a good faith estimate of your closing costs.
A very low assumption would be that you have to have $25,000 available. The next step is to find out what your monthly payments will be. You can figure how much you can pay based on salary and current expenses if you visit one of the many calculators found on the net, or you can take a simpler route and speak to a mortgage consultant.
As a rule, lenders do not want to see the entire cost of the home (mortgage, taxes and insurance) more than 25% of your income. Excessive credit card debt will have an effect on your disposable income, remember. They have to make sure you have adequate funds to pay the mortgage after you have paid for your food, utilities, education and like expenses. A high credit card debt means that you will have that much less to use for your basic needs.
Barring excessive credit card debt, you can figure that if you earn $6,000 a month, you can afford a payment of $1,500 for the home loan, taxes and insurance. Now you have some numbers in hand to begin shopping for a home.
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