What is Your Comfortable Payment?

Many times a buyer will come to me and they will be pre-qualified for, let’s say $350,000. And they truly are qualified for that price point, but they really don’t want the payment of what every $350,000 home could be.

Taxes

Several things affect the actual payment that you’ll be making on that $350,000 purchase. Some of the quick things to talk about would be taxes. In Oregon, you have an assessed value that stays with that property even after sale. Our tax laws say that that assessed value can only go up 3% per year. And that doesn’t mean your taxes are only going to go up 3% per year. But if your tax assessment only goes up 3% per year you could have two houses next door to each other with a completely different tax bill. If house A was built and let’s say 1980 and house B was built in 1995, very well could have a five, six, even up to a thousand dollars difference in taxes and your taxes affect your payment.

Homeowners Associations

Homeowners associations. If that’s a high number for the year, that could affect your payment.

Insurance

Your insurance if you’re too far from a fire department, if you’re in a flood zone, all of those things can affect your payment. So when your lender pre-qualifies you at $350,000 or any number, the next question should be where do you want your payment? That could dictate what houses you’re going to look at.

There’s nothing worse than falling in love, with the perfect house it’s within your price range and finding out that that payment is just beyond where you’re going to be comfortable. Having been an agent during the crash, during the previous boom and through this boom, the last thing I want is for you to be married to their house.

So let’s go look at the property, but let’s make sure that your payment is where you want it to be and not just your purchase price. Reach out to me for any discussion on this. Always happy to talk with you. Have a great day.