How Much Do You Pay per Month on Your Mortgage?

Wow--you got some good responses--so here is my SIMPLE answer. With an average interest rate, payment is usually about 1% of total price--so $150,000 home, payment should run around $1500 per month---give or take---plus property tax. Hope this helps! GOod Luck!!

You got lots of responses! Wow! I have a little bit of insight on this. My MIL and husband have both worked in the mortgage industry and I worked in the homeowners insurance industry for 5 years (resigned from it this past September).

I've been told as a rule of thumb that your house payment including insurance and taxes is typically 1% of the total financed give or take. Ours is right on. My MIL is currently working as a loan officer and I'm sure would be happy to help answer any questions you have. She works for Citifirst Mortgage. Sherry-###-###-####

As for the insurance-I'm assuming this is a new/newer house. Insurance companies are now looking at your credit score to determine your rate. If you have a decent score and the home is newer...I would say anywhere from $900-$1500/yr. One thing I would suggest is shopping your cars at the same time. A lot of times your able to save by putting them both with the same company (like 10-15% on your auto and like 15-25% on your home depending on the company! BIG savings!). When you're calling, tell them you're looking for the HO-3 form. This is a broader form then what has been used in recent years (covers A LOT more!). I would also suggest using an independent agent as they're able to look at several different companies to find you the best rate as opposed to calling like Farmers or Allstate and only getting their limited product. I can recommend calling Don Dyer of Dyer Insurance-###-###-####. Once again, you can call and just ask all the questions you need to.

Hope this helps!
K.

S.,
You've gotten great tips already.

I own a rental home that cost me close to the price you mentioned. With the mortgage, property taxes, and homeowners insurance it costs me about $1059 month. It would be cheaper but because it was a rental I didn't want to pay much cash and that's just how it worked out.

In addition to the costs mentioned by other posters, you will need either a lawn service or a lawn mower etc.

Also I would ask for a Homeowners Warranty from the seller of the home. They cost around $550/year and asking the seller to pay for it is normal. American Home Sheild is the best and you can purchase it for yourself each year afterwards. I've had ours on our home for 10 years and the cost has paid off overall, like every other year. At least insist that the seller pay for it for the first year, and then you can decide later if you want to continue.

Also, I'd say make sure you buy enough house (and the market it great right now) but don't buy too much. You will want a bedroom for each child at some point, so look for a 4 bedroom now. The cost from a $150 house to a $175 is not very much difference in your monthly payment. And prices are not likely to stay this good forever.

Good luck!

S.,
That is great that you are saving for a home. You might check with a reputable Mortgage Lender to see what programs are available for you. I can give you a few to check with. You might not have to save as much as you thought, to get into a home. You might qualify for a 100% loan and ask the Seller to pay a portion of your closing costs. Also, you want a good Realtor to walk you through the process. I can help you if you don't already have a Realtor. The Seller pays the commission to the Realtor for the sale of their home.
Your principal, interest, homeowner's insurance and property taxes on a $150,000 mortgage loan would be around $1,500 per month. That would decrease depending on your down payment. Your homeowner's insurance cost would depend on your credit score and the home you choose. Your insurance agent could give you a ballpark figure. Call the company that has your auto insurance and you might get a break on the homeowner's insurance. You want to figure maintenance of the home into your budget.

In addition to the mortgage payment which probably will include taxes keep in mind that you will have higher electricity costs possibly gas costs and depending on the neighborhood you could also have HOA dues. Of course how much you pay with the electricity and gas costs will depend on how big your home is and the age. A newer home will more than likely have more energy efficient features that should help keep costs down. If you have HOA dues those depend on the neighborhood too. Where I currently live we pay monthly but other areas might do quarterly or semi-annual.

Like another poster said you'll also find yourself at Lowe's or Home Depot frequently, especially if you buy a foreclosure or other fixer up. Last thing, don't forget the cost of moving unless you have some great friends willing to help you do it all just for the price of lunch.

Hi, It really depend on your interest rate and if you live in the City limits. For ex: I lived in Corpus Christi, TX and there property taxes were 4000 and we bought our home for 143,500. We had a great int. rate it was like 5.03% and our mortg. was 1235.50 Home insurance does not cost a lot. Just shop around. The house we live in now our HI is 550 a year. It really just all depends on your interst and property taxes. If you have any questions dont hesitate to ask me. I know it can stressful and nervous. But you will make it work no matter what. I was the same way. Now I we have moved and bought our 2nd house.

I highly recommend you call Signiture Lending Group. David Rodriguez hepled us with the purchase of our last home and he was so helpful. He was able to give us a ton of advice to get the best possible loan. If we ever buy another house, we will use him. The lender for the buyer who bought our old home was so shady and after dealing with him I realized how great Signiture Lending was. I am not affiliated with them in anyway, so I am not referring you to benefit myself in anyway. Their number is ###-###-####.

S.,
You have received excellent advice. A good general rule of thumb for calculating payments for loans under $200,160 (our area's FHA county loan limit - FHA is the most common and "safe" way to finance close to, and in many cases all, 100% of your purchase price in today's market) is 1% of the purchase price.

Do consider that there will likely be things you will want to or have to change. Many of my borrowers (myself included) find themselves taking up a 2nd residence inside Home Depot for the first 6 months of owning their new homes. You'll want to budget for that kind of thing.

As far as your move is concerned, please make sure you give your apartment's leasing office written notice MORE than 30 days from the end of your lease. I can't tell you how many times I've had people get popped for hidden charges or not gotten their deposit back, etc. because the leasing office was unprofessional and bitter that you were not re-leasing with them.

Good luck.
C.
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If you go to realtor.com, they have a mortgage calculator where you can put in your rate, your down payment, and the price of the house, and they'll tell you how much the mortgage will be per month. Another tip is to figure about 1% of the price of your house per year on BASIC upkeep--that's not any improvements you want to put in, but just replacing stuff that breaks or wears out (water heater, roof, etc). Congrats on buying a house!

We pay 927.71 for our mortgage and we have our own escrow for taxes which come to 644.00. Now you have to take into consideration we live in Ft. Worth but are in the Keller ISD so we are hit twice on taxes. Hope this helps.

I have a mortgage lender that I recommend. He is awesome. He can answer all of your questions. He is a good friend of mine and has helped me with several mortgage issues.

Tom Woodson, Innovative Mortgage,###-###-####.
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S. Arwine ###-###-####

We just bought a new home last year. Brand new homes are going very cheap where we leave (near Texas Motor Speedway). We got an almost brand new (built 2004) 3700 sq. ft. home on 1/3 of an acre for only $164K. It's a beautiful house. We got a great deal on this one as the poor guy was about to go into foreclosure. We got our mortgage at Hall of Fame Mortgage which I highly recommend. Most mortgage companies are the same, but my husband liked them because we got an autographed football from 4 Cowboys Hall of Famers, and he's a big autograph enthusiast. He gets invitations from them too for meet and greets with the players. Big selling point for him. HAHA. We had all kinds of mishaps go wrong in purchasing (and selling our old home), but they were the only ones who really seemed on top of everything. They really did a great job. We met with them before we even put our house on the market to get an estimate of what we could afford based on what we wanted to pay each month. They ran every scenario possible with down payments and no down payments and gave us estimates of what our closing cost would be. We ended up financing 100% with an 80/20 loan. The first loan is at just under 6% and is $1220 a month. This includes our taxes and insurance. THe second is at 7.5% and is $300. Our goal had been no more than $1500 a month which we would have met, but because we ended up moving to Denton County from Tarrant County, our homeowners insurance went up a bit from the estimate. But on the flip side, apparently car insurance is less out here, so that made up for the extra $20 we didn't expect.

As for other expenses, our water / sewage bill is $75-80 a month and our electric is anywhere from $250 at the lowest and $350 at the highest (we have no gas bill). Oddly, this is actually cheaper than our 1300 sq. ft. house electric bill was. 3 x's the house, less electric . . . go figure. We do have HOA dues. We pay $73 every 3 months, so roughly $25 a month. That includes a neighborhood pool which we were thrilled about. Didn't have that in our old neighborhood. We have gone to Home Depot quite a bit, but we've saved a bundle doing all the work ourselves. It seemed a bit overwhelming at first, but I actually managed to paint the entire inside in about a month (and that was with 2 kids at home). I find it a lot more satisfying to do it myself rather than hire someone. I find labor costs ridiculous. My husband enjoys doing yardwork. We had an a/c issue when we first moved in, but you should get a warranty that the person you buy from pays for. So, even though it was a pretty expensive issue, it only cost us a small copay.

Thinking back to when we bought our first home in 1999, I remember our biggest expenses from moving from apt. to house was a refrigerator and a lawn mower, so if you don't already own those, those are things you can't go without too long. As for moving expenses, we did most of it ourselves. We paid someone to move just our large furniture and appliances (about 20 pieces), and rented a U-Haul and did the rest ourselves with the help of our siblings and their spouses while grandma and grandpa kept the kids and dogs for the weekend. Plus, we had the carpets professionally steamed before we moved anything in since it was a pre-owned house. I believe all that cost us $1000 out of pocket. We also paid our closing costs rather than roll them into the loan. I think those were about $4000-4500. Those can be rolled into the loan. We did that at our old house. THe only other big expense I remember was the inspection on the house. That was $400 I believe. You don't have to do this, but I'd definitely recommend it. YOu want to know what your getting your self into. They spotted everything, even small insignificant things! For example, on the house we were selling, one thing one of the buyers listed as their reason for backing out was the lack of door stops. Our dog had eaten them as a puppy, so we pulled them out years ago. I never even thought of that being an issue. They walked on something that cost us $10 to fix. Ridiculous. Some people. Anyway, I digress. The inspection is definitely worth the money!

Good luck with your new home purchase! It's a pretty exciting moment! I loved buying the house and moving. I really found it to be fun! It's selling your house that is incredibly stressful and miserable. We had showings just about every day where we had to leave the house - no small feat with a 5 year old and 2 year old. It always seemed to be during nap time and never when we actually had somewhere to be. We had 5 offers over 5 months before one finally came through. What a nightmare. That I don't care to ever do again!!!!!

A good estimate judge - a realtor told us this once and it's true for the homes we've owned - is to judge see what 1% of what you'll finance the home for (not the total price - if you put down a down pymt). So for a $150,000 - you're monthly pymt including taxes and insurance and PMI (private mortgage insurance - who has $30,000 cash to put down - if you do, then you don't have to pay PMI) --
so for a $150,000 finance - monthly pymt is roughly $1,500 or slightly less
for a $140,000 home - $1,400/month or slightly less

And trust me ... you want your pymt to include payments to escrow every month (taxes and insurance) -- because I know a few people who did not include their taxes into their mortgage and now they are suffering to pay taxes each year because they do not have $5K-8K in cash laying around. It's easier to have the money taken out of the mortgage pymt every month and then you don't have to worry about it when taxes are due. Sometimes I even get a refund check back from our mortgage company because what we paid in escrow was more than expected (usually just $150 refund per year). Once we had to pay -- because tax property values were higher that year but I think we only paid $60-100 more).

Also of course, you'll need to purchase a new fridge, new washer/dryer (unless you already purchased these for your apartment), a lawnmower, an edger, yard trimming tools, water hoses, water sprinklers (unless the yard has a sprinkler system).

Try to find a home that had recent updates like a new roof, new water heater, new AC/heater. That way you won't all these replacement to make during your first years in the home. Or get the seller to buy you a home warranty -- that will cover and replace big appliances or broken things in the home (ac/heater, water heater etc.).
This is a BUYER's market right now. You have the ball in your court so you make big gutsy demands... people need to sell their homes.

We paid 196K for our home. Our monthly pymnt is $1807 w/our taxes and insurance @ 7.15%. Depending on your credit, down payment and interest rate you should pay around $1500/month with taxes and insurance averaged in. Homeowners insurance is not that much around $###-###-#### a year depending on the price of your home and you usually get a discount on your car insurance if you use the same broker!

I am a realtor in the DFW Metroplex. Have you already been preaaproved for a loan? I have a great contact in the mortgage loan field. I absolutely love her. She gave us the loan on our house and now I recommend her to everyone. Do you have a real estate agent yet? I would love to be able to help you find the right home for you and your family.

ON 44,000 at 8% for 20 years my payment is 516.56, including taxes and insurance.

S.,

For a $200K mortgage at 6.3% and no PMI (meaning if you pay at least 20% down or do an 80/20% loan, you will pay right at $1550-$1600, INCLUDING your escrow for home insurance and property taxes (again dependent on your tax amounts where purchasing). So for $150K you can figure about $1200-$1280, if you pay the 20% down and avoid PMI, and again depending on the cost of insurance and taxes. Now, as far as the costs, just make sure you are prepared if moving into an older home. Even one that was recently remodeled. We bought our home in East Dallas about three years ago and have replaced both water heaters and one of the two AC units since. That is about $6K worth of work. We also have RIDICULOUSLY large trees that need constant trimming from professionals (bc they are way too tall and go over part of the house). Also, figure out if you will do your own yard maintenance, etc...just be prepared for all of the upkeep things that will inevitably come up. Hope that helps!

Figure about 10% of the cost of the house. That should include home owners insurance and taxes. The cost could be lower, depending on how much money you put down and whether or not you roll the closing costs into the mortgage or pay them outright. Also plan on about $5K to $10K for the extras that you may not already have. This includes blinds in the windows, ceiling fans, landscaping that the builder doesn't do (if new home), appliances, garage door openers, locksmith to rekey the locks (if you don't trust the builders or previous home owners), lawn maintenance equipment, etc.

Hi S.

I have two homes one that cost me about $100K and I pay $950 per month 5.5% interest this payment INCLUDES the insurance and taxes. Which I highly recommend. This house is about 7 years old and very energy efficient.

The second house cost $250K and the mortgage is split I have one at $1178 6.5% and one at $400 9.75% for a total payment of $1578. (We hope to refinance soon) The insurance is NOT included which really isn't too bad we get a break since we have our automobile insurance w/ the company. But our taxes are not included either and they are really high $6K a year. This house is located on a lake and has about 1/2 an acre. This house was built in the 1950's w/ additions and it is not very energy efficient. Though compared to my neighbors our electric bill is about 1/2 of theirs.....

It truly depends on the interest rate and the amount you put down. However, if you are a first time home owner you will get great benefits ....

75K financed/ just under 6% interest/ INCLUDES taxes and insurance escrow......$600/mo.......Texas is the highest state for homeowner's insurance, so shop and make sure you get a good policy (I have replacement - structure and contents)....I have homesteaded and get full exemptions for disability........good luck with your purchase!

This is not a monthly cost, but whether you get the sellers to pay for this or if you buy new you'll have realtor fees. They run about 3% of the sale price, and you'll have closing costs, plus whatever you plan to put down on the house. Then there are moving costs....and buying of any new furniture for the house, if there are more rooms (very likely) than your apartment. Two story homes will run higher electric bills than a one story home, also generally higher homeowners insurance too. Make yourself a list of all of your possible costs and what you'd want to be able to put down on a home, etc. and that should help give you a ballpark of what you'll need to save. Congrats and good luck!

How much do you plan to put down on the loan? What is the rate?

We like to have our money work for us. For starters, put down a minimum of 20% (more if the percentage rule has increased) so the you avoid the mortgage company adding your insurance and taxes to your monthly payment. You also avoid PMI!! Why not save that money yourself and YOU get interest on it and pay those fees when they are due? That is the #1 thing we do. Yes, homwowners is pricey, mine is $2500 a yr and taxes, we pay when we get the bill in Oct and you can use that info on your tax return. These are 2 major expenses we know are coming so we are prepared to pay for them when the time comes. I'd much rather my money be working for me instead of the mortgage company.

Don't forget about HOA dues. Routine upkeep of your home will have you at Home Depot and/or Lowe's a lot. Good insulation will help your energy bills. Who will take care of the yard? Most services are paid on a yearly contract meaning you pay all 12 months and there are about 3 months you never see them. If you opt to do the yard yourself, think about the cost of purchasing your equipment. Does the home have a pool? If so, there are added costs in the proper care of the pool. Pools are not low maintenence.

The $1500 per month someone quoted sounds high. We pay way less than that on a 1/2 acre, 4000+ sq ft home. Granted we paid down a lot and we refinanced at the right time. My mortgage rate is 5 3/8ths. We built this home in 2000.

There are some routine things you will have to upgrade or repair. Keep in mind that those are not cheap if you do it right. Ac units, hot water heaters, painting, plumbing, etc.

Timing has a lot to do with it as well.
Congratulations on your new home!!

PS. In my 20 yrs of home ownership, I have never heard of homeowners insurance being based on credit score. Mine is based on the size of our home, structure replacement, we have an extra rider for jewelry that adds about $900 a yr to our homeowners, your deductible, etc. If my insurance was based on my credit score, it would be free because our score is up there with the higest you can get.
Susan

My home cost 159K, and with taxes and everything, we pay around $1400 a month. I believe the taxes will go down a bit for Denton ISD this coming year. However, if you are buying a new home, the property value won't be fully assessed the first year, so the tax amount will be lower and make your payment lower-- but don't be shocked when it goes up that 2nd year! Good luck.