[bumholio]

> Rule of thumb says you shouldn't spend more than three times your income on housing

Is this a rural rule of thumb? Looking around me, I see people routinely paying 5-10 times their annual income to get a crappy city apartment and spending the majority of their income making mortgage payments. The alternatives, spending the majority of their income on rent or moving to an area where the majority of the income would vanish, do not seem better.

[scarface74]

A conforming loan usually requires you to have a debt to income ratio of 43%. I'm definitely not in a rural area and you can buy a decent house in a slightly above average school system for $200K - if you live in the burbs.