bostonbubble.com

lucidguppy · Joined: 28 Feb 2010 Posts: 8

I've made a housing affordability calculator

https://houseafford.appspot.com

Please try it out and let me know what you think.

admin · Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 2:46 pm GMT Post subject:

As far as completeness goes, I think one major expense that could be added to the calculator is resale expense. That is, transaction costs at resale time and possibly loss of equity too. I know this is moot if you manage to stay there forever, but the average owning period in the US is 7 years, and the need to move isn't always foreseeable in advance, so it can help to plan for that possibility.

As for the usability of the calculator, I think it would benefit from some pre-filling. Once the sale price is entered, you could take a guess at the down payment, upkeep, insurance, and perhaps taxes too. Perhaps there could also be a smaller entry field next to each of those with a percentage in it, that being the percentage of the sale price. Changing the percentage would automatically change the associated dollar value and vice versa. This would obviously suggest the addition of JavaScript to the calculator, which I realize is a significant change.

The mortgage interest rate could potentially be pre-filled too with a recent market average. Separately from that, it would also probably help to indicate what the terms of the mortgage are. Does the calculator assume a 30 year fixed rate mortgage?

- admin

admin · Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 2:48 pm GMT Post subject:

Oh... maybe add a line for condo fees too, to make it easier to use for a condo.

- admin

Guest · Guest

Here is what I would like to see changed:
1) What do you mean by 'Tax savings'? Is that the tax rate, the standard deduction, or something else.
2) I think asking for estimated utilities goes beyond the 33% housing allotment. I included all utilities including cell phones and cable the first time and learned that apparently I cannot even afford the appartment I am renting. It took me by surprise since I am putting 15% of my income into savings each month.
3) It would be nice if you could go back an edit just one field. To go back and remove my cell phone and cable bills from the utilities line, I had to fill in each field again. It would be nice to be able to tweak amounts.

lucidguppy · Joined: 28 Feb 2010 Posts: 8

The "tax savings" item was the money you would get back from all the deductions you've made in one year.

Thanks for all the feedback. It's really good stuff.

Now I just have to learn javascript.