<prompt> Human: My wife and I make 180K salary combined and we live in a Midwest area with plenty of nice houses in the range of 150K-200K. However weve seen some houses we really like for closer to 400K. I didnt think we could afford something like that, but online calculators say that we can afford a 600-700K house, which seems ridiculous to me. Can those calculators be trusted? Can we really afford that much house?Some background: Shes paying off a car with no interest and about 200mo payments. I pay about 200mo in student loans. Thats all of our debt.We dont have huge savings now because our salary hasnt been this high for very long. We have about 20K now and could probably get about 30K together before we buy.We have good credit ratings and good job security both professors.We dont have kids, but probably will within the next few years.Our combined salary should grow faster than inflation.  <response>: If you want a benchmark, use the criteria banks use: the most popular is the 2836 rule No more than 28 of your gross income, and no more than 36 when added with other debt, should go to a mortgage. So you should max out at 4,200mo, unless you have more than 1,200 in expenses 36 your monthly gross, minus 4,200.4,200mo is a lot of house, and with, say, 200mo PMI and 6,000yr in taxes and 1,200yr in insurance, that means you can afford 3,400mo for the principalinterest portion, and thats 675,000 at 30-year 4.5 mortgage. So... maybe the calculator you found does use this criteria :Also note, this is the most you can afford. And of course with the above loan, youd spend a whopping 554,000 in interest over 30 years. Instead, you can keep the payment the same with a 15-year 3.5 mortgage for 475,000 and spend 135,000 in interest. Thats a huge savings, so dont always do what you can afford, do what makes sense for you. 