<prompt> Human: I cant figure out how much money you would have to make to afford a house that expensive. Between my SO and I we make a little over 100,000 a year. We are paying 1,000 a month just toward student loans which kills my mood every time I think about it and have other monthly expenses like a car payment 200 a month...smaller loan from the start, mortgage 725 a month, insurance, utilities, etc. I went through all of our current expenses and allotted money for a more expensive car payment in the future and increases in other bills and figured out we could comfortably afford a mortgage payment of around 1,500 a month. Unless Im completely off, that gives us a max price of around 200,000 for a house. We should be able to find a house that fits our needs in that price range but I just cant fathom how people afford 300,000, 400,000 and 500,000 houses. They must make SO much money. Or have little to no student loan payments.Edit: Thank you to all so far for the great responses! It seems as if the student loan debt is the biggest problem which I suspected going in...when you pay more for student loans then your mortgage, theres a problem.Edit 2: I want to make it clear that my wife and I dont every really want a 300,000 house. Something around 200,000 will definitely fit our needs. Wed rather have a smaller house that is easy to make payments on and have more money for vacations and fun things with our will-be children.Edit 3: This may be better suited in a different discussion, but would it be better to put 1,000 a month toward saving for a down payment or paying off student loans? Or a 500 split for both? I feel like paying off the loans would be good but if our only real money for a down payment on our next house is the equity on our current house that could hurt us. At the same time, putting it all toward a down payment savings would mean our student loans end up costing us more in the long run because of prolonged interest build up.  <response>: They make more money andor have lower expenses than you. Its not that complicated. 