Affordable (Dream) Home...

I read a comment somewhere in the intertubes that:

"A person earning $30,000 per annum has no business buying a $500,000 house".
This is in the American context, but I presume that it can be extrapolated for Singapore.

So, I got curious, and tried to find out just how much of a house I "should" be targeting at my current income level. I shall assume that by the time I can buy the house, I have an annual income of $36,000.

By the calculator provided here (US case), I can only afford $130,000 worth of house. (At 4.5% mortgage rate, no time frame.)

Another calculator here tells me that I can afford $128,000 worth of house. That's close to the previous one. (4.5% rate, 30 years, and approx $2000 in property tax + conservancy fee)

This calculator gives a value of $145,000. (It does not include other fees, but it has a downpayment element, which brings the loan itself to $125,000) Again, pretty close to the above 2.

The affordability calculator provided in the CPF site here computes to $165,000. This differs by approx 25%. Even reducing the income a little to simulate tax and fees generated a value of $154,000. Adding a renter that pays $600 a month bumps the figure to $213,000.

While I don't know which basic assumptions differ in the calculators, the US-based calculators are pretty consistent, while the Singapore one encourages higher loan. However, both cases have given me the same indication: Housing in Singapore is really expensive. To think that I'd initially estimated that I can afford a $300,000 loan.

Looks like I have another incentive to find a wife that prefers to remain in the workforce, and able to prioritize between handbags and investment.