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Comment by r00fus | Hacker News Reader

Based on your comment, I can only surmise that your "nowhere near $230k" remark means you are really well past that mark in income, or your mortgage payment is indeed quite low.

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Well below that.. and my mortgage payment is reasonable for the area (Austin, TX) but ridiculously low compared to SF, DC, etc.

I don't think it's the raw dollars that matter but what the alternative for those dollars are (aka opportunity cost).

If you were affected by the highest possible increase in payroll tax ie 2% of the first 113k of payroll income, that would be $2260 per year, or $188.33 per month.

You must have a very low mortgage payment.

He meant 'a mortgage payment' .. meaning one month's mortgage payment. If not, then yes $188.33 is highly unlikely to be a monthly mortgage payment even for the affordable Austin, TX area.

$X * 2 paychecks/month * 12 months > mortgage payment

I read this as total yearly tax increase being greater than one month's mortgage payment. "A payment" is usually one month of your mortgage (maybe plus taxes & insurance depending on your situation), isn't it?

Anyway, that seems believable for Austin, TX.

You would make a much more comparable statement by comparing your tax increase to owner equivalent rent [1], since a mortgage payment is so variable.

In my case, the going rate of a house similar to mine rent-wise would be about 50% higher than my current mortgage payment.

[1] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/owners-equivalent-rent.a...

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