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<p>Actually your payments will be about $5,300 with 20% down (and most banks these days won’t finance you without 20% down). That said, you need about $12,500 a month net income to support that mortgage payment. I don’t know any programming job that will pay $210k net of tax before the age of 40. This may be reasonable for a dual income family but probably not wise to stretch that much. I don’t think techies go beyond $150k generally.</p>
<p>Tax law is for geeks? Awesome. Glad to hear there’s a place for introverted lawyers in the legal profession :D</p>
<p>Besides, programming jobs suck. You’re better off going into IT consulting. And by the way, tech companies don’t have offices in the downtown core of the big cities. That’s law firms and investment banks and consulting firms and accounting firms. Tech companies are usually in the outlying suburbs (especially the “tech” part, see Silicon Valley, Redmond, WA-home of Microsoft, Westchester, NY-home of IBM, outlying Boston suburbs) allowing you to live in the outlying exurbs where houses are cheaper and more plentiful and still have a decent commute.</p>