What makes buying a home even easier is if you can afford it. This means being able to provide 20% as a down payment and keeping your debt-to-income ratio below 43%. I chose 43% because that is the maximum debt-to-income ratio you can have for your mortgage to be considered qualified (i.e., lower risk).49 As a reminder, the debt-to-income ratio is defined as: Debt-to-Income Ratio = Monthly Debt / Monthly Income
