Quite the inconsistency there. People should pay for their own choices - unless they're close family members who need help, then it's OK by me. |
I paid for part of college and all of my wedding but my parents gave me 100K for a downpayment. I have not student loans and a bunch of equity. |
Yeah...I'm less impressed with older gen x and boomers who did it themselves. If you bought real estate in this area before 2000, not such a Big deal. NOw millenials who have done it, or young gen x, who had the misfortune of entering the market right before 2008... It's a little disingenuous to not acknowledge that luck plays a part. Whether you were lucky enough to have familial support, or just good timing. |
I am confused why the judgement? I did not make my parents give us money and technically - when they die- we will inherit money but they prefer to give it to us now for all sorts of reasons (taxes, possible long term health issues in the future, etc...) |
Sorry, that was unclear. The first quoted PP judges "adults who don't pay for their own choices," but then intends on giving his parents financial help - which runs contrary to his own judgment of others. The second sentence did a very poor job of highlighting his inconsistency (or hypocrisy). |
My DH is from Asia, his parents helped us with the downpayment (I don't remember how much, maybe 100 or 200k? And it was a gift, not a loan. We probably could have managed ourselves, but would have wiped out our savings, and DH wanted to put 20% down to avoid extra fees.) We were in our 30s and had kids already, were previously renting. |
You don't remember whether you were gifted 100 or 200 THOUSAND dollars? |
All my friends who live in upper NW in 1m- 1.2m homes (bought in early to mid 30s) had some kind of help from parents, either in direct form of gift, huge personal loan, or bought them starter apartments which they sold for down payments. This is only 3 couples though. Then I know someone in a 1m home in close in VA but they were gifted the land. Finally I know someone in a 1m home near Rockville, who is a law partner with SAHP. I know that the 3 in DC don't have any student loans either. My friends are pretty down to earth and we are casual with this stuff across our circle so that's how I know. Its not really a big deal, some people have more and get more for doing the same, or often less. Its life. |
21 years ago I bought my first apt in Europe and my parents paid the entire down payment. It wasn't a huge sum, but the value of the apt increased by about 50% in 2 years, the next one doubled in 4 years and so on and so forth.
Its relative. |
Another AA here, the same with us. We never even got housewarming gifts from our parents, but they are very proud at what we're able to achieve on our own and we don't resent them because they weren't able to really gift us with money throughout our adult lives. Our parents need every dime for retirement and they owe us nothing. We are taking a different approach with our own daughter though, and we hope she will be able to help her kids a little more than we were able to help her. We will never have generational wealth, but hopefully each generation will be a little more better off than the previous. That's all we can really hope for. |
I live in upper NW and it's the same with almost everyone I know well. In my case, we got $100K from my inlaws. Many of my friends were given whole houses. |
I plan on helping my kids out with down payments if they are doing well and they are responsible with their money. |
We live in upper NW, and I had never heard of anyone getting help from parents in my life. We paid off our student loans, saved, and bought in our 30s. But I'm one of those midwestern, middle class transplants. I really never knew anyone whose parents could afford to buy them a house! We help our parents out, not the other way around. But I don't think this is a thing to judge people for. It's just a matter of how much you can afford. If we are in a position to do so, we'll happily help our kids if they need it. We helped a sibling with a down payment not to long ago (paid back), and another sibling paid off our parents' mortgage. |
I'm AA and my college-educated advanced degree parents paid for college so I started out on better footing than some of my AA peers because I didn't have loans. They also supplemented me for a long time afterward. I bought my house with no dp help from them but I took advantage of first-time buyer programs and my parents helped me furnish and update it. |
Neither of our parents had much money, so they paid for us to go to state school for undergrad and that's about it. We worked and paid for our own wedding and downpayment on a house in one of the top school districts. However, for our children, I would likely loan them (not gift them) the money for a downpayment if it meant avoiding PMI and/or getting into the best school district they could. |