Millennials: the house you grew up in vs. your house now

[Anonymous]

How do they compare? I am struggling coming to terms with the fact that our likely forever home is older, smaller by 1k sq ft (more for DH), and in a less desirable neighborhood than the home I grew up in. We make way more than either set of parents ever did and they were in this area as well, but of course housing prices have rapidly outpaced income so comparable homes to those we grew up in are hundreds of thousands out of reach for us. What about you?

[Anonymous]

If you move to an area that is like the area here was when your parents bought, you can have a big house.

[Anonymous]

Quality over quantity here. Considerably smaller, but in a much better location. I would not be able to live in the isolated, wooded cul-de-sac that I grew up on. Now we're smaller (townhouse) but can walk to everything. The quality of life is infinitely better.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a 1400 sq foot split level. I live in a 2600 sq foot house excluding the finished walk-out basement. Objectively my house is not that nice or big, but I’m happy anyway. Downward mobility sucks. I see it making so many of my peers absolutely miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
If you move to an area that is like the area here was when your parents bought, you can have a big house.

She really can’t. Not without having a much worse commute and thus overall worse life.

[Anonymous]

Same here, OP. But I grew up in a different area that used to be L/MCOL but where housing prices have skyrocketed during the pandemic. The build quality of our house was so much better than what I see up here — a lot of the houses just seem to be really cheaply built. We’re in a walkable area but I don’t care about that anymore with kids and WFH. We’re trying to move to an area where we can get something similar to what we had growing up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
If you move to an area that is like the area here was when your parents bought, you can have a big house.

Yes so true. Also a millennial who grew up in the DC area in the '90s. I currently live in another mid-sized city in the South and housing is much cheaper than DC.

In the '90s DC was much less wealthy and the city was much more dysfunctional and run down. It was always a place for people who were ambitious and highly educated (feds, journalists, NGO workers, etc.), but just so much less affluent overall.

[Anonymous]

My current house is much larger and on a better street than my parents' house, but my parents live in a high COL area (with great weather). I could not afford anything comfortable where they live, which is why I live here in the DMV.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a SFH that is was about 1,000 sq ft larger than the TH where I live. Childhood home was in a planned community with nice parks/rec amenities and a mix of SFH, TH, condos, and apartments. It was suburban with a mix of housing, and has become extremely high cost in the time after my family moved away. Housing there is so much worse than here. I look sometimes and come away feeling so grateful for what I have here. Here, I have a TH in a walkable neighborhood but for the same budget today there it would be a condo 500 sq ft smaller than the TH I have here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you move to an area that is like the area here was when your parents bought, you can have a big house.

Yes so true. Also a millennial who grew up in the DC area in the '90s. I currently live in another mid-sized city in the South and housing is much cheaper than DC.

In the '90s DC was much less wealthy and the city was much more dysfunctional and run down. It was always a place for people who were ambitious and highly educated (feds, journalists, NGO workers, etc.), but just so much less affluent overall.

Yeah, I grew up in a large sfh in one of the nicest areas of nw dc. Now I live a mile past the beltway in 1950s tract housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do they compare? I am struggling coming to terms with the fact that our likely forever home is older, smaller by 1k sq ft (more for DH), and in a less desirable neighborhood than the home I grew up in. We make way more than either set of parents ever did and they were in this area as well, but of course housing prices have rapidly outpaced income so comparable homes to those we grew up in are hundreds of thousands out of reach for us. What about you?

I grew up in a few houses:

- Large Victorian in upstate NY
- Large house my parents built in NYC suburbs
- Townhouse in Manhattan
- Apartment in Manhattan

We are a dual income household and make probably at least what my parents made. We live in a townhouse in a very walkable MoCo community. We did a gut revocation of our TH and love it. It’s very different from my upbringing, but I wouldn’t trade it.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a small place in the Midwest in a smallish SFH out in the country. My parents built it so it was new, but it was very builder-grade and they had to make trade offs when building. But, it was nicer than many of the kids I went to school with who lived in trailers or prefab houses, so I always felt relatively affluent even when I wasn’t objectively compared to most Americans.

DH grew up in a big house in a leafy suburb outside of NYC. When I first saw his parents house, I thought they were so rich and the whole town looked like a movie set to me. His parents sold the house 10 years ago for 1.5M, which was 1M more than they paid for it in the late 80s. His parents were white collar professionals but at non-profits and they could never afford that part of Westchester today.

DH and I met in college and a combination of well paying jobs and riding the property ladder up in DC by buying in a crappy part of Capitol Hill that became a nice part of Capitol Hill later on means that we now have a much nicer and more expensive house than either of us had growing up, even his parents house. Sometimes I am surprised that my kids live such a different and more comfortable life than I did. They live in a 7000 sq ft house in CCMD, go to private school, sleep away camp for a big stretch of the summer, lots of sports, etc. But, their dad works tons of hours at a high stress job to pay for it.

I wish you could still get a nice life in places like Chevy Chase or close in NY suburbs with a non-profit salary and schedule like DH’s mom and dad had, but now it takes a bigger, more stressful job to get to the same place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do they compare? I am struggling coming to terms with the fact that our likely forever home is older, smaller by 1k sq ft (more for DH), and in a less desirable neighborhood than the home I grew up in. We make way more than either set of parents ever did and they were in this area as well, but of course housing prices have rapidly outpaced income so comparable homes to those we grew up in are hundreds of thousands out of reach for us. What about you?

You are "struggling [to come] to terms" with the fact that your current house isn't as nice as the one where you were Daddy's princess? Jesus Christ, OP, grow up. Who cares?

Does everyone in the DC area have this absolute obsession with class and money, or is it just DCUM?

[Anonymous]

Huge price difference. My parents live in the DMV and bought their house for 300k 25 years ago and added on over time. Now it’s worth 2mil. I can’t afford a 2 mil house now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do they compare? I am struggling coming to terms with the fact that our likely forever home is older, smaller by 1k sq ft (more for DH), and in a less desirable neighborhood than the home I grew up in. We make way more than either set of parents ever did and they were in this area as well, but of course housing prices have rapidly outpaced income so comparable homes to those we grew up in are hundreds of thousands out of reach for us. What about you?

Find something real to struggle about. Thanks.