44, I don’t own a house but kids are in private and college is paid for…

[Anonymous]

Sometimes I feel left out, but out careers are good, our kids are thriving at school and college is covered.

We’ve got a high enough income to afford a big mortgage but the process of saving for the down payment is small.

My parents, for reasons really only clear to them, are appalled at the idea of helping us with a down payment but have dropped several hundred grand into 529s. Our retirement accounts are doing fine and honestly, at some point in the future not 10 years I’ll probably inherit enough to buy an extremely nice house for cash… but it’s weird to think I’ll never have a 30 year mortgage (whether I inherit or not).

[Anonymous]

What’s your point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s your point?

I dunno. What’s the point of any of this discussion.

I feel like it’s weird, but also don’t feel financially like I’m in trouble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s your point?

I dunno. What’s the point of any of this discussion.

I feel like it’s weird, but also don’t feel financially like I’m in trouble.

Then why are you posting?

[Anonymous]

So you are living well beyond your means. I’m not sure what you want here. Most people with two “good careers” can afford a house, including a down payment. You seem very entitled which may be your parents’ “reason.”

[Anonymous]

So basically you spend all your money but haven't had to save for college because your wealthy parents have taken over the burden, no wait, taken over the RESPONSIBILITY, for you and you're whining about not owning a home which apparently you feel was your parents' job to get for you? Stop gazing at your navel, save your money, and buy some security.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So you are living well beyond your means. I’m not sure what you want here. Most people with two “good careers” can afford a house, including a down payment. You seem very entitled which may be your parents’ “reason.”

I’m not living beyond my means. I don’t have any debt. I wake up everyday and live a good life. My kids are getting an excellent education.

I guess I’m wondering why more people don’t do this and I think the answer is they get trapped in home ownership. In New York people don’t worry about buying, they just take advantage of the opportunities they have.

[Anonymous]

You can remediate the feeling of weirdness by cutting your spending and saving enough to buy the house you want with a 30-yr mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So basically you spend all your money but haven't had to save for college because your wealthy parents have taken over the burden, no wait, taken over the RESPONSIBILITY, for you and you're whining about not owning a home which apparently you feel was your parents' job to get for you? Stop gazing at your navel, save your money, and buy some security.

My parents aren’t wealthy, they just decided they’d contribute to the 529s and now they’re huge. It actually started with my sisters kids, who were born before any discussion of my wife and I buying something ever came up. She has a house and hates it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can remediate the feeling of weirdness by cutting your spending and saving enough to buy the house you want with a 30-yr mortgage.

Take my kids out of private school and stop saving for retirement… yeah, hard pass there Suze Orman!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s your point?

I dunno. What’s the point of any of this discussion.

I feel like it’s weird, but also don’t feel financially like I’m in trouble.

Then why are you posting?

Why do you care? Jog on, turd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you are living well beyond your means. I’m not sure what you want here. Most people with two “good careers” can afford a house, including a down payment. You seem very entitled which may be your parents’ “reason.”

I’m not living beyond my means. I don’t have any debt. I wake up everyday and live a good life. My kids are getting an excellent education.

I guess I’m wondering why more people don’t do this and I think the answer is they get trapped in home ownership. In New York people don’t worry about buying, they just take advantage of the opportunities they have.

Not trying to attack - when you say you're "wondering why more people don't to this" - what is the this? Get hundreds of thousands of dollars from your parents for your kids education? Or is it live as renters because it's better than buying a house?

[Anonymous]

OP with higher interest rates, more people will choose to do what you are doing, especially if rental prices stabilize while purchase prices keep rising.

But most people on this board either bought or refinanced when rates were crazy low. In that environment, it's kind of dumb not to buy because you could borrow for so little. This made buying a better deal than renting in many areas. Not all, but many.

Most people put their down payments together before having kids. We also did not have help from family, but we were able to put together a big enough down payment to put 15% down on a condo when we got married. We then traded up from that after 5 years, so all the equity from the condo went towards our house, plus we got a low rate. I recognize we got lucky with timing -- had we tried to buy later, or trade up from our condo later, we might have been shut out due to rising rates. It really changes what you can afford a lot. Prices have not come down meaningfully to accommodate rates because sellers don't have to sell. If their rate is low, they can rent it out if people won't pay the premium, cover their mortgage, and wait for the market to improve. I don't see that changing as long as rents are stable and people still have these 2% mortgages. I know people who live in homes worth 800k or 900k who pay less than 4k a month in mortgage. It's very easy to rent a house like that out for 5k or more. So the math just doesn't support cutting the price down to find a buyer.

But all of this is flipped now due to rates and housing costs. If we were starting out now we likely wouldn't be buying like we did before, if we could rent for so much less and put the difference into investments, which is what it sounds like you are doing. But that would have been dumb in 2014, when we originally bought, or 2019, when we upgraded. We made the right choice for us given our options at the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP with higher interest rates, more people will choose to do what you are doing, especially if rental prices stabilize while purchase prices keep rising.

But most people on this board either bought or refinanced when rates were crazy low. In that environment, it's kind of dumb not to buy because you could borrow for so little. This made buying a better deal than renting in many areas. Not all, but many.

Most people put their down payments together before having kids. We also did not have help from family, but we were able to put together a big enough down payment to put 15% down on a condo when we got married. We then traded up from that after 5 years, so all the equity from the condo went towards our house, plus we got a low rate. I recognize we got lucky with timing -- had we tried to buy later, or trade up from our condo later, we might have been shut out due to rising rates. It really changes what you can afford a lot. Prices have not come down meaningfully to accommodate rates because sellers don't have to sell. If their rate is low, they can rent it out if people won't pay the premium, cover their mortgage, and wait for the market to improve. I don't see that changing as long as rents are stable and people still have these 2% mortgages. I know people who live in homes worth 800k or 900k who pay less than 4k a month in mortgage. It's very easy to rent a house like that out for 5k or more. So the math just doesn't support cutting the price down to find a buyer.

But all of this is flipped now due to rates and housing costs. If we were starting out now we likely wouldn't be buying like we did before, if we could rent for so much less and put the difference into investments, which is what it sounds like you are doing. But that would have been dumb in 2014, when we originally bought, or 2019, when we upgraded. We made the right choice for us given our options at the time.

Yeah we worked to build up our careers - we weren’t in a position to buy when interest rates were low. Now we make quite a bit and would rather spend on the kids education and rent in upper NW, where they’re happy… keep them in sports and provide them with a great life.

I suppose we could have bought way out in the burbs or taken jobs that paid better sooner but dead-ended earlier… but that sounds miserable.

[Anonymous]

Never mind the house. Crazy of your parents to put so much money in a lousy account called 529.
I have no problem with you not having a home. I sold three homes in the last 5 years I wish we had never bought.
Good for you for working to pay for private. Our kid got an inheritance, but we are not about to pay for private. I can tell the kid in two hours what he needs to know.