Are we the only family in the DMV who is priced out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is us too, OP. We have about 250k set aside, a 350k HHI, one car paid off, two kids in public, no debt, but we can’t find a 1800 sq ft 3br WOTP anywhere. I don’t need detached. I don’t need off street parking. There is simply no inventory in this range. We were striving to get something in the 950-1.1 range years back but now those crummy small houses are more like 1.3 and there are almost never any on the market.

There are plenty in that price range.

[Anonymous]

You aren't priced out, you are too picky

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are priced out but at a lower HHI and downpayment. The stuff we want to buy but can't afford (SFHs in Silver Spring IB for Blair or Einstein, for instance) you could afford. But you are probably looking elsewhere.

We always want what we can't have. You and I could both afford homes in PG county or EotR in DC, but we don't want them. It's all relative.

You can afford a home in MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I are early 40s, two kids, HHI 300k gross. We have a downpayment of 300k set aside but are only interested in single family homes that are not total teardowns. We are priced out and have stopped looking.

DH interviewed for a higher paying job this summer but didn't pass the second round. I'm earning the max I can earn with my qualifications. Kids in public school and we are renting right now.

Are we the only ones in this situation?

What do you consider a tear down?

A house that requires more than 100k of rehab work after purchase or cannot be rehabbed without being torn down to the foundation.

The realtor we looked at houses with showed us two of these. Then he told us to ask our parents for another 200k so he could put us into a house for 1.1.

We have credit scores over 800.

The expectations we are thinking about changing are the area. We are looking at just outside of the DMV toward Baltimore. Beast of a commute for my DH but it's that, another condo, or keep renting.

You need to change your expectations. You make plenty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I are early 40s, two kids, HHI 300k gross. We have a downpayment of 300k set aside but are only interested in single family homes that are not total teardowns. We are priced out and have stopped looking.

DH interviewed for a higher paying job this summer but didn't pass the second round. I'm earning the max I can earn with my qualifications. Kids in public school and we are renting right now.

Are we the only ones in this situation?

Priced out of what? You can comfortably afford a house but it's not what you want so stop complaining. You can buy a $600-700K house comfortably.

That doesn’t buy you anything someone making $300,000 with two kids would want to live in here.

We make that amount and live in a $400K 1000 square foot house. It's not about where you want, it's what you can afford at the time of purchase. Time to grow up.

+1.
We live in a townhouse with one kid, but lots of our neighbors have two. They're like $500K now. SFHs in our Silver Spring neighborhood are $700-800k. You've got plenty of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are priced out but at a lower HHI and downpayment. The stuff we want to buy but can't afford (SFHs in Silver Spring IB for Blair or Einstein, for instance) you could afford. But you are probably looking elsewhere.

We always want what we can't have. You and I could both afford homes in PG county or EotR in DC, but we don't want them. It's all relative.

You can afford a home in MoCo.

The parts you are referring to would be over 1.5 hr commute for DH. The Baltimore suburbs are closer so we are considering buying there, but priced out of DMV area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was in the same boat, had to definitely recalibrate what I wanted versus what I could afford. We are thrilled about the town we landed in and are living in a house we are updating very slowly. It stinks, there’s no two ways about it. At least we are always super happy when we upgrade one thing! Everyone that comes over gets to look at our fancy 200amp electrical box, hah.
One thing my realtor told me was like, “if you had a $1m budget, you’d wish you could afford $1.25. If you could afford $1.25, you’d wish you could afford $1.5.” She told us to not look at anything we couldn’t afford, so it would be easier to fall in love with what we could afford. Ultimately, our town and non negotiable other things (no double yellow line, 0.25 acre lot) meant we comprised a bit on the house, but we gave ourselves a deadline to recalibrate and start looking into other towns if it didn’t work for us.

OMFG realtors. They just want you to buy already, not wait out and try to find a good compromise or continue to rent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are priced out but at a lower HHI and downpayment. The stuff we want to buy but can't afford (SFHs in Silver Spring IB for Blair or Einstein, for instance) you could afford. But you are probably looking elsewhere.

We always want what we can't have. You and I could both afford homes in PG county or EotR in DC, but we don't want them. It's all relative.

You can afford a home in MoCo.

OP can but we (PP) increasingly cannot -- we have an HHI of 150k and maybe 180k for a downpayment (depends what our condo would sell for). We'd like to think we can afford MoCo but when we look at the numbers on even houses at the very bottom of the range (around 500k) it's super tight even with a decent downpayment because of rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had to increase our budget 30% to get something that wasn’t a fixer upper and didn’t increase work commutes. We’re house poor for the moment. All we do is live to pay our mortgage and our college kids’ rent. Living the American dream.

This is exactly what is keeping us on the fence. I hope it works out for you all. It probably will since you are already in.

[Anonymous]

So I just put our inputs into NerdWallet's How Much House Can You Afford calculator. No debts or other liabilities, 300k downpayment, income, but also included taxes (all- income, property, etc.), insurance expenses, current interest rates, etc.

It gave us a recommended spend limit of 764k in Arlington, slightly less in MoCo.

I think those were left back in 2017. Timing is everything...

[Anonymous]

You are not priced out. You just have tastes that exceed your budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are not priced out. You just have tastes that exceed your budget.

You are saying this to someone who is literally sitting in an affordable apartment right now. Not Mommy's basement.

I'll just keep renting and saving. I do see a teardown in Arlington that has dropped almost 100k from its original list price. Once I save up enough to do the gut rehab on one of these and the more of the sellers get real, I'll make an offer.

[Anonymous]

When we had a $300k HHI, we put down $200k on a $735k home. While the home was built in the 1970s, it wasn’t a “total tear down” and has served us well!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we had a $300k HHI, we put down $200k on a $735k home. While the home was built in the 1970s, it wasn’t a “total tear down” and has served us well!

Did it need foundation work?

The contractors I have spoken with are charging insane amounts for foundation repair right now. That, roof replacement, and electrical are what we are saving up for. Don't want to have a fire, either. Lots of those on the local news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are priced out but at a lower HHI and downpayment. The stuff we want to buy but can't afford (SFHs in Silver Spring IB for Blair or Einstein, for instance) you could afford. But you are probably looking elsewhere.

We always want what we can't have. You and I could both afford homes in PG county or EotR in DC, but we don't want them. It's all relative.

You can afford a home in MoCo.

The parts you are referring to would be over 1.5 hr commute for DH. The Baltimore suburbs are closer so we are considering buying there, but priced out of DMV area.

You aren't priced out you are not being reasonable or realistic. Lots of homes between Baltimore and DC. Look at Howard. Many do an 1.5 hour commute each way. My spouse does.