Helping adult kid buying first house

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents gave us the max gift amount that didn’t trigger taxes for them. I think it was $15k each parent to each child, so they gave us a total of $60k, in four different checks.

One thing to note is that you ideally want the money in the account to “ripen” I think they called it. When we got ours and went to use it a week later they made my parents write letters that it was a gift not a loan. If it sits for a certain amount of time it’s just slightly easier.

The gifts of any size never trigger taxes-- it just triggers an IRS tracking form. Kudos to you if your parents have enough that they have to stay off the radar of the lifetime gift limit!

[Anonymous]

The current non-reportable gift tax limit per person (2025) is $19,000. You and your spouse can give a total of $38,000 to your son. If he is buying with a spouse of his own, you can give them both $76,000. In addition, you can loan them more than this at a low interest rate (4-6%) and forgive the balance each year per the unreportable gift tax limits until it is paid off. They will need to pay interest but that will be minimal.

[Anonymous]

Your kid is in his mid 30’s and you have funded and continue to manage his account? Do you have zero confidence in your child? Tell him about this windfall and set up an appointment with an accountant to weigh his options. Educate him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does he know about the brokerage account already or no? If yes, Option 2 does not really seem like helping him beyond what you already have contributed. He may be planning on using that money already for his down payment, and you pulling it then giving it back is not really helpful. If you want to contribute beyond that, decide how much you’re comfortable with giving and let him know up front so he can shop and plan accordingly.
If he doesn’t know, better to tell him now and see what he wants to do. He may prefer to keep it in the account, even if you don’t want to contribute beyond what’s in it already.

He knows there is an account with his name on it but does not know how much is in it. Another minor complication is that if we were to give him cash support, we feel obligated to do the same to two remaining kids. All three have accounts with similar balance.

If they don’t know how much is in there then they’re not paying taxes on the accounts. How is it in their names?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Buying in worse decision if you do the math than him renting the exact same home for the next 10 years. Why can't he rent it, build his own investment account into millions meanwhile and then buy it.
How much does he have after making $250k for years? Not a saver, is he?

This is typically never true, despite being repeated by financial mental midgets.

[Anonymous]

What does he want to do? Tell him about account and let him decide.