If you were born in 1990, how do you plan on ever affording a house?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How?
1. No wedding. Got $50k total from 2 sets of extremely grateful parents that had just thrown over the top weddings that was way more than $25k for each of them.

2. Went to an uncool you-never-heard-of-it school and had no undergrad student loans. Worked summers, weekends all through undergrad and grad school, even in the school cafeteria, the horror, and was an RA.

3. Lived in an apartment with roommates for years after I got my first job and paid off my grad school loan.

4. Started retirement savings at 24 so I had a good chunk of money by 30 and didn't feel bad about stopping contributing past the match to save up and buy a house with my husband.

5. Our first house was ugly, small, and way far out. We stayed for 10 years, through all our friends moving away and into better places, earning equity and saving up since as our incomes rose, our housing costs stayed the same.
And now I'm in a great house in a great location. And I have granite! So fancy.

Thank you! Here you have it, OP. A clear guide to getting what you want. Stop the whining and get to work!

Have your parents give you $50k, time travel to 1995 for the cheaper tuition, take advantage of the financial cushion from your parents and the '95 prices to save lots of money for a down payment, and ta da- buy that house!

Now what's so hard about that, you entitled millennial?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it hasn't already been said -- stop watching House Hunters and seeing what $150K can buy you in Dallas.

My actual advice is not to feel that buying is something you have to do right now. I kind of wish we hadn't been pressured (by parents and society) to buy before we really had a feel for things. We lost money on our first place but our second has appreciated nicely. There's just not judging when is the best time so don't even try. Back in '95 I had a coworker tell me to invest in S. Arlington and I don't think S. Arlington has had that moment even 22 years later. (S. Arlingtonians, feel free to prove me wrong.)

We bought in South Arlington in 2009 for low 500's, similar houses are selling for over $700,000 now. South Arlington has gone up but I don't think we've peaked. I had neighbors who bought a SFH in our neighborhood in early 2000's for around $250,000. They sold in 2015 for over $650,000. But then in 2016, we had a number of tear downs of similar houses with 1.2 million and up new houses replacing them, which we had not seen before. There are still a bunch of older homes in that $600,000 price range on lots that are large and flat enough for tear downs to be profitable for developers or even individuals looking to build custom. Who knows. Glad we got in, but I think there's still opportunity here.

Omg! We bought in the low 500's in south Arlington too! We plan to list in the next 2 years, and I'm thinking we'll land somewhere between 700-800. I think the ship has sailed for the middle class honestly . I don't know how people are doing it. I would advise anyone to try and snag a liviable home under 600k if possible. They are rare and snapped up quick.

Oh, meant to add that we also bought in '09.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Go east of the river.

Renovated townhouses can be had there in the low $300s. It's not the greatest area but it's also not nearly as bad as its reputation. It's also very conveniently located if you work downtown and is a short Uber from nightlife spots.

With trump presidency I would be VERY skeptical of Anacostia or PG gentrification. A lot of middle class Feds are losing their jobs and the city has lost its cool with Obama departure. Look at someplace like capital heights. Close in easy commute but terrible investment

Are you Marty McFly who is coming back from the future with this little nugget? Because presently, middle class Feds aren't losing their jobs.

They pulled the nuclear option in Supreme Court but will bend on budget? Things are going to get raw and Feds have a target on their back.

I work in SE across the river. It's a BIG gamble.

You clearly have not seen the 12 projects slated for East of the River. You will continue to lose on the real estate game b/c you are very short sighted.

Projects mean nothing. It is not community, safety, or good schools. There were tons of projects abandoned in Phoenix at the bust, and they still stand empty.

No matter how much you try to make it happen SE is not going to happen under Trump. If you are an investor with large access to capital it may be worth investigating, things could continue. But OP would be stretched and if your vision doesn't come to pass, they are screwed.

Sure. Ok. That's what they said about Logan Circle, Shaw, U Street, 14th Street and every other place that you would have deemed undesirable. You are wrong and Trump will have nothing to do with the economy here.

Sure, the schools suck, so do most of the schools West of the River with very expensive real estate. Schools have never driven real estate prices in DC. SE has a wonderful community. You clearly don't spend ANY time there. It's probably the last part of a community in the city. If my son didn't attend Wilson, I would buy in Historic Anacostia in a second!

H street has community but it is definitely getting diluted with new transplants who dont want to talk to their neighbors.... people, say hi! Get to know each other. It is soooo worth it.

Damn, I forgot about H Street. I don't know how. I still don't understand this one. You are right, the community is going fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:^ sorry, meant which part is NOT relevant to someone born in 1990?

You're totally glossing over price levels and wages, especially for lowly ranked schools.

Nope. Stop the whining. We worked our butts off, started at the bottom career wise, and house wise, lived in crappy apartments and an awful fixer upper arhat we never really fixed up and played the long game. I'm 39, not a dinosaur.

Uh, to someone born in '90, yes, a dinosaur. The circumstances of the world sure as hell change in over a decade.

Yeah I'm 33 but baby brother is 23. Everything will be massively more expensive for him and I feel for the other kids in this age group.

I'm sorry, I don't get this. I graduated from college in 1991. After getting my Master's Degree, I made a whopping $15K a year. Houses were $150-$200K in bad neighborhoods. That might as well have been $3M. Felt the same as you feel now. People were buying in PG County then b/c it was much cheaper, just like it is now. It's all relative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ sorry, meant which part is NOT relevant to someone born in 1990?

You're totally glossing over price levels and wages, especially for lowly ranked schools.

Nope. Stop the whining. We worked our butts off, started at the bottom career wise, and house wise, lived in crappy apartments and an awful fixer upper arhat we never really fixed up and played the long game. I'm 39, not a dinosaur.

Uh, to someone born in '90, yes, a dinosaur. The circumstances of the world sure as hell change in over a decade.

Yeah I'm 33 but baby brother is 23. Everything will be massively more expensive for him and I feel for the other kids in this age group.

I'm sorry, I don't get this. I graduated from college in 1991. After getting my Master's Degree, I made a whopping $15K a year. Houses were $150-$200K in bad neighborhoods. That might as well have been $3M. Felt the same as you feel now. People were buying in PG County then b/c it was much cheaper, just like it is now. It's all relative.

What did you major in? All the kids I know are majoring in practical fields ie comp sci, finance, pre med or dental, engineering. If you major in something thats hard and youre compensated well - it should be a stepping stone towards a decent middle class life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ sorry, meant which part is NOT relevant to someone born in 1990?

You're totally glossing over price levels and wages, especially for lowly ranked schools.

Nope. Stop the whining. We worked our butts off, started at the bottom career wise, and house wise, lived in crappy apartments and an awful fixer upper arhat we never really fixed up and played the long game. I'm 39, not a dinosaur.

Uh, to someone born in '90, yes, a dinosaur. The circumstances of the world sure as hell change in over a decade.

Yeah I'm 33 but baby brother is 23. Everything will be massively more expensive for him and I feel for the other kids in this age group.

I'm sorry, I don't get this. I graduated from college in 1991. After getting my Master's Degree, I made a whopping $15K a year. Houses were $150-$200K in bad neighborhoods. That might as well have been $3M. Felt the same as you feel now. People were buying in PG County then b/c it was much cheaper, just like it is now. It's all relative.

What did you major in? All the kids I know are majoring in practical fields ie comp sci, finance, pre med or dental, engineering. If you major in something thats hard and youre compensated well - it should be a stepping stone towards a decent middle class life.

Also no one expects to buy in their 20s right after graduating...

[Anonymous]

To all the people saying you don't need 20% down to buy, where? I bought 3 yrs ago and my agent said no offer would be taken seriously in this market without AT LEAST 20% down. That seemed true, because when I lowered my price range and made a bid with 30% down, that's when I finally got the house. (I'd lost many, many bidding wars before that point.)

[Anonymous]

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Furthermore, it's been public policy in recent years (most egregiously post-2008 fin crisis) to move heaven and earth to keep housing prices AS HIGH AS POSSIBLE! Think about that: the government works to make a fundamental human need as expensive as it can. When you understand that this is concurrent with policies to suppress wages as much as possible, you should see this as a very bad situation.

Can you explain a little more about these policies- who is making these decisions and what is the mechanism that carries them out? Thanks!

Bank bailouts, conservatorship of Fannie/Freddie, and QE. 37% of home purchases were made by investors last year. Yeah this is sustainable.

What do you mean when you say, "...the government works to make a fundamental human need as expensive as it can." Who is forming this public policy? Elected officials? Or private business people? Where is the policy coming from?

Whos in charge? Boomers. What does their base need to retire? Home equity because they havent saved a penny. Who votes the most? Boomers.

Heres another one. Who defaulted during the last crisis? Regular people a few had bad credit but most had good credit. Who owned their houses? The banks owned the mortgages. Who was bailed out when they went red? Hint - not the regular people. Banks were able to write off bad mortgages without taking a hit bc who is in charge of the banks? Wall st. Who has lots of money to affect policy in their favor? And it continues.

And to top it off - during a recession when regular people are either a) unemployed or strugglig who benefits the most from low interest loans with tight underwriting? Companies with oodles of money. Fed themselves admitted that qe was partly to reflate housing prices.

The entire country and economy benefit from mortgages requiring down payments and tight underwriting. Banks etc always own mortgages. We're better off requiring no grant/financing down payments of a minimum 5% . Source of cash? Historical bank statements or gifted money. You seem to forget that most boomers scrounged/worked to get 10% down and paid higher interest rates, pmi, etc.

In the `1990's and forward the federal govt decided to increase home ownership and that policy dribbled down to financing down payments and sub primes. Those junk loans were bundled the same as good loans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ sorry, meant which part is NOT relevant to someone born in 1990?

You're totally glossing over price levels and wages, especially for lowly ranked schools.

Nope. Stop the whining. We worked our butts off, started at the bottom career wise, and house wise, lived in crappy apartments and an awful fixer upper arhat we never really fixed up and played the long game. I'm 39, not a dinosaur.

Uh, to someone born in '90, yes, a dinosaur. The circumstances of the world sure as hell change in over a decade.

Yeah I'm 33 but baby brother is 23. Everything will be massively more expensive for him and I feel for the other kids in this age group.

I'm old and felt the same way when young. Parents house was a dream AND they felt it was hugely expensive when purchased. Now onto a listing-on the market for 1 month+. 2 bed 2 bath condo in reston for 215k. 1410 Northgate SQ. Not a cool and funky location but 2 beds and 2 toilets.

[Anonymous]

I know it's tougher now. We bought in 2004 - with only 10% down and lucked out on a location and then getting out just in time for crash and then capitalized on crash to upgrade.

But also, I worked in a job that I hated for 15 years, we're talking grinding hours, lots of travel, for a big old monstrous corporation. And I made those sacrifices for the MONEY. I know it doesn't apply to all kids born in 1990, but it seems to me "do what you love and go where you feel 'respected'" is a mantra of your parenting generation that has made you all suffer financially. Hoping you're at least happier than I was in your rented apartment? My parents told me to get a job that paid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know it's tougher now. We bought in 2004 - with only 10% down and lucked out on a location and then getting out just in time for crash and then capitalized on crash to upgrade.

But also, I worked in a job that I hated for 15 years, we're talking grinding hours, lots of travel, for a big old monstrous corporation. And I made those sacrifices for the MONEY. I know it doesn't apply to all kids born in 1990, but it seems to me "do what you love and go where you feel 'respected'" is a mantra of your parenting generation that has made you all suffer financially. Hoping you're at least happier than I was in your rented apartment? My parents told me to get a job that paid.

You don't sound happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Save for another 5-10 years. 25 is pretty young to be buying a house, unless you live somewhere really cheap. Plus there is a pretty good chance the housing market will crash at some point in that time frame.

I was able to buy a house at 25 after working and saving 3 years. The housing prices to wages are higher than 20 years ago. But other cities are still affordable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know it's tougher now. We bought in 2004 - with only 10% down and lucked out on a location and then getting out just in time for crash and then capitalized on crash to upgrade.

But also, I worked in a job that I hated for 15 years, we're talking grinding hours, lots of travel, for a big old monstrous corporation. And I made those sacrifices for the MONEY. I know it doesn't apply to all kids born in 1990, but it seems to me "do what you love and go where you feel 'respected'" is a mantra of your parenting generation that has made you all suffer financially. Hoping you're at least happier than I was in your rented apartment? My parents told me to get a job that paid.

You don't sound happy.

I'd also say they don't sound insightful or empathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How?
1. No wedding. Got $50k total from 2 sets of extremely grateful parents that had just thrown over the top weddings that was way more than $25k for each of them.

2. Went to an uncool you-never-heard-of-it school and had no undergrad student loans. Worked summers, weekends all through undergrad and grad school, even in the school cafeteria, the horror, and was an RA.

3. Lived in an apartment with roommates for years after I got my first job and paid off my grad school loan.

4. Started retirement savings at 24 so I had a good chunk of money by 30 and didn't feel bad about stopping contributing past the match to save up and buy a house with my husband.

5. Our first house was ugly, small, and way far out. We stayed for 10 years, through all our friends moving away and into better places, earning equity and saving up since as our incomes rose, our housing costs stayed the same.
And now I'm in a great house in a great location. And I have granite! So fancy.

The very fact that you consider $50k for a wedding reasonable (and your parents gifted you that much) tells me you are starting from a very different place than OP. I'm your age and $50k was an ungodly budget for a wedding back then. We got married in the church and had a reception in the church hall. And going to a no name school is a huge gamble, but I bet you had connections to make sure it worked out at least as a backup (work at dads company).

Gonna go out on a limb and say you weren't born in 1990

PP here, What part of my strategy is to relevant to someone who was born in 1990? Exactly which part?

The very fact that you consider $50k for a wedding reasonable (and your parents gifted you that much) tells me you are starting from a very different place than OP. I'm your age and $50k was an ungodly budget for a wedding back then. We got married in the church and had a reception in the church hall. And going to a no name school is a huge gamble, but I bet you had connections to make sure it worked out at least as a backup (work at dads company).

Sigh. Reading comprehension is so hard. We got $25k from 2 different sides of the family. We didn't have a wedding. So obviously I don't think 50k is reasonable for a wedding, since I didn't even have one.
But yes, keep glossing over how we
We bought in PG county and stayed for 10 years. Commuted like hell. Home you wouldn't even consider because it's not pretty enough. Or in a good location.
Rented with roommates for 7 years in my 20's, in an uncool area and uncool apartment, paid off grad school loans.
Invented the "Netflix and chill" because that's all we had money for. Highly recommend that of course.
Started saving even just $50 /month in an IRA at 24. Stopped contributing for about a year to buy our first home.
We earned less than $100k combined when we did.
See above about not buying until 30 and living way below my means in my 20's to save.

The problem is that you want advice about how to buy a $500 home close in. That's not reality. And then whining when people point out you have to start at the bottom.
Delayed gratification is hard, but it's the only way.
I'm simply trying to say that you have to wait, hold tight, plan, and be humble and am getting pounced on by people claiming all sorts of excuses. Your life isn't going to be just like mine. But to jump all over a very solid, yet boring, steady way to decent home ownership by 40 is just propagating all the stereotypes people make about entitled millenials.
So stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How?
1. No wedding. Got $50k total from 2 sets of extremely grateful parents that had just thrown over the top weddings that was way more than $25k for each of them.

2. Went to an uncool you-never-heard-of-it school and had no undergrad student loans. Worked summers, weekends all through undergrad and grad school, even in the school cafeteria, the horror, and was an RA.

3. Lived in an apartment with roommates for years after I got my first job and paid off my grad school loan.

4. Started retirement savings at 24 so I had a good chunk of money by 30 and didn't feel bad about stopping contributing past the match to save up and buy a house with my husband.

5. Our first house was ugly, small, and way far out. We stayed for 10 years, through all our friends moving away and into better places, earning equity and saving up since as our incomes rose, our housing costs stayed the same.
And now I'm in a great house in a great location. And I have granite! So fancy.

The very fact that you consider $50k for a wedding reasonable (and your parents gifted you that much) tells me you are starting from a very different place than OP. I'm your age and $50k was an ungodly budget for a wedding back then. We got married in the church and had a reception in the church hall. And going to a no name school is a huge gamble, but I bet you had connections to make sure it worked out at least as a backup (work at dads company).

Gonna go out on a limb and say you weren't born in 1990

PP here, What part of my strategy is to relevant to someone who was born in 1990? Exactly which part?

The very fact that you consider $50k for a wedding reasonable (and your parents gifted you that much) tells me you are starting from a very different place than OP. I'm your age and $50k was an ungodly budget for a wedding back then. We got married in the church and had a reception in the church hall. And going to a no name school is a huge gamble, but I bet you had connections to make sure it worked out at least as a backup (work at dads company).

Sigh. Reading comprehension is so hard. We got $25k from 2 different sides of the family. We didn't have a wedding. So obviously I don't think 50k is reasonable for a wedding, since I didn't even have one.
But yes, keep glossing over how we
We bought in PG county and stayed for 10 years. Commuted like hell. Home you wouldn't even consider because it's not pretty enough. Or in a good location.
Rented with roommates for 7 years in my 20's, in an uncool area and uncool apartment, paid off grad school loans.
Invented the "Netflix and chill" because that's all we had money for. Highly recommend that of course.
Started saving even just $50 /month in an IRA at 24. Stopped contributing for about a year to buy our first home.
We earned less than $100k combined when we did.
See above about not buying until 30 and living way below my means in my 20's to save.

The problem is that you want advice about how to buy a $500 home close in. That's not reality. And then whining when people point out you have to start at the bottom.
Delayed gratification is hard, but it's the only way.
I'm simply trying to say that you have to wait, hold tight, plan, and be humble and am getting pounced on by people claiming all sorts of excuses. Your life isn't going to be just like mine. But to jump all over a very solid, yet boring, steady way to decent home ownership by 40 is just propagating all the stereotypes people make about entitled millenials.
So stop.

You were given 50k, and you want people to impressed, because you didn't have a wedding? Just quit while you are ahead lady.