SERIOUSLY - how are people affording these $1Mil+ homes with $8,000+ monthly mortgages!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: The answer is mostly that people have family help by giving them money for the down payment. Yes, there are some outliers of people that make a lot of money, but I fully believe that the people affording these houses you mention are able to do so primarily because they have family help.

I have to say that I feel for you, OP, as we're in a similar situation. We're in a TH in MoCo that we're rapidly outgrowing, and are looking at SFHs in the better school clusters, and they are all expensive.

I really think this is something that people who don't know how to live frugally tell themselves. Meanwhile they spend their 20s going to bachelor(ette) parties in Mexico and the Caribbean, spending tons at brunches, happy hours and going out, living in expensive luxury apartments, buying fancy tech, etc. It's easy to fritter away the money as a single person, but then you hit your 30s with little to nothing in the bank and panic. And you don't know who to live frugally because you're so used to spending freely.

+1 Don't just brush off everyone who saved their money by assuming they were handed money on a silver platter. I saved my money instead of spending on those exact things you listed. That enabled me to buy my first place in my early 30's, then use that equity to buy the next place.

It's better to live frugally in your 20's when others are doing it too. It's mind boggling how OP and their spouse went through so many milestones without saving to buy a house. Almost everyone I knew who was getting married either owned a home or was saving for it. How on earth do you get married and have kids without this being a priority?

Time is the most precious thing we all have and the day you graduate college to day you are married is a short window in your life. When you have a paycheck coming in and most of your friends and people your age are single and able to meet up and go on vacation. Why throw it away to save a few bucks?

My only regret is I did not spend more.

It's fine if that's you're priority, but you can't then complain that you can't afford to buy a property.

[Anonymous]

Get on the real estate ladder however you can and build equity.
We are in our 50s with an HHI of 200k and a $1.2M house in a great school district. This house is our 3rd home and our down payment was 70% of the purchase price. We spent our 30s and 40s living in fixer uppers in up and coming neighborhoods to get here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bunch of millenials moaning they can't suddenly afford luxe housing the second they want one after 15 years of renting in trendy areas. There's plenty of affordable starter places on the market. Sorry you think life owes you a mansion.

Nobody thinks they're owed a mansion, we literally just want an affordable starter home.

The problem is the boomers moaning about millennials still think a "starter home" mean a small, outdated house in a decent, close-in neighborhood like it did in their day, when nowadays the first rung on the property ladder for people without exception-to-the-rule careers (biglaw and tech) actually means either a 1br condo that may never appreciate enough to reach that second rung, or a rowhouse in a neighborhood that boomers decrying them for not buying there would never even set foot in.

Buddy, if we could buy a 1,000sf SFH in Bethesda and Arlington on a GS-9 salary like you all did, you'd never hear us complain again. We don't want luxury, we just want what you had.

OP is literally complaining about having to buy a house with normal 8' ceiling height and 1500 sq ft.

As recently as 2020 you could buy a small home in Bethesda for 600K.

https://www.redfin.com/MD/Bethesda/6218-Rockhurst-Rd-20817/home/10670708

And that house has nearly doubled since then. Not sure what you're trying to prove.

I also don’t get it. That link is to an absolutely ordinary, crappy house for over a million dollars. This area is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: The answer is mostly that people have family help by giving them money for the down payment. Yes, there are some outliers of people that make a lot of money, but I fully believe that the people affording these houses you mention are able to do so primarily because they have family help.

I have to say that I feel for you, OP, as we're in a similar situation. We're in a TH in MoCo that we're rapidly outgrowing, and are looking at SFHs in the better school clusters, and they are all expensive.

I really think this is something that people who don't know how to live frugally tell themselves. Meanwhile they spend their 20s going to bachelor(ette) parties in Mexico and the Caribbean, spending tons at brunches, happy hours and going out, living in expensive luxury apartments, buying fancy tech, etc. It's easy to fritter away the money as a single person, but then you hit your 30s with little to nothing in the bank and panic. And you don't know who to live frugally because you're so used to spending freely.

+1 Don't just brush off everyone who saved their money by assuming they were handed money on a silver platter. I saved my money instead of spending on those exact things you listed. That enabled me to buy my first place in my early 30's, then use that equity to buy the next place.

It's better to live frugally in your 20's when others are doing it too. It's mind boggling how OP and their spouse went through so many milestones without saving to buy a house. Almost everyone I knew who was getting married either owned a home or was saving for it. How on earth do you get married and have kids without this being a priority?

Time is the most precious thing we all have and the day you graduate college to day you are married is a short window in your life. When you have a paycheck coming in and most of your friends and people your age are single and able to meet up and go on vacation. Why throw it away to save a few bucks?

My only regret is I did not spend more.

I mean sure but most people doing this were also wasting that precious time getting trashed while on those vacations lmao

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bunch of millenials moaning they can't suddenly afford luxe housing the second they want one after 15 years of renting in trendy areas. There's plenty of affordable starter places on the market. Sorry you think life owes you a mansion.

Nobody thinks they're owed a mansion, we literally just want an affordable starter home.

The problem is the boomers moaning about millennials still think a "starter home" mean a small, outdated house in a decent, close-in neighborhood like it did in their day, when nowadays the first rung on the property ladder for people without exception-to-the-rule careers (biglaw and tech) actually means either a 1br condo that may never appreciate enough to reach that second rung, or a rowhouse in a neighborhood that boomers decrying them for not buying there would never even set foot in.

Buddy, if we could buy a 1,000sf SFH in Bethesda and Arlington on a GS-9 salary like you all did, you'd never hear us complain again. We don't want luxury, we just want what you had.

OP is literally complaining about having to buy a house with normal 8' ceiling height and 1500 sq ft.

As recently as 2020 you could buy a small home in Bethesda for 600K.

https://www.redfin.com/MD/Bethesda/6218-Rockhurst-Rd-20817/home/10670708

2020 was 5 years ago and your own link literally shows that very same house is over a million dollars you absolute dunce.

So your advice to people complaining they can't afford a starter home is "go back in time?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Want what I had...Hmm. Bought a house in a NJ town that was the butt of mainstream music (Bruce Springsteen wrote an entire album dedicated to escaping places like this) when I was 24. It was so small the developer had to build it up sideways so the front door opened up directly to the back of someone else's house. Continued to upgrade as my job allowed. Economic activity in NYC fueled a bit of property value/economic boom to the entire area, to the point most people couldn't afford it any longer. Exactly the same thing happened to this area. Would I, starting at 24 over again, be able to afford a 'nice' starter home in a desirable area? No. But I didn't live in a great area back then either. I just had a decade or two of forced savings on top of the typical millenial first time buyer.

This is exactly what I was talking about. You played on easy mode and you think everyone else is doing the same 40+ years later.

Let's play a game. Tell me your job title and employer when you bought that house. Let's see what that salary is today and what you could afford.

[Anonymous]

We bought a house in 1998 for 350K right before housing prices went up. We lived below our means for awhile. We stayed in the house until 2020 and had enough equity/savings to make large down payment on $2 million house. Our house is now worth around $3 million. Also, our HHI is higher than 300K.

[Anonymous]

We have gobs of equity and a nice house now but we started very small in an undesirable area many years ago.

Suck it up and deal with the low ceilings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have gobs of equity and a nice house now but we started very small in an undesirable area many years ago.

Suck it up and deal with the low ceilings.

Oh - and I took a loan from our 401k for the downpayment.

They weren’t just handing out homes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Want what I had...Hmm. Bought a house in a NJ town that was the butt of mainstream music (Bruce Springsteen wrote an entire album dedicated to escaping places like this) when I was 24. It was so small the developer had to build it up sideways so the front door opened up directly to the back of someone else's house. Continued to upgrade as my job allowed. Economic activity in NYC fueled a bit of property value/economic boom to the entire area, to the point most people couldn't afford it any longer. Exactly the same thing happened to this area. Would I, starting at 24 over again, be able to afford a 'nice' starter home in a desirable area? No. But I didn't live in a great area back then either. I just had a decade or two of forced savings on top of the typical millenial first time buyer.

This is exactly what I was talking about. You played on easy mode and you think everyone else is doing the same 40+ years later.

Let's play a game. Tell me your job title and employer when you bought that house. Let's see what that salary is today and what you could afford.

Don’t forget to have them tell us the population then versus now. Land is actually finite; maybe some of these old timers don’t understand that there are now more people competing for the same resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: The answer is mostly that people have family help by giving them money for the down payment. Yes, there are some outliers of people that make a lot of money, but I fully believe that the people affording these houses you mention are able to do so primarily because they have family help.

I have to say that I feel for you, OP, as we're in a similar situation. We're in a TH in MoCo that we're rapidly outgrowing, and are looking at SFHs in the better school clusters, and they are all expensive.

I really think this is something that people who don't know how to live frugally tell themselves. Meanwhile they spend their 20s going to bachelor(ette) parties in Mexico and the Caribbean, spending tons at brunches, happy hours and going out, living in expensive luxury apartments, buying fancy tech, etc. It's easy to fritter away the money as a single person, but then you hit your 30s with little to nothing in the bank and panic. And you don't know who to live frugally because you're so used to spending freely.

I know no one like the people you describe but I do know lots of first gen immigrants and citizens who grew up middle class or lower middle class, and who get no financial help from their parents/families. Almost everyone I know who is in a $1M+ home received/received financial help from parents for either the down payment or from a family trust. I had no idea for a long time. Now it’s just so easy to figure out once you get to know a couple well. OP, don’t feel bad because generational wealth is a very real thing and a huge advantage, but few people want to acknowledge it. On here, I’ve noticed that people are very defensive / insecure about it being called out as an advantage, and will attack anyone who brings it up. I live in an upscale DC neighborhood where a lot of people’s jobs/ employment history do not match their lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

I am the PP and I do think my viewpoint has been heavily influenced by my neighborhood— i have clearly become a bit cynical and maybe that’s because it feels like at times, there’s so much judgment from people without generational wealth. I feel badly for painting with too broad a brush and I need to move!

[Anonymous]

It’s very interesting, because all the “experts” said that with inflation and layoffs, the housing market would suffer. And yet, at least in Moco, houses are being sold over asking price after only being on the market for a few days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bunch of millenials moaning they can't suddenly afford luxe housing the second they want one after 15 years of renting in trendy areas. There's plenty of affordable starter places on the market. Sorry you think life owes you a mansion.

People just have too high of expectations. What was considered a typical middle class house in the suburbs 50 years ago is now considered a dump. People are now demanding significant square footage in prime locations. If you can't hang, buy a place in cow country like everyone else.

WTF? Those middle class “dumps” are still a million freaking dollars anywhere within an hour of a job in the DMV. Middle class salaries don’t allow today’s middle class workers to even consider buying anything remotely close to their job if they they work in DC. God forbid they consider the schools.

The question of whether they think they’re too good for the housing stock is a straw man. Stop gaslighting the youngsters.

Oh please, only losers focus on problems and not solutions. You have a really weak mindset and it's unlikely you will be successful. I know it's hard to believe, but most people in this area live far outside the beltway and drive in rush hour just like everyone else. But since you obviously have a shitty salary, maybe you should move to some country bumpkin area.

[Anonymous]

We're doctors, lawyers and cheaters.