It’s extremely hard to raise kids in a nice neighborhood without generational wealth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t see why it’s so hard. I mean, yeah, our college and graduate school was fully paid for and my wife received a down payment on our first house from my in-laws. Plus our wedding was fully paid for and we receive annual gifting up to the limit from both sets of parents. Isn’t this normal?

We’re just two working professionals with kids that made it on our own and bought in these places in our early 30s.

No it’s not “normal.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get some perspective. There are other nice places to live besides McLean and Bethesda. And he's some people wait until they are more financially established before they have kids. You sound like a brat who thinks they need the best everything all at once.

This. You think the only “nice” places are McLean and Bethesda?

OP is a troll.

[Anonymous]

Why does it matter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does it matter

Because it provides an excuse for people who don't have what they want. It's not their fault they didn't save, invest, and make good life and financial decisions so they could afford to buy instead of rent. Anyone who bought benefitted, somehow unfairly, from "generational wealth", and it's so unfair and not my fault, wah!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate the term "generational wealth'. I feel like this is all we hear about these days.

Are people done with building their OWN wealth???

I think we hear about it a lot more because hopefully it will encourage more families of all income levels to work on building their wealth.

1. There are more programs to help families buy a home that they can pass to their next generation.
2. Encouraging life insurance. This will help the next generation keep up with assets.
3. Retirement funding. You can start with small amounts and keep it going.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the posters in this thread responding negatively to OP about how they did this in their late 30s or 40s missed the key part of OP's original post which is the focus on people under 35 buying $2-3M+ homes.

Of course if you save for 15-20 years and get paid a lot and maybe inherit a bit too you can buy that high.

OP was focused on those doing it BEFORE 35 which seems like a much narrower pool. Eg even if you're a big law partner, that isn't kicking in until 35 at the earliest. Lobbyists also don't hit close to $1M until mid/late 30s. Tech $ / appreciating RSUs will get you there but we don't have a critical mass of that in the DC area.

This. So many people pooh poohing DC, that they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, lived in the smallest crappiest house in a nice neighborhood, drove a crappy car, bought at age 40, etc.

That's not the point of OP's post. The point is that when you look around bethesda or mclean in 2026, there are a shocking number of 35 and under people with 3 kids, and 2 bmws and a stay at home wife who are buying all the new and nice homes for $3m+.

This makes absolutely no financial sense and obviously these people are using family money.

OP's point is that that life is certainly locked out to people at age 30 unless you have family money.

Well, duh. It's always been the case that living in an expensive house in an expensive neighborhood by age 30 requires family money for the vast majority. That isn't some "new economy" problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate the term "generational wealth'. I feel like this is all we hear about these days.

Are people done with building their OWN wealth???

I think we hear about it a lot more because hopefully it will encourage more families of all income levels to work on building their wealth.

1. There are more programs to help families buy a home that they can pass to their next generation.
2. Encouraging life insurance. This will help the next generation keep up with assets.
3. Retirement funding. You can start with small amounts and keep it going.

Too much generational wealth is toxic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of the posters in this thread responding negatively to OP about how they did this in their late 30s or 40s missed the key part of OP's original post which is the focus on people under 35 buying $2-3M+ homes.

Of course if you save for 15-20 years and get paid a lot and maybe inherit a bit too you can buy that high.

OP was focused on those doing it BEFORE 35 which seems like a much narrower pool. Eg even if you're a big law partner, that isn't kicking in until 35 at the earliest. Lobbyists also don't hit close to $1M until mid/late 30s. Tech $ / appreciating RSUs will get you there but we don't have a critical mass of that in the DC area.

This. So many people pooh poohing DC, that they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, lived in the smallest crappiest house in a nice neighborhood, drove a crappy car, bought at age 40, etc.

That's not the point of OP's post. The point is that when you look around bethesda or mclean in 2026, there are a shocking number of 35 and under people with 3 kids, and 2 bmws and a stay at home wife who are buying all the new and nice homes for $3m+.

This makes absolutely no financial sense and obviously these people are using family money.

OP's point is that that life is certainly locked out to people at age 30 unless you have family money.

Well, duh. It's always been the case that living in an expensive house in an expensive neighborhood by age 30 requires family money for the vast majority. That isn't some "new economy" problem.

Seriously. It’s okay to not get all the things you want at 30. A lot of us have to wait until we’re older and have built up more money. I bought my first tiny condo when I turned 30 in an optimistically termed transitional neighborhood. Then I bought a run down house in a similar neighborhood a couple years later. Now I’m in an overly large house in a great school district. Sometimes that’s the way of things.

[Anonymous]

I think the frustration is that people here in their 50s with objectively nice balances of $1-5 million and get mocked, having worked and saved their whole lives.

Then there are the 30 somethings bragging about having higher networth but don't acknowledge their parents gift them money every year, their undergrad and law school were paid for, grandma left them an inheritance and parents gave them money for the down payment of their homes and they are like isn't everyone rich?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the frustration is that people here in their 50s with objectively nice balances of $1-5 million and get mocked, having worked and saved their whole lives.

Then there are the 30 somethings bragging about having higher networth but don't acknowledge their parents gift them money every year, their undergrad and law school were paid for, grandma left them an inheritance and parents gave them money for the down payment of their homes and they are like isn't everyone rich?

Plus they outright lie. It makes no sense that only the tiny group of 30 year olds who have saved millions are the only ones who post here. The average age of homebuyers is now 39 years old. There are more renters at 30 years old than homeowners. And don’t buy that only the wealthy live in the area. Not true, it’s more diverse than that.

Anyone who managed to save 1-5 million by 50 years old should be very proud. It’s not easy to have the discipline to put that money aside for later years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t see why it’s so hard. I mean, yeah, our college and graduate school was fully paid for and my wife received a down payment on our first house from my in-laws. Plus our wedding was fully paid for and we receive annual gifting up to the limit from both sets of parents. Isn’t this normal?

We’re just two working professionals with kids that made it on our own and bought in these places in our early 30s.

Yeah I forgot it’s normal to receive $1M+ of financial help by your early 30’s. My bad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the generational wealth canard passé yet? What will be the next excuse of the envious and lazy?

I used to not even think about it and assumed everyone rich got that way from working. But then I met several actual trust fund babies around here and my perspective changed.

People living on trust funds are very much a minority. You could also point to lottery winners with as much relevance.

Yes, but you do have a fair number of people who have family either paying for/contributing to school costs and helping with large downpayments/housing.

It’s common my parents paid for school and gave me 200k to buy a house.

Lucky you! I didn’t know that parents helped with down payments until I was in my late 20s and saw it happening for friends.

My spouse and I are high earners and this is definitely one of our financial goals. Giving our kids no school debt + a down payment is such a head start in life.

It's only common in UMC+ families. But yes, if you can afford to help your kids, why wouldn't you?
Just like we paid for college for our kids and helped them get setup afterwards, we will pay for weddings and help with downpayments. Hard to save enough for a decent downpayment when you only make $75-80K/year. And our kids do save. But why not help them while we are alive versus waiting until they are 50+ and inherit a ton.
(yes we are well set for our own retirement)
We also gift them the max yearly, and they max their ROTH and 401K at least to the company match (one kid's company matches 50% up to 10%, so they get 15% into their 401K by contributing 10% of their salary each year....they would be foolish to not take advantage of that. The 27 yo already has $160K+ in retirement savings (we've been matching ROTH since they started work as a teen).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the generational wealth canard passé yet? What will be the next excuse of the envious and lazy?

I used to not even think about it and assumed everyone rich got that way from working. But then I met several actual trust fund babies around here and my perspective changed.

People living on trust funds are very much a minority. You could also point to lottery winners with as much relevance.

There are people without trust funds who simply get tons of money from their parents and rely on them to fund their lifestyle. It’s actually very common because there’s a lot of rich people out there. There are over 2 million American families with 8 figure net worths, if even 10% help their kids you have 200,000 rich kids with huge financial handouts concentrated in major metro areas. It’s probably more like 30-50% are helping their kids and some have way more than 8 figures net worth

This. And a lot of these kids getting help from parents worth $10M+ also have high paying jobs because their parents set them up for success via good educations, extracurriculars, etc. Then they married another high paying professional they met at Harvard or Yale or Amherst. It’s not either / or.

This isn’t new. There is nothing about this that is new.

+1000

Why yes, kids who grow up with financially successful parents tend to also go on to have good educations and good jobs. Not that shocking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the generational wealth canard passé yet? What will be the next excuse of the envious and lazy?

I used to not even think about it and assumed everyone rich got that way from working. But then I met several actual trust fund babies around here and my perspective changed.

People living on trust funds are very much a minority. You could also point to lottery winners with as much relevance.

There are people without trust funds who simply get tons of money from their parents and rely on them to fund their lifestyle. It’s actually very common because there’s a lot of rich people out there. There are over 2 million American families with 8 figure net worths, if even 10% help their kids you have 200,000 rich kids with huge financial handouts concentrated in major metro areas. It’s probably more like 30-50% are helping their kids and some have way more than 8 figures net worth

This. And a lot of these kids getting help from parents worth $10M+ also have high paying jobs because their parents set them up for success via good educations, extracurriculars, etc. Then they married another high paying professional they met at Harvard or Yale or Amherst. It’s not either / or.

This isn’t new. There is nothing about this that is new.

+1000

Why yes, kids who grow up with financially successful parents tend to also go on to have good educations and good jobs. Not that shocking.

And for those of us without financially successful parents? No complaints about having to work ourselves up the ladder in our own time. Sure, it might take me 10 years longer (at 40 instead of 30) but I seriously DGAF. It’s life and you work with what you got.

If you’re an adult and moaning about what mommy and daddy didn’t give you, grow up and get it yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does it matter

Because it provides an excuse for people who don't have what they want. It's not their fault they didn't save, invest, and make good life and financial decisions so they could afford to buy instead of rent. Anyone who bought benefitted, somehow unfairly, from "generational wealth", and it's so unfair and not my fault, wah!

Many do complain and don't want to put in the work. We are wealthy, had no family help and had massive student loans. But we had good majors with good jobs and we lived on less than one salary for several years to put the rest to loans, saving for down payment and saving for retirement. We lived nicely but still "well below our means" until our kids were teens and college was fully funded, retirement on the horizon and we could truly afford to spend more. We still had more than 90% of people have, so we figured why not set ourselves up well for the future.
But we still are "frugal" and cost conscious even though we technically don't need to be. We think about whether something is "worth it or not". For ex: for a 2-3 hour flight, if economy plus is $400 and business is more than another $400, we are flying economy plus. Sure we can afford $1200 (times 2) but it's a waste for a daytime 2 hour flight. I'll use that extra 800/person for a few massages at the other end.