Ok can we stop saying $300k is "rich" in DC?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is $2 million. We are mid 40's. Both work full time. I think of us as middle class- couple kids in private, live in NW. We both have graduate degrees, but everyone in DC has graduate degrees and is highly intelligent and ambitious. I just figured everyone had seven figure HHI. How can a 40's plus couple, both working full time, both smart and ambitious with graduate degrees have a $300k HHI or a $500k HHI? I bet the stats people are quoting here are from single earner households and many dont have college degrees.

LOL. I have a Bachelors and am a VP. I make about $200k a year, single earner.

Director-level, and $115k. One level down, senior manager, I was at $96k. These are typical - and good - salaries.

...and by the way, that $115k makes me affluent. Live in the NoVa suburbs near a metro, in an upscale townhouse. You people who are complaining that $300k isn't rich could move a few stops into the suburbs, and live extremely well.

Did you read the title of the post? We are talking about "in" DC. Not Reston. Not Falls Church. Not Chantilly.

Talk about the entitled elites living in a bubble! You still don't get it.

The fact that you are even ABLE to live in NW, in a nice house, sending your kids to private school, qualifies as rich. The middle class can't afford that, and either lives in the suburbs or in a cheaper part of the city.

Absolutely this.

But you don't get it. On $300k in NW DC you don't get a nice house or private schools. You get a small 1940s era colonial that constantly needs work and your two kids go to public.

That doesn't mean $300,000 isn't a lot of money, it means housing in the part of NW D.C. you live in is extremely expensive because it's in high demand. A lot of people want to have that 1940s colonial that you have, in no small part because it gets your kids zoned for public schools that are attended almost entirely by kids from wealthy families. Most of them can't afford it.

You choose to spend some of your money on valuable land with an old home on it. But you could make the same $300,000 salary and live in a far larger house in the suburbs. That doesn't make your income any lower or more "middle-class" somehow; it means you're deciding to spend it on one thing (a house in NW D.C.) instead of another (private school, a cheaper house, other luxury goods).

[Anonymous]

Not getting why housing in NW is so "high demand". Why would you want to live in a tiny old rowhouse with no yard for your kids to play in where it isn't safe for them to ride their bikes, etc. and the schools are absolute shit? I don't see the draw at all. So you can walk to cafes and Starbucks? So you shave 20 or 30 minutes off your commute? I must be totally missing something here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not getting why housing in NW is so "high demand". Why would you want to live in a tiny old rowhouse with no yard for your kids to play in where it isn't safe for them to ride their bikes, etc. and the schools are absolute shit? I don't see the draw at all. So you can walk to cafes and Starbucks? So you shave 20 or 30 minutes off your commute? I must be totally missing something here.

Notice your three reasons right there - your kids, your kids, your kids. Funny, some people's reasons for buying property doesn't revolve around what their kids do or don't do. Some people want investments. Others can afford to send their kids all private or off to boarding schools. Others just don't have kids at all.

As for the commute...door-to-door its 15 minutes on foot. Compared to my colleagues who spend an 60-90 minutes by car and train not to mention the expense - its heaven.

So yeah, you're missing something - a life.

[Anonymous]

$2 million HHI PP here again. I dont understand how a smart, ambitious 40's plus couple working full time both highly educated earns only $300,000 or $500,000. Basically every couple we know with 2 fulltime workers makes seven figures or minimum very high six figures. $300k-$500k is good at late 20's early 30's. The numbers you read in these statistics include single family households and people with no education. Of course that brings the average way down. But most people in NW DC are two parent, 2 income
Households and making 7 figures HHI by early 40's, regardless of what this article says.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not getting why housing in NW is so "high demand". Why would you want to live in a tiny old rowhouse with no yard for your kids to play in where it isn't safe for them to ride their bikes, etc. and the schools are absolute shit? I don't see the draw at all. So you can walk to cafes and Starbucks? So you shave 20 or 30 minutes off your commute? I must be totally missing something here.

The trend has completely reversed. When my parents were newly married, they lived in a NW apartment, but when I was 2 and little bro was on the way, they bought a decent-sized house in the suburbs 20 minutes out, with a nice backyard and quiet streets to ride our bikes in. Now, parents want to move from the suburbs they grew up in, back into a city with a tiny house and even postage-stamp backyard. Doesn't make sense to me, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$2 million HHI PP here again. I dont understand how a smart, ambitious 40's plus couple working full time both highly educated earns only $300,000 or $500,000. Basically every couple we know with 2 fulltime workers makes seven figures or minimum very high six figures. $300k-$500k is good at late 20's early 30's. The numbers you read in these statistics include single family households and people with no education. Of course that brings the average way down. But most people in NW DC are two parent, 2 income
Households and making 7 figures HHI by early 40's, regardless of what this article says.

YOU again? It wasn't even funny the first time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$2 million HHI PP here again. I dont understand how a smart, ambitious 40's plus couple working full time both highly educated earns only $300,000 or $500,000. Basically every couple we know with 2 fulltime workers makes seven figures or minimum very high six figures. $300k-$500k is good at late 20's early 30's. The numbers you read in these statistics include single family households and people with no education. Of course that brings the average way down. But most people in NW DC are two parent, 2 income
Households and making 7 figures HHI by early 40's, regardless of what this article says.

Are you a liberal or conservative? I'm trying to get a better sense of who the "bubble" posters are. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Not getting why housing in NW is so "high demand". Why would you want to live in a tiny old rowhouse with no yard for your kids to play in where it isn't safe for them to ride their bikes, etc. and the schools are absolute shit? I don't see the draw at all. So you can walk to cafes and Starbucks? So you shave 20 or 30 minutes off your commute? I must be totally missing something here.

Notice your three reasons right there - your kids, your kids, your kids. Funny, some people's reasons for buying property doesn't revolve around what their kids do or don't do. Some people want investments. Others can afford to send their kids all private or off to boarding schools. Others just don't have kids at all.

As for the commute...door-to-door its 15 minutes on foot. Compared to my colleagues who spend an 60-90 minutes by car and train not to mention the expense - its heaven.

So yeah, you're missing something - a life.

Meh, it takes me 30 minutes door to door from the suburbs and I have an acre yard, a pool and 6k sqft. Enjoy your shitty little "investment" and shuttling your kids around to private schools. lol.. nice "life" you have there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$2 million HHI PP here again. I dont understand how a smart, ambitious 40's plus couple working full time both highly educated earns only $300,000 or $500,000. Basically every couple we know with 2 fulltime workers makes seven figures or minimum very high six figures. $300k-$500k is good at late 20's early 30's. The numbers you read in these statistics include single family households and people with no education. Of course that brings the average way down. But most people in NW DC are two parent, 2 income
Households and making 7 figures HHI by early 40's, regardless of what this article says.

Because its unheard of. Let's take some famous talking heads for instance.

Joe Scarborough - annual salary is $5,000,000

Anderson Cooper - annual salary is $10,000,000

Congressman's wife (Jennifer Messner) - annual salary is $240,000

For each partner in a marriage to be making basically what a TV network anchor makes, they'd have to be an equity law partner and/or the CEO of most of the large consulting firms (not an EVP - A CEO). So please just go sit somewhere. I have millionaire friends but I don't count the major of DC elite among those. Now if you're talking about the new-to-town carpetbaggers from the Trump Admin, maybe.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Not getting why housing in NW is so "high demand". Why would you want to live in a tiny old rowhouse with no yard for your kids to play in where it isn't safe for them to ride their bikes, etc. and the schools are absolute shit? I don't see the draw at all. So you can walk to cafes and Starbucks? So you shave 20 or 30 minutes off your commute? I must be totally missing something here.

Notice your three reasons right there - your kids, your kids, your kids. Funny, some people's reasons for buying property doesn't revolve around what their kids do or don't do. Some people want investments. Others can afford to send their kids all private or off to boarding schools. Others just don't have kids at all.

As for the commute...door-to-door its 15 minutes on foot. Compared to my colleagues who spend an 60-90 minutes by car and train not to mention the expense - its heaven.

So yeah, you're missing something - a life.

Meh, it takes me 30 minutes door to door from the suburbs and I have an acre yard, a pool and 6k sqft. Enjoy your shitty little "investment" and shuttling your kids around to private schools. lol.. nice "life" you have there.

6,000 square feet is what Mclean? Assburn? Please you wish you could do door-to-door in 30 minutes. Traffic is never that easy.

[Anonymous]

+1. Other than senior execs the only people regularly making that kind of money would be 2 equity biglaw partners, 2 specialized physicians or 2 swindling lying fu**tards (lobbyists/political consultants). I know a few of each, but not too many couples that both earn 7 figures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:$2 million HHI PP here again. I dont understand how a smart, ambitious 40's plus couple working full time both highly educated earns only $300,000 or $500,000. Basically every couple we know with 2 fulltime workers makes seven figures or minimum very high six figures. $300k-$500k is good at late 20's early 30's. The numbers you read in these statistics include single family households and people with no education. Of course that brings the average way down. But most people in NW DC are two parent, 2 income
Households and making 7 figures HHI by early 40's, regardless of what this article says.

Do you know any teachers, professors, or librarians? Journalists? Systems administrators?

My husband and I both make about 100k each. I work for a major library or archive, making use of a Ph.D. in a humanities field; my husband is a software programmer working for a research institution. He is a freelance writer on the side, which is, as you might guess, all about fun and not about profit.

*The more you know!*

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not getting why housing in NW is so "high demand". Why would you want to live in a tiny old rowhouse with no yard for your kids to play in where it isn't safe for them to ride their bikes, etc. and the schools are absolute shit? I don't see the draw at all. So you can walk to cafes and Starbucks? So you shave 20 or 30 minutes off your commute? I must be totally missing something here.

Notice your three reasons right there - your kids, your kids, your kids. Funny, some people's reasons for buying property doesn't revolve around what their kids do or don't do. Some people want investments. Others can afford to send their kids all private or off to boarding schools. Others just don't have kids at all.

As for the commute...door-to-door its 15 minutes on foot. Compared to my colleagues who spend an 60-90 minutes by car and train not to mention the expense - its heaven.

So yeah, you're missing something - a life.

Meh, it takes me 30 minutes door to door from the suburbs and I have an acre yard, a pool and 6k sqft. Enjoy your shitty little "investment" and shuttling your kids around to private schools. lol.. nice "life" you have there.

6,000 square feet is what Mclean? Assburn? Please you wish you could do door-to-door in 30 minutes. Traffic is never that easy.

It's absolutely that easy. You just spend all your time hoofing it around DC that you forgot how to drive. Enjoy your sweaty summer walk to work. I'll be relaxing in my S class with the air on listening to Sirius.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:DH and I earn a little less than 200k together and we are rich. We save about 60k for retirement every year, and can cover all of our expenses, like private school for our kids, and a lot of what we want, even in this area. No, we don't live in a prestigious zip code, and my commute is about 45 minutes, but that's because of choices that we made.

Damn. I'd love to see your budget.

Not seeing how the math works on this. After saving 60k and paying taxes you are spending in the low 100s, and covering more than one private school tuition, and all other expenses, comfortably?

Our housing costs are minimal, the private school is inexpensive, and our retirement contributions are pre-tax because of a 457b contribution. And we are not spenders. We probably spend less than 1k on clothes and eating out over the course of the year, and some years we don't bother with a full vacation other than visiting family. It's just the way we are but it's our choice, we don't think about money.

But you don't live IN DC. You have low housing costs and low private school costs. So your budget is about as relevant to someone who lives in Upper NW DC as someone who lives in Kansas or Idaho. That's the point. $300k in upper NW provides a stable lifestyle with occasional niceities, but when you factor in the high cost of living you are far from rich.

So do tell -- why live in NW then? And I do know someone who lives in Brightwood whose mortgage is about 1400 a month so there are choices even within DC.

People -- lots of them -- live comfortably in DC and arent rich earning $300K.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I earn a little less than 200k together and we are rich. We save about 60k for retirement every year, and can cover all of our expenses, like private school for our kids, and a lot of what we want, even in this area. No, we don't live in a prestigious zip code, and my commute is about 45 minutes, but that's because of choices that we made.

Damn. I'd love to see your budget.

Not seeing how the math works on this. After saving 60k and paying taxes you are spending in the low 100s, and covering more than one private school tuition, and all other expenses, comfortably?

Our housing costs are minimal, the private school is inexpensive, and our retirement contributions are pre-tax because of a 457b contribution. And we are not spenders. We probably spend less than 1k on clothes and eating out over the course of the year, and some years we don't bother with a full vacation other than visiting family. It's just the way we are but it's our choice, we don't think about money.

But you don't live IN DC. You have low housing costs and low private school costs. So your budget is about as relevant to someone who lives in Upper NW DC as someone who lives in Kansas or Idaho. That's the point. $300k in upper NW provides a stable lifestyle with occasional niceities, but when you factor in the high cost of living you are far from rich.

So do tell -- why live in NW then? And I do know someone who lives in Brightwood whose mortgage is about 1400 a month so there are choices even within DC.

Again, I'm curious why. I'm bored fighting with the other idiot that insists on launching ad hominem attacks against me just because he is jealous that my commute isn't 90 minutes and I have a pool. I wasn't trying to be a jerk about it, I am genuinely curious. Throw the commute thing out for a minute. I spend 30 minutes driving each way so I don't really care if I can cut that in half because it wouldn't be worth it to me due to the other downsides I mentioned. Aside from the commute issue why do people want to live in NW. I know it's a nice area since my office is in NW, but I don't have any desire to live there.

People -- lots of them -- live comfortably in DC and arent rich earning $300K.