Can we talk about parents buying their adult children luxury homes
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Anonymous
I didn't use the words "little gift" anywhere. I did, however, say we "are products of a lot of intergenerational and systemic privilege, and we also work our tails off to have a nice life". Reading comprehension is hard, especially when you're angry and bitter. |
Anonymous
DP here, just so you know, if you ever tried that line about "working your tail off" on me irl, I would never take you seriously again. I respect your hard work, but lots of people work hard. That doesn't entitle you to anything. I think I'm the kind of person you would not think twice to say that to and it would seriously cross you off my list. |
Anonymous
What a terrible loss 🙄 |
Anonymous
You said a 400K gift only made your life a little easier. Please. I would love to see you try to buy a house with your own means and no help from mommy and daddy. And sure, keep telling yourself it’s because you work hard. And who is the poster who thinks that white people can’t be called out for being tone deaf and ignorant without turning it into a race issue. Racism is a problem. Police brutality is a problem. Discrimination is a problem. Lack of inter generational wealth is a problem. Literally no one said it is not. But you’re changing the subject and attacking me for criticizing another poster for her tone deaf and generally entitled perspective because you think somehow that makes me racist and entitled as well and unconcerned about the challenges faced by people of color? When in fact you don’t even know my race or background? Ok.... |
Anonymous
| Wealth has a way of making people forget about others’ suffering. As an African American whose parents are millionaires I can sadly tell you that my rich black parents are blind to the wealth gap. Rich people, regardless of race or geographic border for the most part think alike... |
Anonymous
NP, but when the PP said she worked her tail off I didn’t take that to mean she thinks she’s therefore entitled to all of this, but that in addition to the gifts and privilege, she also works hard - because many posters here suggest that if you are given large sums of money and/or houses you will be lazy. |
Anonymous
| I don’t think there is a pre-requisite for home ownership that you must have “earned” it. Frankly, much of life is not what you “deserve” but the hand you are dealt. This doesn’t negate natural consequences and valuing hard work and etc... just saying that there is a logic fallacy in stating that people “act like they earned something they didn’t” as if that is a problem or even relevant to how someone should or shouldn’t behave about their own home, regardless of where the purchase funds come from. |
Anonymous
God you are pathetic. It just keeps getting worse. One thing you’ll learn eventually is that harboring all of this anger towards others and the universe does nothing to change your situation — it just digs you into a deeper hole of patheticness (is that even a word? Whatever.) |
Anonymous
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My parents did not help pay for my first home, but an inheritance from my grandmother did, so certainly well given from family. It allowed me to invest in a home about a year earlier than I otherwise would have, and to build equity. That leader flipped over into our next home, and our next. My parents also paid for all of my college and law school tuition and board for college. I worked throughout, but they clearly paid almost all. Fast forward, I help to take care of my father, and helped to take care of my mother before her death. I go with my father to medical appointments, take care of all of his bills/finances, driving to church each week, and have helped him move into our neighborhood so that he has a greater quality of life and engagement with his grandkids. I also work extraordinarily hard, as many do. I earn multiples of what my parents did and have established well funded 529s both for my kids and my sisters’. So now I am able to take my father on trips, have him to our beach house for weeks at a time, and ensure he has everything he needs or wants (mot hard as he doesn’t want much). I plan to do the same fir my kids and grandkids. And, notable, my grandparents did all they could to help my parents, whether to pay for homes (all were relatively poor but chipped in), taking care of kids, really anything. Then my parents took care of my grandparents when the time came , having one grandparent move in with our nuclear family for over a decade, and helping extensively with the day to day care of another.
I do not believe that there is a right or wrong way for families to interact when it comes to finances or other forms of assistance, reliance or other ways of being intertwined. Some families and cultures take great pride in the independence of a particular generation or nuclear family or a couple. Others take great pride in the success of the overall family line. In my family, parents have made great efforts to support their children and getting to the next level, whether economically or in terms of education or access to opportunities. I don’t view that as infantilizing their children. Each generation has pretty far advance the ball for the next generation. I hope to do the same, and my teenagers understand. my kids are very privileged and know it, so of course none of us fully know our full privilege. Instead of squandering it, though, they understand that it comes with responsibility, both to their families and to try to do some good in the world. Again, lots of ways to raise children and families, but the idea that inter-generational wealth transfer is abhorrent or infantilizing has not played out in my family or our community. |
Anonymous
| A PP here. Thanking to when my kids are older, I can’t really think of a better investment than to help them buy a house. As a family, we get to build equity rather than throwing money away on rent, they can live somewhere other than a starter home, so avoid the transaction costs of moving. At least as of now, my teenagers are super responsible, hard-working individuals. They are smart, organized and driven. I didn’t best in them over the market any day of the week. To the extent I can support their ability to focus on their education and jobs, I think that’s actually for the best. with my particular kids, I don’t feel that they need to be scrappy or to prove that they can make it on their own.They are both straight a students, have a good groups of friends, do extracurriculars, and our self starters in volunteering to do things in the neighborhood. in terms of where I put my money, they beat the Dow every time. |
Anonymous
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My grandmother gave me 10K on the condition that I buy a house with it. I took it and bought. I sold that house when it was up nearly 100k in three years. Bought another townhouse because I didn't have enough cash to put 20% down on a single family. Then the 2007 market crash hit. If I had waited to sell the first house, I would have lost her 10k. The second townhouse fell 20% in value instead of the 32% that the first townhouse fell in the same time frame from when we sold it to the market bottom. That second townhouse has nearly recovered its total value. We made up the loss in purchase price by renting it out continuously.
That experience has soured me on contingent family financial gifts. Where you live is such a personal choice, and when families make contingent gifts to adult children, they put them at risk of bearing a financial loss when the do not have the earning potential to support such a loss. It's great when it works out, and it works out better for most people, but not always, and real estate has risks just like any other investment. I don't think that paying rent is throwing away money at all. What if your adult child qualifies for rent-capped apartments in their first years of working? Once they no longer qualify, we'll see. I never want them to feel limited by my generosity or to take on too much risk because I am trying to control how they use a gift that I give them. With that said, that grandmother was very generous and wise. She passed away, had trusts in place, and had named me beneficiary, but I did not receive what she had intended for me. My father took it. I chose not to pursue legal action. I found out much too late. I wonder if she gave me this gift because she was suspicious that something like this would happen. I appreciate her attempts to remember me. It was the best she could do. |
Anonymous
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Informal poll: do you have a different perspective on this kind of gifting based on parents social status when you or they were growing up?
My parents both grew up working poor; my mom on the verge of poverty. They became lower/middle middle class with civil servant jobs. My dad was super cheap... My mom instilled a value of self reliance. I got a hs job at 14, got a merit scholarship to college, saved for my first purchase with no help. Doing fine but DH has student loans that has really cut into our lifestyle especially early on. On the flip side..my moms first cousins grew up upper middle class. Their kids (my generation) upper middle class and then some. Those kids fully expected $400k downpayment from the bank of mom and dad. Full payment of summer camps for Kids, vacations , cars etc. It wasn’t an ask, it was a given.. |
Anonymous
| Not enough of you were jumped in HS and it shows. |
Anonymous
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I own a large title company in the area. I am completely dumbfounded by the amount of help people get from parents. I would say the majority of first time buyers get help. For some it’s a few grand. Most commonly the white down payment which can range from 3.5% for fha to 20%. Many get the delta between the loan they can afford (ie $300k) and the home costs where they are buying (ie $500k). Others get $2M-$3M houses. Literally the majority.
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Anonymous
Look out everybody we got an internet bad ass over here. Don’t mind that he’s 5’7 and overweight in real life 🙄 |