Anyone else who will likely never be a home owner?

[Anonymous]

I thought that would be me. The last straw was renting a piece of crap house falling apart that landlord ended up putting on market for 1 mil. We had to reevaluated and move to a far away burb to afford something good. Very happy we did and now own.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think one way to make home-ownership feasible is to really hustle and save even starting in your teens and 20's.

My hair stylist (now in her 40's) bought a condo at age 18 with her own money that she had saved from waitressing and working in hair salons. She literally saved every penny.

She came from a very poor immigrant family. (Her mom was a house-cleaner, and her dad had a disability.)

So I still think it can be done. She worked so hard in her teens, but it paid off! She's been able to trade up and now lives in a beautiful townhouse in a desirable neighborhood in Moco.

Good for her, but you understand that the whole point of this thread is that a hairstylist today could not afford that condo, right? Have you not followed the news? Whatever someone could afford in 2020, they can now afford about half of that in 2022. There’s been a completely unprecedented spike in housings costs that no one could have predicted or planned for.

It is amazing that this point continues to be lost. This same debate happens around college costs. I think people fundamentally cannot understand how much costs for certain things have gone up drastically (health care, housing, education) while for others have gone done (lots of consumer goods). It seems that some people respond by assuming that what you could get must be available to to others through SOME program or way of life, and that anyone who says otherwise is a complainer and lazy or stupid.

Actually, no. We bought our home in 2005 for about 530k. 18 years later it’s worth about 680k. That’s not an extraordinary major increase. There are still houses near us for $530k.

Most households wouldn't get approved for $500k+ at their income. That's still expensive.

I love how the person you responded to tried to defend being out of touch with prices by making the most out of touch with prices comment ever.

"Houses are only half a million dollars near me, that should be plenty affordable for a hairdresser!"

So let's see, $530K at 7.7%, throw in PMI because what service industry worker has $200K in cash for a down payment, you're looking at around $4,000 a month. No lender is going to touch you paying more than 40% of gross to your mortgage so that's a minimum of $120,000 a year income to qualify. But sure, I bet every hairdresser out there is clearing 6 figures...

No but he or she is likely making at least 60k and probably closer to 80k

Presumably people buying a home in an HCOL area are married or a couple.

A hairdresser could easily find a 300k condo if he or she is single.

If they're married or a couple they're equally likely to have kids or at least need two cars with higher expenses too. 120k for a family of 2 or 3 doesn't go far. If the kid is young there's 2k/month of daycare expenses and the payment and insurance for 2 cars + additional health insurance. If there's no daycare the mom could be stuck staying at home too.

It's not accurate to assume closer to 80k either, if you search the average hairdresser salary in dc it's far lower and even less than 60k in MD...
In Montgomery county the median salary for a household is 125k and is one of the highest in the nation so 60k/per person is considered a high salary average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people live beautiful, rich home lives without owning a home. But of that's your dream, then move to a lower cost of living area and buy a home. Live in a tiny house. Scale your dream to fit what you can attain.

This!