The median Boomer has a housing cost of $612. That includes taxes and insurance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are some close in homes for under $350. You just don't want them:
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Capitol-Heights/803-Minna-Ave-20743/home/11010138
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Hyattsville/6608-24th-Pl-20782/home/10963888
https://www.redfin.com/DC/Washington/4713-Sheriff-Rd-NE-20019/home/10124693

And, yes, I bought a house like this, priced like this in 2006, so don't tell me I had it easy. I didn't. I made the same sacrifices I'm asking your generation to make.

These houses are all in the hood. The reason no-one wants them is the reason they are under $350: no-one wants to get shot. Unfortunately, white flight is the reason these places are dangerous. Boomers fleeing places like in the 50s destabilized entire regions.

Mkay, white boomers forced people to shoot and rob each other? Not the people doing the criminal activity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are some close in homes for under $350. You just don't want them:
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Capitol-Heights/803-Minna-Ave-20743/home/11010138
https://www.redfin.com/MD/Hyattsville/6608-24th-Pl-20782/home/10963888
https://www.redfin.com/DC/Washington/4713-Sheriff-Rd-NE-20019/home/10124693

And, yes, I bought a house like this, priced like this in 2006, so don't tell me I had it easy. I didn't. I made the same sacrifices I'm asking your generation to make.

These houses are all in the hood. The reason no-one wants them is the reason they are under $350: no-one wants to get shot. Unfortunately, white flight is the reason these places are dangerous. Boomers fleeing places like in the 50s destabilized entire regions.

So Boomers who were just born in the 50s or not born yet are responsible for this? Does boomer just mean anyone older than you? Do you know what one is?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some, not all, millennials want that perfect, large house right out of the gate. The kitchen is dated? Lazy boomers! Also, hard pass.

More realistic is to start small (condo or starter house) and move up the property ladder.

Then find a forever home that’s a fixer-upper and fix up the necessary things but don’t buy into all the marketing and real estate bs about how you need the perfect kitchen before you move in.

We fixed up a house with two small kids and both of us working full time. Now we have an objectively “nice” house with lots of memories. I’m not going to downsize into a more expensive, smaller place just because OP is afraid of a little elbow grease.

+1

Tale end of the Boomer generation here. Lived in a one bedroom, basement apartment in crummy neighborhood with 2 roommates right out of college for several years to save money to go to grad school.

After grad school, DH and I saved until we could afford to buy into a tenancy in common that we then converted to 2 condos with our co-owners. Took a huge risk on a charming but very dated flat in a supposedly up and coming neighborhood. Interest rate for mortgage was 8%. When sold, made strong profit thanks to the fact that a condo was more valuable than a TIC.

Moved to 2000 square foot, 4 bedroom house in a very desirable neighborhood that needed significant work. Lived in house for almost 20 years before replacing old kitchen with an Ikea kitchen. Bathrooms still need to be remodeled. Raised 3 kids in the house who are now out of college. House, or more precisely, the lot the house is on, is now worth at least 3 times what we paid for it.

Meanwhile I watch my nieces and nephews in their late 20s, as well as my own children to a certain extent, complain about how they will never be able to afford a house. Yet they rent in expensive neighborhoods, generally don't have roommates, eat dinner out almost every night, take expensive vacations, buy expensive clothes and yes, drink those $$$ lattes.

Sorry OP but DH and I took took risks and sacrificed all these years to reach the point and we have no plans to downsize.

This is our story, too. We really did it with not a great amount of income and high mortgage rates. I don't get all the whining .

Its so crazy to me how everyone is willfully ignoring that home prices have risen significantly faster than incomes have. Your income and savings back when you bought your home worked, but if you were born 12 years ago, it wouldnt. Maybe your point is - that sucks, move even further out. But a lot of millenials dont want to live out in deep in the suburbs and commute 1+ hour a day. And yes people spend money on toast and lattes- and that is $20. In a year thats like $1200. Its not exactly needle moving. Why is that so hard to understand?

So, to summarize:
1) millennials don’t want to sacrifice the way their parents and grandparents did;
2) millennials want to own nice houses in close-in neighborhoods AND eat cake, well toast, too; and,
3) millennials don’t understand why their parents and grandparents don’t understand.

Wrong, millennials literally just want the opportunity to sacrifice the way our parents and grandparents did. I'd KILL to scrimp and save and never eat out to afford a modest starter home like my parents had, because that "modest starter home" that was a "sacrifice" to them costs $1.5MM today.

I cannot even fathom the utter ignorance and arrogance required to say "millennials don't want to sacrifice to afford a first home" when for Millennials "sacrificing" means choosing between a 2-3 hour daily commute or living in a warzone when for the person deriding them "sacrifice" meant a nice house in a safe area with a decent commute but oh no it's not a mansion in McLean!

You’re missing the point. Your parents didn’t get what in today’s market would be a 1.5 mil house. They bought a house they could afford in what was then a less desirable neighborhood and further out than they would have wanted to live. That opportunity still exists but that’s not what you want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some, not all, millennials want that perfect, large house right out of the gate. The kitchen is dated? Lazy boomers! Also, hard pass.

More realistic is to start small (condo or starter house) and move up the property ladder.

Then find a forever home that’s a fixer-upper and fix up the necessary things but don’t buy into all the marketing and real estate bs about how you need the perfect kitchen before you move in.

We fixed up a house with two small kids and both of us working full time. Now we have an objectively “nice” house with lots of memories. I’m not going to downsize into a more expensive, smaller place just because OP is afraid of a little elbow grease.

+1

Tale end of the Boomer generation here. Lived in a one bedroom, basement apartment in crummy neighborhood with 2 roommates right out of college for several years to save money to go to grad school.

After grad school, DH and I saved until we could afford to buy into a tenancy in common that we then converted to 2 condos with our co-owners. Took a huge risk on a charming but very dated flat in a supposedly up and coming neighborhood. Interest rate for mortgage was 8%. When sold, made strong profit thanks to the fact that a condo was more valuable than a TIC.

Moved to 2000 square foot, 4 bedroom house in a very desirable neighborhood that needed significant work. Lived in house for almost 20 years before replacing old kitchen with an Ikea kitchen. Bathrooms still need to be remodeled. Raised 3 kids in the house who are now out of college. House, or more precisely, the lot the house is on, is now worth at least 3 times what we paid for it.

Meanwhile I watch my nieces and nephews in their late 20s, as well as my own children to a certain extent, complain about how they will never be able to afford a house. Yet they rent in expensive neighborhoods, generally don't have roommates, eat dinner out almost every night, take expensive vacations, buy expensive clothes and yes, drink those $$$ lattes.

Sorry OP but DH and I took took risks and sacrificed all these years to reach the point and we have no plans to downsize.

This is our story, too. We really did it with not a great amount of income and high mortgage rates. I don't get all the whining .

Its so crazy to me how everyone is willfully ignoring that home prices have risen significantly faster than incomes have. Your income and savings back when you bought your home worked, but if you were born 12 years ago, it wouldnt. Maybe your point is - that sucks, move even further out. But a lot of millenials dont want to live out in deep in the suburbs and commute 1+ hour a day. And yes people spend money on toast and lattes- and that is $20. In a year thats like $1200. Its not exactly needle moving. Why is that so hard to understand?

So, to summarize:
1) millennials don’t want to sacrifice the way their parents and grandparents did;
2) millennials want to own nice houses in close-in neighborhoods AND eat cake, well toast, too; and,
3) millennials don’t understand why their parents and grandparents don’t understand.

Wrong, millennials literally just want the opportunity to sacrifice the way our parents and grandparents did. I'd KILL to scrimp and save and never eat out to afford a modest starter home like my parents had, because that "modest starter home" that was a "sacrifice" to them costs $1.5MM today.

I cannot even fathom the utter ignorance and arrogance required to say "millennials don't want to sacrifice to afford a first home" when for Millennials "sacrificing" means choosing between a 2-3 hour daily commute or living in a warzone when for the person deriding them "sacrifice" meant a nice house in a safe area with a decent commute but oh no it's not a mansion in McLean!

You’re missing the point. Your parents didn’t get what in today’s market would be a 1.5 mil house. They bought a house they could afford in what was then a less desirable neighborhood and further out than they would have wanted to live. That opportunity still exists but that’s not what you want.

Exactly. In the 1970s people (boomers!) were moving out to Columbia for affordable new housing. You can still get a townhouse in Columbia for sub 400k. A young couple each making 75-80k can get something. It won't be fancy but it'll build equity.

I recently had a conversation with my parents about what it was like to be a young 20something in the late 60s and early 1970s and they said there was no "cool urban neighborhoods" in those days. Boomers lived anywhere they could find cheap housing. They didn't pay high rents just to live in a cool neighborhood because there really weren't cool neighborhoods for young people. That mentality hadn't quite arrived yet, it was gentrification/yuppification starting in the late 70s and especially the 80s that introduced the whole concept of cool urban neighborhoods for young people. Even New York was really gritty in the 60s and especially the 70s and through the 80s. Brooklyn was not cool. You can say the boomers lucked out by not having the temptation to spend money on expensive rents in cool urban areas, but today's young people can do what the boomers did, just find cheap housing anywhere even if it means the outer suburbs or a working class neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Well the solution to all this will probably be to vote in some communists and change zoning (passive confiscation) or just outright confiscation, or some variation of that. If you are mad about what somebody else has, might as well just devalue or wreck it.

We went through a lot of shit to buy, renovate, and now finally enjoy our home close in. But for everyone like us (early 40s) there always is somebody else with a wildly lower cost basis. Thats life. Wear a helmet.