Boomers' Billion-Dollar Bonanza: The Unseen Hoarding Behind Millennial Struggles

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Transferred from where to where?

Weren't mortgage rates 2% like 2 years ago?

Yes. How soon people forget.

Also mortgage rates were 18% in the 80s when boomers were buying their homes.

+1. Yes. This post just sort of seems like wanting to hate on people because they got old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My greatest generation parents did better than their parents. My boomer siblings have done better than our parents. And my millennial children are on a path where they could do better than their boomer parents. I believe the differentiators are better education opportunities and dual income households. Hard work has always been part of success for all the generations.

I agree. Pick a more lucrative career. The days of majoring in whatever you want and getting a good paying job is over.

The bolder alone is worth much more than anything else others have complained about.

+1 I have to believe the number of useless majors being offered today is significantly greater than 40 years ago. Back then we thought that sociology and philosophy were of questionable economic value but the list today is much longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This boomer once had a 17.25% mortgage and never had one in the 3% area. My husband also got drafted and had to fight and get wounded in Vietnam. He didn’t want to go but he didn’t have an option and he did his duty. We have set up very well funded 529 plans for all of our grandchildren. We gift our kids a lot of money every year at Christmas and they will inherit a great amount of money. I inherited very little from my parents and my husband deferred his inheritance and it went to our children. Yes, our children and grandchildren are very lucky and unlike OPs crowd they are very grateful.

So incredibly tone deaf and sanctimonious!!!! Of course your kids and grandkids are grateful. They are not in the position that many of their peers are in - they are benefitting from the boomers wealth. What about all their peers who don't have boomer wealth in their families? You are completely missing the point, either intentionally or you don't have the ability to think on a more nuanced level....

No, I’m not missing the point. I’m just tired of boomers being trashed by people who are clueless about interest rates and inflation when boomers were your age. Interest rates in the teens, inflation in the teens all during our 30’s. If you don’t think we were scared you are so wrong. Unemployment was high and if you lost your job and you had a 10% interest rate plus 10% inflation eating into your savings you were screwed. You have been spoiled by 2% inflation and 3% mortgages. That’s free money. Yes, inflation and interest rates are up…….welcome to the world boomers lived in for a decade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Transferred

I work to pay social security for your parents.

Thank you
But realize I worked many years to pay social security for you grandparents..
That's how the game is played.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bought my first home in 1986. My interest rate was 11%. The gov wasn't helping me out.

I bet you didn't get your student loans forgiven, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the Carter years interest rates were closing in on 20% for mortgages.

yes, that's when my parents bought their home in CA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bought my first home in 1986. My interest rate was 11%. The gov wasn't helping me out.

And what was your HHI and what did the home cost?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My greatest generation parents did better than their parents. My boomer siblings have done better than our parents. And my millennial children are on a path where they could do better than their boomer parents. I believe the differentiators are better education opportunities and dual income households. Hard work has always been part of success for all the generations.

I agree. Pick a more lucrative career. The days of majoring in whatever you want and getting a good paying job is over.

The bolder alone is worth much more than anything else others have complained about.

+1 I have to believe the number of useless majors being offered today is significantly greater than 40 years ago. Back then we thought that sociology and philosophy were of questionable economic value but the list today is much longer.

I think back then you could major in some liberal arts degree and find a good paying office job because there were less people going to college. Not so today. We have way more college grads competing for the good paying jobs. Back then you could go to vocational school and get a job and live a middle class life. It's getting harder to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My greatest generation parents did better than their parents. My boomer siblings have done better than our parents. And my millennial children are on a path where they could do better than their boomer parents. I believe the differentiators are better education opportunities and dual income households. Hard work has always been part of success for all the generations.

I agree. Pick a more lucrative career. The days of majoring in whatever you want and getting a good paying job is over.

The bolder alone is worth much more than anything else others have complained about.

Well, yeah but that is because college degrees were used as proxy for class, not as an education that would actually help you to do a job. Not the case anymore. College is much closer to trade school now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bought my first home in 1986. My interest rate was 11%. The gov wasn't helping me out.

And what was your HHI and what did the home cost?

NP we got relocated in 1981 or so and the interest rate was 17% on a $275,000 or so house. Young and dumb!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not only were mortgage rates extremely low until recently, some of us boomers were at home buying age when mortgages were at 18%. I remember being ecstatic to refinance at 7%.

That’s the articles point, you bought assets at low prices with high rates, meanwhile rates plummeted while those assets rose

Everyone know is buying way more inflation adjust expensive housing, with low rates maybe okay, but they aren’t refinancing EVER and thus not getting future discounts like the boomers did.

Asset appreciation is in question too, but I admit more murky.

We were saying the same thing people say now. We felt like we’d be priced out of the market if we didnt buy the. so we took those 18% mortgages. I did a walk down memory lane and found that our first down payment was more than 50% of our annual pretax income and our mortgage was greater than three times our annual pretax income. That’s the same as a $200k petax HHI paying $100k for a down payment and having a mortgage for greater than $600k. Doesn’t sound so different.

[Anonymous]

Millennials around us seem to afford million-dollar homes just fine.

The mortgage rates you are quoting leave out the recent 2% mortgages and the fact interested rates were high in the 80s.

I’m tired of hate being generated for different age groups. We are supposed to hate Boomers one day and Millennials the next. Tiresome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This boomer once had a 17.25% mortgage and never had one in the 3% area. My husband also got drafted and had to fight and get wounded in Vietnam. He didn’t want to go but he didn’t have an option and he did his duty. We have set up very well funded 529 plans for all of our grandchildren. We gift our kids a lot of money every year at Christmas and they will inherit a great amount of money. I inherited very little from my parents and my husband deferred his inheritance and it went to our children. Yes, our children and grandchildren are very lucky and unlike OPs crowd they are very grateful.

So incredibly tone deaf and sanctimonious!!!! Of course your kids and grandkids are grateful. They are not in the position that many of their peers are in - they are benefitting from the boomers wealth. What about all their peers who don't have boomer wealth in their families? You are completely missing the point, either intentionally or you don't have the ability to think on a more nuanced level....

No, I’m not missing the point. I’m just tired of boomers being trashed by people who are clueless about interest rates and inflation when boomers were your age. Interest rates in the teens, inflation in the teens all during our 30’s. If you don’t think we were scared you are so wrong. Unemployment was high and if you lost your job and you had a 10% interest rate plus 10% inflation eating into your savings you were screwed. You have been spoiled by 2% inflation and 3% mortgages. That’s free money. Yes, inflation and interest rates are up…….welcome to the world boomers lived in for a decade.

The inflation in the 70s was no joke. Coupled that with high interest rates, it was tough. I'm a genxer, but I clearly remember how tough things were back then. There was a recession when I graduated college, too, and I was laid off. Then we went through the tech dotcom bomb, when I was working in the tech industry. Then the mortgage crisis. Then 2008 recession hit. I had a friend who had just retired, and it hit him hard. He had to figure out how to get back into the workforce at 62. Not an easy thing.

I think some of you millennials are a bit of a snowflake. We have all gone through tough times.

[Anonymous]

I'm "only" 43 but I do remember back in the 80s and early 90s that when someone lost a job, it always took six months to a year before they found a new one. There was widespread corporate layoffs in the 80s and 90s and I do remember the buy America advertisements on TV as companies were starting to rapidly offshore goods and services.

People only think about the booming SF or LA or DC but the flip side was that the rust belt nearly collapsed and places like Cleveland and Buffalo have never recovered. Millions packed up and moved for opportunities. And small town America also never recovered from the closing of factories and mills. It wasn't always rosy in the past.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My greatest generation parents did better than their parents. My boomer siblings have done better than our parents. And my millennial children are on a path where they could do better than their boomer parents. I believe the differentiators are better education opportunities and dual income households. Hard work has always been part of success for all the generations.

I agree. Pick a more lucrative career. The days of majoring in whatever you want and getting a good paying job is over.

The bolder alone is worth much more than anything else others have complained about.

+1 I have to believe the number of useless majors being offered today is significantly greater than 40 years ago. Back then we thought that sociology and philosophy were of questionable economic value but the list today is much longer.

I think back then you could major in some liberal arts degree and find a good paying office job because there were less people going to college. Not so today. We have way more college grads competing for the good paying jobs. Back then you could go to vocational school and get a job and live a middle class life. It's getting harder to do that.

You’re right about the college degree. It mattered some. A Master’s even less. I have one and no one ever cared what it was in. But it increased my salary by 50%. But you’re wrong about todays value for vocational training. Right out of school my kid was making $60k and same for my friend’s kid.