SERIOUSLY - how are people affording these $1Mil+ homes with $8,000+ monthly mortgages!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parental help.

disagree. Most of the people i know just saved money until they had 20% for a downpayment in their 20s. Then upgraded later on and rolled the sale of that TH in.

[Anonymous]

If your mortgage budget is $4K, then it's $4K. Either spend more or buy what you can. I'm not sure what your question is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why I have told my children that they need to buy as early as possible. Beyond making celebrity salaries or lots of family money, that's the only way to buy into the kinds of neighborhoods OP wants.

Absolutely what we did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All these people talking about the property ladder....I guess that makes sense if you owned from 2002-2007 and from 2020-2025. But DC real estate is not going to have appreciation like those two periods for a loooong time. A house can be a forced savings account, but I wouldn't rely on it actually appreciating in value.

The DMV housing market has had pretty solid appreciation outside of 2008/09. It's not just in narrow sets of years.

Our timeline:
2009: purchased 2 bedroom SFH for $425k
2015: Sold for $875k
2015: Purchased 5 bedroom SFH for $930k
2025: Likely would sell for ~$1.6m

Both houses were fixers and we did a ton of work on them, but a lot of that was also market appreciation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people bought when interest rates and prices were lower. People move up the property ladder.

+1 most people buy starter homes and keep rolling their equity forward. I started with a condo, then a fixer upper, which allowed me to cash out ~$250k for my current home.

Condos are terrible idea. It worked during housing bubble when sanity left the market but have been a bad deal ever since.

I agree, condos are a terrible idea. They are currently just sitting on the market, there are SO. MANY. that nobody wants. Priorities have changed. Young people aren't buying condos anymore, they are like OP, they want big and expensive NOW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people bought when interest rates and prices were lower. People move up the property ladder.

+1 most people buy starter homes and keep rolling their equity forward. I started with a condo, then a fixer upper, which allowed me to cash out ~$250k for my current home.

Condos are terrible idea. It worked during housing bubble when sanity left the market but have been a bad deal ever since.

Agreed and add townhomes to the list. We bought one as our starter home thinking we'd upgrade someday. The townhome has appreciated by about 1/3 in the time that SFHs have by 50-100%. Now consider current interest rates...I wish we hadn't tried so hard to be responsible, and had stretched our budget when we first bought.

You must live in a really crappy area. We bought our townhouse for $500K in 2014 and sold it last year for $800K. We didn't make any improvements in that 10 years except paint, new appliances, and light fixtures.

[Anonymous]

I lived in dumps, scrimped and saved, bought a project for first house, scrimped and saved, put in the sweat equity, sold it at a great price, bought a large “great bones” house in one of the best neighborhoods in the area, scrimped and saved and did tons of work on it and then expanded it a bunch and now have a great house after years of slogging up the latter. Was investing all the while in other things too.

A neighbor, on the other hand, just told me they spent nearly $20 million on their project for their first real house. (They lived in ultra high end apartments previously.)

Scrimp, save, work, invest, and climb. Going from zero into a forever home is silly anyway.

[Anonymous]

Start with the 1500 sq ft home. In 10 years you will have a lot of equity to move up.

[Anonymous]

For people without family money: we saved a down payment and purchased two houses in other places which increased in value before we purchased a house in the DC area. We could still only afford 700k, but that's why we could even afford that.

Many others have family money or get a huge down payment from their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people bought when interest rates and prices were lower. People move up the property ladder.

+1 most people buy starter homes and keep rolling their equity forward. I started with a condo, then a fixer upper, which allowed me to cash out ~$250k for my current home.

Condos are terrible idea. It worked during housing bubble when sanity left the market but have been a bad deal ever since.

I agree, condos are a terrible idea. They are currently just sitting on the market, there are SO. MANY. that nobody wants. Priorities have changed. Young people aren't buying condos anymore, they are like OP, they want big and expensive NOW.

NP. I disagree. I bought my condo when I was 23. I paid the same as I would have if I had rented, but instead paid down my mortgage. Plus I had good roommates. It did appreciate by the time I moved out.

But yeah, when we sold the condo I was then married and didn't want to buy a townhouse. I wanted a forever home so that I didn't have to move again. So we bought top of our price range and we're very very very glad that we did. Other friends got stuck in a 2 bedroom townhouse (I have 3 kids now so it wouldn't have been easy)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I lived in dumps, scrimped and saved, bought a project for first house, scrimped and saved, put in the sweat equity, sold it at a great price, bought a large “great bones” house in one of the best neighborhoods in the area, scrimped and saved and did tons of work on it and then expanded it a bunch and now have a great house after years of slogging up the latter. Was investing all the while in other things too.

A neighbor, on the other hand, just told me they spent nearly $20 million on their project for their first real house. (They lived in ultra high end apartments previously.)

Scrimp, save, work, invest, and climb. Going from zero into a forever home is silly anyway.

Similar. Despite having nice jobs, dh and I lived in an "office" (not a bedroom since it didn't have a closet) and drove beaters. We saved 100k+ a year that way. It was fun when we were in our early 20s and we didn't mind. We had like 6 roommates too.

[Anonymous]

Based on what DOGE found, some people were clearly getting help from the government (just to be clear this "help" I am referring to did not go to the VAST majority of federal workers). The recipients of these funds would definitely be able to afford these expensive homes. Also, there are a lot of families in this area that have the assistance of "family money." Other people were very lucky with real estate (selling and buying at the right times).

[Anonymous]

Big down payment - either through equity appreciation from prior homes, family money, stock market gains, crypto, etc.

AND

a lot of them still spend $8K monthly

It's a level of risk tolerance. I personally wouldn't want to feel poor and stuck in my job because of my home, but others feel differently.

[Anonymous]

OP, how much were you and your spouse saving before kids? How about now? I don't understand people who spend spend spend while single, then married, then having kids, and then suddenly wake up one day with a spouse and kids and wonder about buying a house.

Unfortunately, it's harder to afford your first home once you have kids. I lived extremely frugally before getting married and having kids so I could save for a house. Roommates in crappy cheap rentals, not blowing $$$ in bars and restaurants, traveling cheaply and turning down the baller vacations, not buying a bunch of stuff, etc. Investing that savings and watching it grow.

Then I bought a fixer upper shortly before meeting DH. He had done the same and sold his townhouse for a profit. We did a lot of DIY before having kids.

Then we had kids *after* owning a home and getting married. That's how people without high salaries or family money do it.

Dispel yourself of any notion that you somehow "deserve" a $1M home that you neither earned nor saved for. Just buy that $600K home and be happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people bought when interest rates and prices were lower. People move up the property ladder.

+1 most people buy starter homes and keep rolling their equity forward. I started with a condo, then a fixer upper, which allowed me to cash out ~$250k for my current home.

Condos are terrible idea. It worked during housing bubble when sanity left the market but have been a bad deal ever since.

I agree, condos are a terrible idea. They are currently just sitting on the market, there are SO. MANY. that nobody wants. Priorities have changed. Young people aren't buying condos anymore, they are like OP, they want big and expensive NOW.

NP. I disagree. I bought my condo when I was 23. I paid the same as I would have if I had rented, but instead paid down my mortgage. Plus I had good roommates. It did appreciate by the time I moved out.

But yeah, when we sold the condo I was then married and didn't want to buy a townhouse. I wanted a forever home so that I didn't have to move again. So we bought top of our price range and we're very very very glad that we did. Other friends got stuck in a 2 bedroom townhouse (I have 3 kids now so it wouldn't have been easy)

+1 my condo didn’t appreciate much, but my rate was below 3%, could deduct taxes, and had equity when I sold. It wasn’t a great growth asset, but better than rent.