Curious: where do the $$ come from??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just off the top of my head, my street has:
Lawyer
Lawyer
Finance
Finance
Business owner
Finance
Lawyer
Business owner
Diplomat
Lawyer
Retired after selling business at 40

I don't know for sure, but I would guess that each of these households make at least $300k, and probably much more.
This is just one block in Arlington. There is a lot of money around here, and most of it is not family money.

When you are young and don't have kids, it's not hard to save $50k a year when you make good money. You just don't spend everything you make.

What does business owner even mean? What is the business, I assume not dry cleaner or 7-11 business.

They own their own businesses: CPAs, consultants, etc.

[Anonymous]

My block in upper NW ($1.5-$3.5mil)

Retiree
Trust fund
Ambassador
Retiree
Lawyer
Finance
Trust fund
Finance
Lawyer
Lobbyist
Finance
Commercial real estate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
OP, I hope you realize that the Washington DC area is DIRT CHEAP compared to other capitals in the developed world.
I have lived in Paris and Tokyo, and enjoy my life here in Bethesda!

+1

[Anonymous]

My block in CCDC is sort of interesting (to me at least) because, like a lot of CCDC, the house styles and SIZES vary greatly. So on one block, the market value +/- for homes ranges from $890k (last sale) to $2.4 million.

The people who've bought the most recent and most expensive homes are corporate lawyers and architects. Some of the smaller homes were bought by professors and journalists. The two most expensive recent sales at $2.4 and $2.3 million were both by buyers who moved from nearby addresses and were trading up with their equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP, I hope you realize that the Washington DC area is DIRT CHEAP compared to other capitals in the developed world.
I have lived in Paris and Tokyo, and enjoy my life here in Bethesda!

+1

Tokyo and Paris also have suburbs as you know, because you lived there. The suburbs of Paris, in particular, and much more affordable than, say, the 6th arrondissiment. How would Bethesda compare to les banlieues of Paris?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, is your head in the sand? Have you read a paper recently and seen the industries that support this area (consulting, law, lobbying, some tech)? Those industries are much larger in this area than you think. Also, many fed workers live in the far out suburbs (take train to work). Most of them don't live in the expensive houses.

Seriously! OP, exactly what is hard to fathom about the multiplicity of very highly paid industries that have sprung up to service, aid, or sponge off of the fed? Lawyers making upwards of $500-1 mill plus, lobbyists making the same, entire corporations that have up and moved their headquarters to DC because they know it is smart to be down the street from their best customer (every major defense firm except Boeing), major hotel chains, Audi (for some reason), plus the new tech sector (still new?) developing in Virginia. Perhaps you went to sleep in 1955 and just woke up in 2014, but I will let you in on the big secret: your federal government hasn't gotten less powerful over the years. Welcome to Washington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, is your head in the sand? Have you read a paper recently and seen the industries that support this area (consulting, law, lobbying, some tech)? Those industries are much larger in this area than you think. Also, many fed workers live in the far out suburbs (take train to work). Most of them don't live in the expensive houses.

Seriously! OP, exactly what is hard to fathom about the multiplicity of very highly paid industries that have sponge off of the fed? Lawyers making upwards of $500-1 mill plus, lobbyists making the same, entire corporations that have up and moved their headquarters to DC because they know it is smart to be down the street from their best customer (every major defense firm except Boeing), major hotel chains, Audi (for some reason), plus the new tech sector (still new?) developing in Virginia. Perhaps you went to sleep in 1955 and just woke up in 2014, but I will let you in on the big secret: your federal government hasn't gotten less powerful over the years. Welcome to Washington.

I agree with everything you wrote but I needed to tweak this, in the interest of accuracy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP, I hope you realize that the Washington DC area is DIRT CHEAP compared to other capitals in the developed world.
I have lived in Paris and Tokyo, and enjoy my life here in Bethesda!

+1

DC is also a dump compared to Paris and Tokyo. What is your point?

[Anonymous]

My husband is a fed, GS-13. Most of his coworkers (professionals with PhDs) are GS 12-14s. We don't have family money, moved here for his job (laid off and had to leave the more affordable area we were living in) and currently rent near the end of the red line. His coworkers who purchased way before the real estate bubble (20+) years ago live in Rockville, North Potomac and Bethesda. Post 2008 feds, like us, live in the "unfashionable" part of MoCo where there are still lots of short sales. Or Howard County/Columbia. One of his fed coworkers just walked away a house in PG bought near the peak; their family decided to move to another country. His fed coworkers with trust funds buy in DC or Bethesda.

I've decided I want to be an IT contractor

[Anonymous]

Most people have family help. DH and I only know one of our friends who didn't have financial help from family. He is in finance and his wife is a therapist. We had no help and DH owns a small company. Even our friends who owned a house pre-bubble had some family help buying their second house. Many families have very little wiggle room with regards to finances, despite what you read on here.

[Anonymous]

OP, maybe this will answer some questions for you:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/washington-ceo-pay-rose-7percent-last-year-as-compensation-benefited-from-stock-gains/2014/06/20/73c13ffe-f318-11e3-9ebc-2ee6f81ed217_story.html?hpid=z2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking at DC metro real estate and can't figure it out. How does an economy that is primarily supported by the federal government (losing jobs every year, no pay raises, etc.) manage to sustain housing that is so outrageously expensive. Putting aside that it's mostly ugly and poorly constructed, I genuinely don't understand how the area keeps it all afloat. Understand that there are some lobbyists/lawyers that are financed by the private sector and some lavish foreign governments, but are there really that many? Enough to sustain oodles of houses at $1.5 and up? And my inexpert, anecdotal searching shows that even $1.5 has become modest in many, many metro areas. Even if the average joint fed household brings in a 180-200K pre-tax and has saved like crazy to make the downpayment, how can they keep up with that huge a mortgage? And if it's not fed households, what industry are the people who buy these homes in?

Actually in DC Fed households tend to be dual GS15s making more like 310,000 a year combined....

But to afford a 1.2M house you need $400k a year and when it is reached by dual earner you really should discount 40k for daycare camps etc.

Honestly most people buying expensive homes bought before the bubble; they sold to folks making not enough so took risky loans from bank, banks failed and were bailed out by US govt.

So you could say a lot of those homes were paid by taxpayers via the bank bailouts.

People just starting out at, how much can you affords

I dunno. MY next door neighbour is a $250,000 associate at law firm with a stay at home wife who lives in a 1.2M. The other is two GS-15s (probably 300K+) -- same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two 24 yo olds in my org who are married. They each make about $90k. No kids.

Yeah that was our situation too.

[Anonymous]

This is a metro area of close to 6 million people. The vast majority do NOT live in SFHs in ward 3, or ChevyChase/Potomac, or North Arlington/Mclean/Great Falls.

Most people either have longer commutes to cheap places like Frederick or Stafford counties - or live in smaller homes (including condos and apts) or live in the cheaper east side of the metro area - EOTR DC, PG, etc) or some combination. There really arent that many people in $1.2 million homes.

[Anonymous]

Close to 50% of the DC area is living in poverty. There is a great disparity of wealth in the area.