Why do people buy houses on the basis of 2 salaries instead of 1?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our case, one spouse is an excessive spender who's always in financial trouble, and the other is too weak to say no.

So good plan for not overspending on the house. But have a reality check---staying with someone who is "always in financial trouble" is hard on a marriage. You need to find the way to say no and learn to separate your finances (I fully support combining them and dont' really get the not unless rare circumstances, and this is one case). if you choose to stay, you need to protect yourself

We file taxes separately and don’t have any joint credit cards. Also it’s only a matter of time until we get a divorce over financial and other issues. When I say no, he throws a tantrum and threatens me. That's how we ended up with a ridiculous mortgage, and that's not even the worst of it.

So why wait? You deserve better than that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People generally want the best lifestyle money can buy. They dont earn 2 incomes because they like working. They do it so they can spend more both now and in the future.

And what is the plan when one income is gone? Like the current layoffs, or an illness or something else? That is why you plan for buying a home you can afford on less than 2 incomes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do people buy houses on the basis of 2 salaries instead of 1?

Wouldn't it better to buy on the basis of the spouse who has the lower salary? Wouldn't that be a better strategy to manage financial shocks if one spouse loses their job.

When we bought our house, I made ~$375k, and my wife made ~$70k. Are you seriously suggesting that we should have based onr DVM home purchase on a $70k salary?

Also, what about families with SAHPs? They should rent forever?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Check your privilege.

Most couples don't have the typical DCUM HHI. They afford townhouses in the exurbs on TWO salaries so they can raise their children. Most Americans can never aspire to DCUM salaries.

Shame on you. I despise posters like you.

Relax hombre. They didn't voice their opinion..they simply asked why people buy on the basis of 2 incomes..And they are not wrong. A lot of us can't see ourselves living in normal "basic" homes.

It took our 2 incomes to buy the most basic house available in the area. Truth is no one is building truly basic houses, but small, well designed SFHs are something our country definitely needs. Sorry but crowded stacked townhouses with no trees or access to outdoors suck.

Many promotions and a divorce later, it worked out because me and the kids got to stay in the “basic” house while ex traveled and worked. But our 80s house is not truly basic, it is merely basic compared to the 90s and beyond McMansions etc that followed.

Not only is nobody building basic houses, but the small, basic houses that do exist aren't even affordable because land in the DC area is so expensive that the actual structure on it is basically a rounding error.

It's why people who say "Well ackshually houses are as affordable today as they were in the past, it's just that people demand more square footage" piss me off to no end. No, we're not "demanding" more square footage, builders have decided reasonably sized homes aren't profitable enough and refuse to build them. Just because a 6,000sf house works out to be $200/sf doesn't make the $1.2MM price affordable.

[Anonymous]

It is possible to purchase a home on one salary but most people don't want to live amongst day laborer immigrants and compete with vans and small trucks for parking spaces. And they sure don't want their kids to go to school with the browns.
Most people who stretch their income to buy a home have an entitled vision of their socio-economic status. They believe they are on the level of higher one income earners and so adopt the same purchasing patterns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bought on the basis of one. Made it much easier to divorce.

No idea why people buy based on two. It was never a consideration.

Really? Can’t figure out basic logic? Wow

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is possible to purchase a home on one salary but most people don't want to live amongst day laborer immigrants and compete with vans and small trucks for parking spaces. And they sure don't want their kids to go to school with the browns.
Most people who stretch their income to buy a home have an entitled vision of their socio-economic status. They believe they are on the level of higher one income earners and so adopt the same purchasing patterns.

These comments are really stupid. Young couples need both incomes to qualify for a starter home in all kinds of neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

I assume that you can't buy a home if you have one salary because the lowest salary of that couple is $0.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one would ever be able to own a home then now that starter homes are going for over $400 and $500k+.

So many Boomers still living in the 1960s when you could own home on the husband's GM factory job alone while the wife stayed home.

Know your history. Many boomers were graduating college in the early to mid 1980s when the unemployment rate was 10% and mortgage rates were 18%.

[Anonymous]

Is this. The two-income trap. Simply put, when women went to work en masse in the 70’s, prices rose so much that any gains were basically eaten up therefore making a second income a necessity for many.

https://www.fatherly.com/life/elizabeth-warren-two-income-trap

[Anonymous]

My spouse makes $65k teaching. Good luck buying a house on that.

We did buy based only on my income, which was in the 5 figures at the time, and I regret it. It's a very, very old duplex with mediocre schools in an exurb. The plan was to live there a few years and move when the day care bills were ending and our incomes were hopefully a bit higher. We weren't counting on the explosion in housing prices and interest rates, nor did we realize that our house would appreciate so much less than a SFH. We're pretty much stuck and don't even have the space for an addition.

Anyway, in retrospect, stretching for housing instead of trying to "climb the ladder" would have been smarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, why do people even *have* two salaries in the first place? Don't they know it's less stressful for everyone in the household if only one parent works? Someone should tell people this.

Please tell me about your lower stress life when your one income is threatened by the current administration's budget. I'll wait.

I'm the PP you quoted. I can't believe so many people didn't understand I was making a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, why do people even *have* two salaries in the first place? Don't they know it's less stressful for everyone in the household if only one parent works? Someone should tell people this.

Oh God, it's another one of these threads.

Seriously, can people on DCUM not tell when someone is joking?? I was piggybacking off the OP's obtuseness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is possible to purchase a home on one salary but most people don't want to live amongst day laborer immigrants and compete with vans and small trucks for parking spaces. And they sure don't want their kids to go to school with the browns.
Most people who stretch their income to buy a home have an entitled vision of their socio-economic status. They believe they are on the level of higher one income earners and so adopt the same purchasing patterns.

These comments are really stupid. Young couples need both incomes to qualify for a starter home in all kinds of neighborhoods.

Have you look at South Arlington? There's some affordable ones along 4 Mile Run, if you are willing to live there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do people buy houses on the basis of 2 salaries instead of 1?

Wouldn't it better to buy on the basis of the spouse who has the lower salary? Wouldn't that be a better strategy to manage financial shocks if one spouse loses their job.

We didn't do that, so I would not assume...