how the hades did you save a six figure deposit?!

[Anonymous]

Graduated from grad school with no debt (I got a ride, DH was in ROTC), used a VA loan to buy with practically nothing down and used the equity to buy and sell up the property ladder.

Now we're 35 with $150k in cash for a downpayment and $150k in equity in our current place.

It's a long-term goal that you start thinking about in your 20's. Some people have advantages or take advantage of opportunities that can shorten the timeline

[Anonymous]

Why do so many people live paycheck to paycheck on here

We live in a craigslist place on capitol hill for 1600 a month

HHI of 160k and we are saving 40k this year alone

It is tougher with kids

[Anonymous]

Made 150k, lived on one income, saved for 3-4 years. We delayed kids until we were financially sound and owned a house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you waited until you had kids to start saving for a downpayment that’s the problem.

This.

I'm glad I went ahead and had my DD in my twenties, since I am now I fertile in my early thirties. Fertility treatments ain't cheap, and literally all the women in my office who waited until their late thirties and early forties are going through very expensive ivf treatments, and our insurance options offer zero coverage. Obviously, not everyone who waits has trouble, but the science doesn't lie about declining fertility rates. We had about $15K saved when I had DD at 28. We purchased our townhome when she was three weeks old. We will be here for 5+ years while we save for a sfh, but I'm glad I have her, and wouldn't trade her for any amount of down payment saved.

I don't think it was the PP's intention to criticize parents who have their kids early. What she meant was that you have to be damn sure of what you're getting into, instead of wondering how to do it like OP, once kids are already there.
I had my first child at 25, and became infertile in my 30s like you. We saved before and after like crazy, and had a plan.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the OP. She had at least 16 years to save before turning 38 - why didn't she?

We came to the U.S. in our mid-20s with a little kid and one more on the way. We rented an apartment near metro for $1600 a month, bought one used Toyota for $6.5K, bought all furniture from IKEA. My husband netted about $80k, and we felt so rich, saved a lot of money every month without even trying.

[Anonymous]

I was 26 and DH was 31 when we bought our house ten years ago. put down 61K, which was about 11% of the purchase price. This was back in the day when you did a piggyback loan to avoid PMI--at a pretty high rate. Refinanced the rate down several times--now it's 3.75%, but never any cash out. Have about 150K worth of equity now. Sometimes I consider moving--it's a "starter" house--but I'd rather not have so much money tied up in real estate, having lived through the housing crash.

About 45K of the downpayment came from DH, who was only making about 65K a year as a judicial clerk. He saved and lived in crappy apartments and also got about $25K as a gift from a land deal his father did. I saved up the rest from my biglaw salary.

If I wanted a bigger, more expensive house, I'm still not sure I'd put 20% down, assuming I could finance it at a good rate regardless. Just not wanting to have that much cash tied up in a house.

[Anonymous]

Bought a small townhouse and put (much) less than 20% down as a single person. You have to work your way up. I had no illusions that I'd get my dream house right away.

[Anonymous]

Serious question OP, why haven't you been saving prior to having kids?

[Anonymous]

At your income level I would look no higher than $500k. It you can find something in the 450 range then you won't need quite six figures, but the PPs are right in that you are playing catchup if you are 38 and just now saving for your first house. It's not a problem, but just a slight setback that a lot of the rest of us didn't have. I bought my first townhouse when I was 30 and then got married and moved into an SFH at 35. As others have pointed out, it's much easier if you can roll the appreciation of each property sale into your down payment, but it's not a requirement. DW and I have done about $200k in renovations to our SFH since buying it in 2010 and we have cash flowed all of them so we could easily save up a down payment now. I suspect the problem is your budget or lack thereof. If it took you a year to save 10k then you are living close to paycheck to paycheck. You might want to get a handle on your budget before thinking about a house since it will likely add additional expenses and stress to the situation if you are already running pretty tight financially. If you want to throw everything out there we'll pick it apart, but honestly you will get much better advice over on bogleheads than you will here.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At your income level I would look no higher than $500k. It you can find something in the 450 range then you won't need quite six figures, but the PPs are right in that you are playing catchup if you are 38 and just now saving for your first house. It's not a problem, but just a slight setback that a lot of the rest of us didn't have. I bought my first townhouse when I was 30 and then got married and moved into an SFH at 35. As others have pointed out, it's much easier if you can roll the appreciation of each property sale into your down payment, but it's not a requirement. DW and I have done about $200k in renovations to our SFH since buying it in 2010 and we have cash flowed all of them so we could easily save up a down payment now. I suspect the problem is your budget or lack thereof. If it took you a year to save 10k then you are living close to paycheck to paycheck. You might want to get a handle on your budget before thinking about a house since it will likely add additional expenses and stress to the situation if you are already running pretty tight financially. If you want to throw everything out there we'll pick it apart, but honestly you will get much better advice over on bogleheads than you will here.

Good luck!

What's this appreciation thing you're talking about?

Bought a SFH in Vienna, a little after the crash started. Just now homes in my neighborhood are sometimes selling for what we paid nearly 10 years ago. And this is in the sub-700K range. I guess I should give it more time...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bought a small townhouse and put (much) less than 20% down as a single person. You have to work your way up. I had no illusions that I'd get my dream house right away.

exactly this. and I still don't have my dream house (which isn't a mansion by the way). I may never have it. It is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At your income level I would look no higher than $500k. It you can find something in the 450 range then you won't need quite six figures, but the PPs are right in that you are playing catchup if you are 38 and just now saving for your first house. It's not a problem, but just a slight setback that a lot of the rest of us didn't have. I bought my first townhouse when I was 30 and then got married and moved into an SFH at 35. As others have pointed out, it's much easier if you can roll the appreciation of each property sale into your down payment, but it's not a requirement. DW and I have done about $200k in renovations to our SFH since buying it in 2010 and we have cash flowed all of them so we could easily save up a down payment now. I suspect the problem is your budget or lack thereof. If it took you a year to save 10k then you are living close to paycheck to paycheck. You might want to get a handle on your budget before thinking about a house since it will likely add additional expenses and stress to the situation if you are already running pretty tight financially. If you want to throw everything out there we'll pick it apart, but honestly you will get much better advice over on bogleheads than you will here.

Good luck!

What's this appreciation thing you're talking about?

Bought a SFH in Vienna, a little after the crash started. Just now homes in my neighborhood are sometimes selling for what we paid nearly 10 years ago. And this is in the sub-700K range. I guess I should give it more time...

Yeah, it's not guaranteed for sure. The townhouse I took a hit on (bought at the height of the bubble and sold at the bottom - lost about $70k), but our SFH bought in '10 has gained about 250k since then so it worked out in the end. Now we just need to stay the course and avoid the urge to cash out the $500k in equity we have and "move on up" with the other Joneses.

[Anonymous]

We were on our way to save a large chunk for down-payment, and saved for about 7years on HHI 130-150k, ended with close to 270K. Then baby came. After the baby, my spouse's business tanked and we're living off on HHI of 80K. That drastically reduced our speed for saving up anything. Still recovering and now managed to come back HHI of about 110K. Our total saving during this hard time, first 4years is zero savings!! Only into the 5th year, that we were able to save approx 70K. It's lot easier when no kids for sure. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

It's tough...we were lucky in that in our late 20's before kids we made 400K combined. We bought a row house for 819K and actually only had 10% to put down. We had PMI for a year then refinanced. 4 years later we sold it without broker fees to a neighbor for 899K so made money off that and then had a bonus from work. Combined with the equity in the townhouse and the work bonus, we bought a 1.2 mil house. Could never have saved 250K+ out right to buy our current house. Was a combination of luck, high salaries, and an unexpected signing bonus before we had kids.

[Anonymous]

Two Biglaw-ish salaries and we rented and waited to have kids. We only had one set of biglaw-ish loans between us, which we paid off by living relatively cheaply for two years and throwing everything at them. Then we kept living frugally for another two years after they were gone and banked that money for a six figure downpayment.