How rich are people buying 1-1.5 mil homes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These data points don't make sense without age. For example, we are $250K HHI (one spouse working) and $6M NW but live in a 850K house. But we are mid-50s. Should we upgrade to a $1.5M house? Can't make that call without understanding who's buying those more expensive homes..

BTW, buying a $1.5M house does not make you rich. That's reserved for $3M and over in this area.

No, a $1.5 million home makes you rich regardless. Just because things here are expensive doesn't mean people with high salaries and expensive things that are less expensive than the people with even higher salaries can afford are not rich.

[Anonymous]

We have 300k joint annual and 1 mil NW. We just bought a 1.1 million home, which was a big stretch for us, but we walked away with a lot from the sale of our last home. We also have 2 (soon to be 3) kids in daycare. Without the daycare, we would be fine, but the next 3-4 years are looking very tight for us. We've already planned to halve our retirement (currently we max) and 529 savings for the years when all 3 will be in daycare. We plan to be in this home for the next 20 years. I do have serious anxiety though, about one of us becoming injured or otherwise losing our jobs. But again, this really tight situation has a short timeframe for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:these are the houses rich people are buying in Chicago...much more than that price tag.
Avg price in Chicago for high-end homes is in the $3m range.... and there is no inventory so bidding wars galore.

https://www.estately.com/listings/info/2435-n-burling-street
https://www.redfin.com/IL/Chicago/1857-N-Orchard-St-60614/home/113095994

wow, 10,000 square feet for only 7m. wanna cookie?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Wow it is amazing how much people have tied up in their houses.

Compared to total net worth? I agree with you. Essentially these folks are all dependent on their continued gainful employment to fund their lifestyles.

Lol, what? Yes, most of us have to work to get money to live. That is called capitalism.

Not according to this PP...who thinks that when we were poor grad students, we had extra money to invest, but just didn't understand the power of compounding.

I was literally eating ketchup on saltines to save money. Growing passive income streams at that point was quite an impossibility, I assure you.

It’s nice that you could afford grad school. I was drinking the free coffee at work for breakfast and eating ramen noodles for lunch in my 20s at my first job while I rented a room in a group house. And I’M privileged.

[Anonymous]

We are $400 HHI, 1M NW, finally cleared out student loans. We are still in our under $800K starter home which would be a mansion in a lower COL location like Shake Heights, OH. Seriously contemplating moving outside the Beltway to PW or Stafford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow it is amazing how much people have tied up in their houses.

Compared to total net worth? I agree with you. Essentially these folks are all dependent on their continued gainful employment to fund their lifestyles.

Please explain to me how, as a 41 yo with a family but no family money, I could have a lifestyle that would not be dependent on my continued gainful employment?

Dividends.
Rental income.
Other returns on investments.

You’re an out-of-touch moron. Very few people can live off of those in their 40s (or even 50s) unless they inherited, had high HHI jobs right out of college, or got very very lucky with real estate timing.

I just responded to this. We invested small amounts of money every year in the stock market when we were young and poor.

What you (and other people, you're in good company) don't understand is the immense power of compounding.

I probably invested more than you ($10-20k/year), consistently after graduating from undergrad. Still not enough to make me financially independent for the rest of my life and provide for my children at the age of 40. Again you’re an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have 300k joint annual and 1 mil NW. We just bought a 1.1 million home, which was a big stretch for us, but we walked away with a lot from the sale of our last home. We also have 2 (soon to be 3) kids in daycare. Without the daycare, we would be fine, but the next 3-4 years are looking very tight for us. We've already planned to halve our retirement (currently we max) and 529 savings for the years when all 3 will be in daycare. We plan to be in this home for the next 20 years. I do have serious anxiety though, about one of us becoming injured or otherwise losing our jobs. But again, this really tight situation has a short timeframe for us.

Bad idea to have a third kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a lot of dual income families making $350-$450k, rolling the equity from their starter home into the new home.

This, and with childcare and saving for college, they are barely above middle class.

As a dual income family making about $300k that rolled the equity from our starter home into a new $1.1 million home and also saves for college, no, sorry, you're wrong. Our household income alone makes us well above middle class. Then, of course, there's also the fact that we own a $1.1 million home. Just because we spend most of our money on stuff for rich people (like an expensive home and tax-advantaged college savings) and don't save like rich people doesn't make us any less rich.

I should’ve clarified. Middle class for close in DC suburbs. The average price of a single family home in Arlington is over $1m now. It’s by definition middle class.

Your "definition" assumes that people only live in SFH's. In other words: you are wrong.

[Anonymous]

We make 325k, rolled the profit from our starter house into our $1.2m sale. We put $500k down to have a conforming loan, which was basically all proceeds from our last house. NW including house, about 2.5m.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We make 325k, rolled the profit from our starter house into our $1.2m sale. We put $500k down to have a conforming loan, which was basically all proceeds from our last house. NW including house, about 2.5m.

We are mid 40s, one blue collar worker, one fed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow it is amazing how much people have tied up in their houses.

Well, we live in them. And they aren't fancy either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have 300k joint annual and 1 mil NW. We just bought a 1.1 million home, which was a big stretch for us, but we walked away with a lot from the sale of our last home. We also have 2 (soon to be 3) kids in daycare. Without the daycare, we would be fine, but the next 3-4 years are looking very tight for us. We've already planned to halve our retirement (currently we max) and 529 savings for the years when all 3 will be in daycare. We plan to be in this home for the next 20 years. I do have serious anxiety though, about one of us becoming injured or otherwise losing our jobs. But again, this really tight situation has a short timeframe for us.

Bad idea to have a third kid.

We all have different priorities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t recall what our NW was at the time, but we paid $1.1m, put down 30%, our HHI was $280k at the time. We rolled the equity from our previous home into the new one for the down payment.

+1