Americans locked into lower mortgage rates have been increasingly unwilling to sell their homes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the mindset of living in a house you don’t want anymore just because you got a good deal on it. Eventually housing prices will have to come down because as has been pointed out here, higher interest rates puts many houses out of reach for a lot of potential homebuyers. And of course renting is still an option.

Really? We can’t afford anything better. What’s so hard to understand? And honestly my parents became house poor when they upgraded to a bigger house, so that experience has stayed with me somewhat.

It's called living within your means. My parents carried two mortgages during a housing recession after moving us to a better house and being house poor caused a terrible strain on the family for several years even with renters. Made an indelible mark on me never to let the wants override the needs.

Right- staying in our current house, with our manageable mortgage payment, is staying within our means for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the mindset of living in a house you don’t want anymore just because you got a good deal on it. Eventually housing prices will have to come down because as has been pointed out here, higher interest rates puts many houses out of reach for a lot of potential homebuyers. And of course renting is still an option.

Really? We can’t afford anything better. What’s so hard to understand? And honestly my parents became house poor when they upgraded to a bigger house, so that experience has stayed with me somewhat.

+1. If you don't understand the "mindset" of tolerating something you're not totally happy with because the other options are more expensive, I don't know what to tell you. That's life.

[Anonymous]

Home prices are up five month straight.

It is irrelevant rates. Look I bought my first home in early 2000 with a 7.75 mortgage. I only could afford a certain monthly payment.

To do that I put 40 percent down. If rates were 3.75 I could have put down 20 percent.

I also bought my starter in a second tier neighborhood, small home that need work.

That is how the world worked up to 2020 when crazy crazy low rates happen.

We are going back to normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm never moving out of my starter house at a 2.2% mortgage. We just get used to making do with less space.

+1 I also have a 2.2% mortgage. We bought 18 years ago, and our mortgage is $1200/mo. We've raised two kids in our small 1100 sq ft home, and it will be the perfect size for us as empty nesters. I expect my kids to move out in the next few years, and our mortgage is almost paid off. We are in DC and have a decent-sized yard. I'll never sell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm never moving out of my starter house at a 2.2% mortgage. We just get used to making do with less space.

+1 I also have a 2.2% mortgage. We bought 18 years ago, and our mortgage is $1200/mo. We've raised two kids in our small 1100 sq ft home, and it will be the perfect size for us as empty nesters. I expect my kids to move out in the next few years, and our mortgage is almost paid off. We are in DC and have a decent-sized yard. I'll never sell.

You need a bigger home in retirement. My neighbor has a 7,000 sf house and Xmas, Easter, etc often 6-8 cars in driveway and 20-25 people staying over as they host holidays.

Then you got engagement parties, weddings, watching grandkids, pet sitting.

I have a 7 bedroom house. It is crowded sometimes. One kid brought friends home from college, other doing sleep over with friends, third one in her room me and wife home and pets.

When I was young we had a 1,300 sf house with three little kids. I had that till oldest 18. Now I need way bigger.

Don’t you watch hallmark? Grandparents always have the large homes and kids come home for holidays with grandkids

[Anonymous]

We are empty nesters sitting here in our 3500 square foot, 4 bedroom 3.5 bath house in N. Arlington. It's a great family house and we are ready to downsize, but we aren't moving. Not because of the interest rates, but because we'd like to move to a smaller home with a different layout (at least one bed/bath on the main floor) in our same general neighborhood, but there aren't any. Everything that is being built is enormous and expensive. We don't want to leave our neighbors and community, we are still working so want to keep our commute, and we don't want to share walls with anyone, so here we sit until we are carted off to assisted living, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm never moving out of my starter house at a 2.2% mortgage. We just get used to making do with less space.

+1 I also have a 2.2% mortgage. We bought 18 years ago, and our mortgage is $1200/mo. We've raised two kids in our small 1100 sq ft home, and it will be the perfect size for us as empty nesters. I expect my kids to move out in the next few years, and our mortgage is almost paid off. We are in DC and have a decent-sized yard. I'll never sell.

You need a bigger home in retirement. My neighbor has a 7,000 sf house and Xmas, Easter, etc often 6-8 cars in driveway and 20-25 people staying over as they host holidays.

Then you got engagement parties, weddings, watching grandkids, pet sitting.

I have a 7 bedroom house. It is crowded sometimes. One kid brought friends home from college, other doing sleep over with friends, third one in her room me and wife home and pets.

When I was young we had a 1,300 sf house with three little kids. I had that till oldest 18. Now I need way bigger.

Don’t you watch hallmark? Grandparents always have the large homes and kids come home for holidays with grandkids

This is a nice plan for some people, but do you really think every family aspires to live like this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the mindset of living in a house you don’t want anymore just because you got a good deal on it. Eventually housing prices will have to come down because as has been pointed out here, higher interest rates puts many houses out of reach for a lot of potential homebuyers. And of course renting is still an option.

Because I don't want to lateral if I move. If I move it's because I want a nicer, newer house. The combination of a larger principal plus a higher mortgage rate means my monthly payment would easily triple or even quadruple from what I'm paying now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm never moving out of my starter house at a 2.2% mortgage. We just get used to making do with less space.

+1 I also have a 2.2% mortgage. We bought 18 years ago, and our mortgage is $1200/mo. We've raised two kids in our small 1100 sq ft home, and it will be the perfect size for us as empty nesters. I expect my kids to move out in the next few years, and our mortgage is almost paid off. We are in DC and have a decent-sized yard. I'll never sell.

You need a bigger home in retirement. My neighbor has a 7,000 sf house and Xmas, Easter, etc often 6-8 cars in driveway and 20-25 people staying over as they host holidays.

Then you got engagement parties, weddings, watching grandkids, pet sitting.

I have a 7 bedroom house. It is crowded sometimes. One kid brought friends home from college, other doing sleep over with friends, third one in her room me and wife home and pets.

When I was young we had a 1,300 sf house with three little kids. I had that till oldest 18. Now I need way bigger.

Don’t you watch hallmark? Grandparents always have the large homes and kids come home for holidays with grandkids

Unless you live in a "destination" - the beach, mountains, lake, etc... your kids will not be excited to take time off from their jobs and drag their spouses and little kids to come visit you. We also have the retiree neighbors with the giant house. They, too, thought they needed it for all of the family visits. Their kids visit maybe once a year.

I think you are thinking of that window of time where your kids are "adults", but do not yet have any obligations to a spouse, a spouse's family, or any children. This is when they are most likely to visit for holidays or bring friends with them. Now buy yourself a giant beach house, and you may just in fact have visitors quite often!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I think you are thinking of that window of time where your kids are "adults", but do not yet have any obligations to a spouse, a spouse's family, or any children. This is when they are most likely to visit for holidays or bring friends with them. Now buy yourself a giant beach house, and you may just in fact have visitors quite often!

I wish my in laws had this. Instead, I am stuck visiting your typical TX rambler in sprawling suburbia where 7 of us (3 adults and 4 kids-my BIL lives there with his 2 teen children) share 1 bathroom because the 2nd one is in the master where grandma sleeps, we all have to share rooms, and the bedroom doors have no locks. Oh, and we are stuck there if the 2 people with cars are working and it isn't walking distance to anything. I am forced to do this for a week every year. By the time we've paid for the ridiculously expensive cost of flying 4 of us, we can't really shell out for a week at a hotel or a rental vehicle. I really dislike the holidays for this reason, but I do it so my husband doesn't divorce me.

My parents come to us. It is so much easier that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm never moving out of my starter house at a 2.2% mortgage. We just get used to making do with less space.

Yep, you are trapped there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think you are thinking of that window of time where your kids are "adults", but do not yet have any obligations to a spouse, a spouse's family, or any children. This is when they are most likely to visit for holidays or bring friends with them. Now buy yourself a giant beach house, and you may just in fact have visitors quite often!

I wish my in laws had this. Instead, I am stuck visiting your typical TX rambler in sprawling suburbia where 7 of us (3 adults and 4 kids-my BIL lives there with his 2 teen children) share 1 bathroom because the 2nd one is in the master where grandma sleeps, we all have to share rooms, and the bedroom doors have no locks. Oh, and we are stuck there if the 2 people with cars are working and it isn't walking distance to anything. I am forced to do this for a week every year. By the time we've paid for the ridiculously expensive cost of flying 4 of us, we can't really shell out for a week at a hotel or a rental vehicle. I really dislike the holidays for this reason, but I do it so my husband doesn't divorce me.

My parents come to us. It is so much easier that way.

NP. I’m hoping that my kids (teens) don’t move away so we can get together for family dinners with guests driving a short distance back to their own homes. In my opinion our society has gotten too transient, and living near family should be prioritized more.

[Anonymous]

We're in this camp. I feel like we're doing well financially. There's always someone richer, but overall are very fortunate.

We make ~$400K salary w/ upside to ~$600K+ in a good year, have a $1.6mm investment portfolio/$0.4mm home equity, paid for cars, 35 yrs old. We have a small, old ~$1.3mm house and a $4.4K / month payment (for which we paid $1mm and refi'd into <3% rate). If we want something nicer in same hood, let's say a $2.2mm house and took every single dime of accessible investments ($1mm) and every single dime of post transaction cost home equity ($0.4mm) and bought that for $2.2mm house w/ a $1.4mm down payment, then our payment would go from $4.4K PITI to $8.2K PITI. With childcare and our otherwise lavish lifestyle and desire to save $$$, simply would not work, notwithstanding the giant loss in diversification and liquidity and the comfort that comes with having an investment portfolio that pays for the mortgage.

So when I look at these $2mm homes flying off shelves, I can only conclude that people are wealthier than us (which in our little bubble is probably true in select cases) or simply have a higher willingness to concentrate in home equity.

I hear you all playing the world's smallest violin for me, but it is difficult for me to comprehend home pricing with where rates are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're in this camp. I feel like we're doing well financially. There's always someone richer, but overall are very fortunate.

We make ~$400K salary w/ upside to ~$600K+ in a good year, have a $1.6mm investment portfolio/$0.4mm home equity, paid for cars, 35 yrs old. We have a small, old ~$1.3mm house and a $4.4K / month payment (for which we paid $1mm and refi'd into <3% rate). If we want something nicer in same hood, let's say a $2.2mm house and took every single dime of accessible investments ($1mm) and every single dime of post transaction cost home equity ($0.4mm) and bought that for $2.2mm house w/ a $1.4mm down payment, then our payment would go from $4.4K PITI to $8.2K PITI. With childcare and our otherwise lavish lifestyle and desire to save $$$, simply would not work, notwithstanding the giant loss in diversification and liquidity and the comfort that comes with having an investment portfolio that pays for the mortgage.

So when I look at these $2mm homes flying off shelves, I can only conclude that people are wealthier than us (which in our little bubble is probably true in select cases) or simply have a higher willingness to concentrate in home equity.

I hear you all playing the world's smallest violin for me, but it is difficult for me to comprehend home pricing with where rates are.

Wow, all those numbers look eerily close that I had to double check my spouse didn’t post this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think you are thinking of that window of time where your kids are "adults", but do not yet have any obligations to a spouse, a spouse's family, or any children. This is when they are most likely to visit for holidays or bring friends with them. Now buy yourself a giant beach house, and you may just in fact have visitors quite often!

I wish my in laws had this. Instead, I am stuck visiting your typical TX rambler in sprawling suburbia where 7 of us (3 adults and 4 kids-my BIL lives there with his 2 teen children) share 1 bathroom because the 2nd one is in the master where grandma sleeps, we all have to share rooms, and the bedroom doors have no locks. Oh, and we are stuck there if the 2 people with cars are working and it isn't walking distance to anything. I am forced to do this for a week every year. By the time we've paid for the ridiculously expensive cost of flying 4 of us, we can't really shell out for a week at a hotel or a rental vehicle. I really dislike the holidays for this reason, but I do it so my husband doesn't divorce me.

My parents come to us. It is so much easier that way.

NP. I’m hoping that my kids (teens) don’t move away so we can get together for family dinners with guests driving a short distance back to their own homes. In my opinion our society has gotten too transient, and living near family should be prioritized more.

Living near family is an ideal situation for many, but my husband’s family isn’t leaving TX and my family is on the east coast. There was a period when we were going to move to Austin and my parents and my aunt were going to relocate, too, but I am thankful now that this did NOT happen for a thousand different reasons.