How does anyone find a job that pays enough to afford a home here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't anyone live in a nasty run down apartment so they can save more? All my friends live in super fancy apartments and then say they can't save money.

I lived in a nasty, rundown apartment. I saved money. I bought a non-luxury condo with that money. The condo has not appreciated. I am no closer to owning a SFH than I was 10 years ago.

There was a time when people in DC could buy "starter homes" and build equity and then move up. That time is over.

It doesn’t have to appreciate to get equity. Equity is just paying your mortgage monthly.

Get a roommate.

Lol. PP here and I have two "roommates" -- a spouse and a child. But thanks for the hot money saving tip.

[Anonymous]

Or some just plan ahead. I knew a guy who did not make much but at 25 while still living worked bought a beautiful home in a rich area that already has a long term tenant in place.

He continued to live at home till 38 when got married and then moved into basement of house while renting upstairs then when second came around 44 years of age took over whole house. That is how a middle class guy gets a house like that at 44.

[Anonymous]

I’m 56 and my husband and I live in a new construction house valued at $1.3M that we paid $860k for 6 yrs ago. We made a 60% down payment with equity from our previous home (a major fixer upper in a transitioning neighborhood in DC). We owned that house for 15 yrs and spent about $300k on renovations over that time period. I also previously owned a 1BR condo and a then a major fixer rowhouse I lived in with housemates and then rented out for a long time. Our HHI peaked at 280k a few yrs ago and is now $200k.

So - that’s how we afford our 1.3M house. We never have made anywhere near $500k and have a mortgage payment of $2800/month. There were a lot of steps, owning 5 other properties and taking 20 years to get here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can buy a starter condo, build equity and sell after 15 years, that’s 600k toward your next home down and you are barely 40-45 years old.

I bought a condo in DC in 2005 and sold it in 2015 for $3k LESS than I paid for it.

Now, I paid cash and didn’t have to pay rent for that decade and the company that relocated me covered all closing costs, but there was no equity built in my “starter home.”

(We now live in an expensive town outside San Francisco and rent - I’ve never seen a 3 bedroom in our town for less than $2 million in the decade we’ve been here.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to pay $1 million for any homes in the DC area, so you need a salary of like $500k to afford that. No one can make that much. I don’t know how anyone gets those jobs when I can’t even get accepted into the army as an officer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:we are replacing our own children with cheap disposable foreign labor. our kids are not able to afford health insurance, let along buy a house.

The post features a graph showing the percentage of U.S. 30-year-olds who are both married and homeowners dropping from around 50% in 1950 to 15% in 2025, drawing on Census Bureau and Pew Research data that confirm declining marriage rates (from 90% in 1962 to 52% in 2019) and young adult homeownership (from 42% in 1982 to 29% in 2021).

this is the result of letting the investor class drive immigration to their benefit.

If you think Americans want the low paying, back breaking jobs that immigrants do, you are delusional. The reason house prices are up so high is due to cartels and rich people buying them up to rent them. Supply and demand. It is rich people that are the problem. Not poor immigrants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can buy a starter condo, build equity and sell after 15 years, that’s 600k toward your next home down and you are barely 40-45 years old.

I bought a condo in DC in 2005 and sold it in 2015 for $3k LESS than I paid for it.

Now, I paid cash and didn’t have to pay rent for that decade and the company that relocated me covered all closing costs, but there was no equity built in my “starter home.”

(We now live in an expensive town outside San Francisco and rent - I’ve never seen a 3 bedroom in our town for less than $2 million in the decade we’ve been here.)

Sounds like you don’t know what “equity” meant. 😁

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't anyone live in a nasty run down apartment so they can save more? All my friends live in super fancy apartments and then say they can't save money.

I lived in a nasty, rundown apartment. I saved money. I bought a non-luxury condo with that money. The condo has not appreciated. I am no closer to owning a SFH than I was 10 years ago.

There was a time when people in DC could buy "starter homes" and build equity and then move up. That time is over.

It doesn’t have to appreciate to get equity. Equity is just paying your mortgage monthly.

Get a roommate.

Let me give some PPs an example.

Assume you bought a 400k condo, with 20% down payment, 6% interest, and sold for exact same amount 10 years later (barely break even).

Your monthly is about 2700, interest is about ~ 1600 in the first year.
10 years later, your monthly is the same, interest is about 780.

You would have 141k left in principal.

sale price of 400k - 141k = 258k equity in the condo.
You started with 80k equity.

That's building equity.

You can argue you can build 1mm equity if you bought a sfh house 10 years ago, sure, but do you have money for a sfh house? does bank want to lend to you? if not, its not accessible to you.

Your opportunity is to build ~ 180k equity that's still enough to go toward your next house.

A huge advantage of condo is that you dont need to spend time on yardwork and renovations, which leaves you a lot of personal time to evolve your career.

[Anonymous]

I think salaries have gone way up in respect to housing prices. My house value is pretty much exactly the same as when I bought it 13 years ago with a cumulative of 41% inflation. However, I am essentially earning the same as I did at that time despite numerous years of experience, maybe a percentage point or two increase.

So, people entering the market a few years ago have quite the buying power.

EG they can afford to go and get themselves a mortgage if they want to buy my house. Even considering the one bright spot of my matriculation was that mortgage rates were rock bottom.

That being said, I wish mortgage rates were lower, so that I can raise the price of my house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dual Feds here and we lived on one income before having kids. We completely saved the other. We saved 50-100k a year. 3-4 years of that and you have your 200k downpayment on the 1m house.

We did not have the luxury of this as we met when my spouse was in grad school. We also didn’t meet until 30. Not everyone has been able to build a life for years and years before children. Many are paying off college debt, have health issues, support family, or simply aren’t making much. Your solution was a no-brainer and I’m happy for you that you were able to do it, but most people don’t follow this formulaic path of building a life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dual Feds here and we lived on one income before having kids. We completely saved the other. We saved 50-100k a year. 3-4 years of that and you have your 200k downpayment on the 1m house.

We did not have the luxury of this as we met when my spouse was in grad school. We also didn’t meet until 30. Not everyone has been able to build a life for years and years before children. Many are paying off college debt, have health issues, support family, or simply aren’t making much. Your solution was a no-brainer and I’m happy for you that you were able to do it, but most people don’t follow this formulaic path of building a life.

If you are in grad school it sounds like you are in a field where experience and education is valued, so less agism when you hit 55 (relatively of course compared to tech sales or ballerina).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think salaries have gone way up in respect to housing prices. My house value is pretty much exactly the same as when I bought it 13 years ago with a cumulative of 41% inflation. However, I am essentially earning the same as I did at that time despite numerous years of experience, maybe a percentage point or two increase.

So, people entering the market a few years ago have quite the buying power.

EG they can afford to go and get themselves a mortgage if they want to buy my house. Even considering the one bright spot of my matriculation was that mortgage rates were rock bottom.

That being said, I wish mortgage rates were lower, so that I can raise the price of my house.

You must not live around here. When we were first striving for a 3br 10 years ago, they were $1M. We thought, oh in 3-4 years we’ll be able to afford that. The same 3brs 3-4 years later were then $1.2M. And now they are $1.6. We cannot earn or save enough to reach the first rung on the ladder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dual Feds here and we lived on one income before having kids. We completely saved the other. We saved 50-100k a year. 3-4 years of that and you have your 200k downpayment on the 1m house.

We did not have the luxury of this as we met when my spouse was in grad school. We also didn’t meet until 30. Not everyone has been able to build a life for years and years before children. Many are paying off college debt, have health issues, support family, or simply aren’t making much. Your solution was a no-brainer and I’m happy for you that you were able to do it, but most people don’t follow this formulaic path of building a life.

If you are in grad school it sounds like you are in a field where experience and education is valued, so less agism when you hit 55 (relatively of course compared to tech sales or ballerina).

I mean, yeah. It’s looking more and more like we’ll buy our first home when our oldest leaves for college. But then, that assumes they won’t pick a school that requires more than is in their 529.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think salaries have gone way up in respect to housing prices. My house value is pretty much exactly the same as when I bought it 13 years ago with a cumulative of 41% inflation. However, I am essentially earning the same as I did at that time despite numerous years of experience, maybe a percentage point or two increase.

So, people entering the market a few years ago have quite the buying power.

EG they can afford to go and get themselves a mortgage if they want to buy my house. Even considering the one bright spot of my matriculation was that mortgage rates were rock bottom.

That being said, I wish mortgage rates were lower, so that I can raise the price of my house.

You must not live around here. When we were first striving for a 3br 10 years ago, they were $1M. We thought, oh in 3-4 years we’ll be able to afford that. The same 3brs 3-4 years later were then $1.2M. And now they are $1.6. We cannot earn or save enough to reach the first rung on the ladder.

You must be one of those mathematically challenged sorts that wants to buy an inflated house next to a bunch of other people that paid too much for their houses, a decent 3br house didn't cost $1mil ten years ago. Not the one I bought anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Out first house cost 500k and we lived in it for 11 years. You need a starter home.

This is the way.