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

[Anonymous]

I rented really small, cheap, old places with roommates when I was younger, so I was able to put 20% down on my first house. That first house was smaller, older, not that nice and farther out than I wanted to be, but it was near Metro and I knew it would have good resale value. It appreciated, and I poured that equity into the second (still old, but bigger/nicer/closer-in) house.

Of the people I know, typically they:
1 - used equity from their first place (or first places if they are a couple who both owned)
2 - got help from family
3 - have really high salaries

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Am I reading this right that you had a 400k HHI for at least 5 years, but you don't think you could've saved $250k outright without appreciation and an unexpected bonus?

[Anonymous]

First, by not buying a house that required a $200K downpayment. The highest we've gone has been about $150K, and that was funded by selling a prior house and using the proceeds as a downpayment.

We bought our first house in 2011 when we were in our mid-30s and our kids were under 5, and that was funded by savings, draining an old Roth IRA, and taking out a 401K loan. It was a risk, but we were able to save more to pay back the 401K loan with the mortgage payment than with rent, paying it off in about 3 years. Neither of us have families that could help at all (financially or by giving us a place to live), so we had to do it ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do people save $200,000 for a home downpyament here?! How.

We make $165,000 and have two small kids. It took us all year to save $10,000. At this rate I won't have that kind of cash until I'm 60 (I'm 38 now).

Good grief. How?

Why are you looking to buy a million dollar home if your income is $165K? That seems crazy to me.

Seriously. We make a lot more than that and weren't looking at $1M homes. No interest in being house poor.

[Anonymous]

"PhD here. I walked uphill both ways to work during heat waves and ate PB&J for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 3 years!" - DCUM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Am I reading this right that you had a 400k HHI for at least 5 years, but you don't think you could've saved $250k outright without appreciation and an unexpected bonus?

Yeah...we took a LOT of insanely amazing trips which now that we have a kid I do NOT regret!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Am I reading this right that you had a 400k HHI for at least 5 years, but you don't think you could've saved $250k outright without appreciation and an unexpected bonus?

Yeah...we took a LOT of insanely amazing trips which now that we have a kid I do NOT regret!

No one's saying you should regret it, but you should recognize that yes, you actually could have saved that money. Saying you could "never have saved $250k+ outright" on $400k HHI is not even remotely true. "I could never save ... [because] we took a LOT of insanely amazing trips" is the most classically out-of-touch rich people reasoning I've seen on DCUM since the 'barely getting by on 500k' thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Am I reading this right that you had a 400k HHI for at least 5 years, but you don't think you could've saved $250k outright without appreciation and an unexpected bonus?

Yeah...we took a LOT of insanely amazing trips which now that we have a kid I do NOT regret!

No one's saying you should regret it, but you should recognize that yes, you actually could have saved that money. Saying you could "never have saved $250k+ outright" on $400k HHI is not even remotely true. "I could never save ... [because] we took a LOT of insanely amazing trips" is the most classically out-of-touch rich people reasoning I've seen on DCUM since the 'barely getting by on 500k' thread.

You're right...I should not have said never. I should have said it would have taken a while. The point of my post was to say that it's hard to save a lot without getting lump sums of cash from somewhere in a short amount of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Am I reading this right that you had a 400k HHI for at least 5 years, but you don't think you could've saved $250k outright without appreciation and an unexpected bonus?

Yeah...we took a LOT of insanely amazing trips which now that we have a kid I do NOT regret!

No one's saying you should regret it, but you should recognize that yes, you actually could have saved that money. Saying you could "never have saved $250k+ outright" on $400k HHI is not even remotely true. "I could never save ... [because] we took a LOT of insanely amazing trips" is the most classically out-of-touch rich people reasoning I've seen on DCUM since the 'barely getting by on 500k' thread.

You're right...I should not have said never. I should have said it would have taken a while. The point of my post was to say that it's hard to save a lot without getting lump sums of cash from somewhere in a short amount of time.

Well there are plenty of high earners who live paycheck to paycheck and don't save. We know plenty of them and we used to be them. They earn 350k plus with no kids and spend it all on graduate degrees, renting luxury apartments, luxury travel, dining out constantly and a lot of alcohol.

We finally woke up and have been able to save 150k plus on 400k. Our friends probably think we are cheap and boring. We think they are throwing away the opportunity to build wealth.

Making 400k is an opportunity most Americans will never have. If you spend it all you're a fool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Am I reading this right that you had a 400k HHI for at least 5 years, but you don't think you could've saved $250k outright without appreciation and an unexpected bonus?

Yeah...we took a LOT of insanely amazing trips which now that we have a kid I do NOT regret!

No one's saying you should regret it, but you should recognize that yes, you actually could have saved that money. Saying you could "never have saved $250k+ outright" on $400k HHI is not even remotely true. "I could never save ... [because] we took a LOT of insanely amazing trips" is the most classically out-of-touch rich people reasoning I've seen on DCUM since the 'barely getting by on 500k' thread.

You're right...I should not have said never. I should have said it would have taken a while. The point of my post was to say that it's hard to save a lot without getting lump sums of cash from somewhere in a short amount of time.

Well there are plenty of high earners who live paycheck to paycheck and don't save. We know plenty of them and we used to be them. They earn 350k plus with no kids and spend it all on graduate degrees, renting luxury apartments, luxury travel, dining out constantly and a lot of alcohol.

We finally woke up and have been able to save 150k plus on 400k. Our friends probably think we are cheap and boring. We think they are throwing away the opportunity to build wealth.

Making 400k is an opportunity most Americans will never have. If you spend it all you're a fool.

+1,000

We also don't want to run the rat race forever. We live very modestly for our income, yet we live far more extravagantly than either of us did growing up. Had you told either of us we'd both make a six-figure income, ever, we'd have laughed. Now, we're putting it in the bank and planning for the day we can get the hell out of DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We started when we were in our early 20s and didn't have kids and lived in crappy apts. It took 10 years.

Same here. We stayed in a one-bedroom apartment with our 2 little ones before finding our house and putting 250K down. HHI was still around 85K at the time.

Me three.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Am I reading this right that you had a 400k HHI for at least 5 years, but you don't think you could've saved $250k outright without appreciation and an unexpected bonus?

Yeah...we took a LOT of insanely amazing trips which now that we have a kid I do NOT regret!

No one's saying you should regret it, but you should recognize that yes, you actually could have saved that money. Saying you could "never have saved $250k+ outright" on $400k HHI is not even remotely true. "I could never save ... [because] we took a LOT of insanely amazing trips" is the most classically out-of-touch rich people reasoning I've seen on DCUM since the 'barely getting by on 500k' thread.

You're right...I should not have said never. I should have said it would have taken a while. The point of my post was to say that it's hard to save a lot without getting lump sums of cash from somewhere in a short amount of time.

Well there are plenty of high earners who live paycheck to paycheck and don't save. We know plenty of them and we used to be them. They earn 350k plus with no kids and spend it all on graduate degrees, renting luxury apartments, luxury travel, dining out constantly and a lot of alcohol.

We finally woke up and have been able to save 150k plus on 400k. Our friends probably think we are cheap and boring. We think they are throwing away the opportunity to build wealth.

Making 400k is an opportunity most Americans will never have. If you spend it all you're a fool.

This. It isn't "hard to save a lot without getting lump sums" when you are making 300-400k. We make around that and put away $100k plus a year. Saving a $250k down payment would be very easy in a 5 year timeframe and could be done faster if we slowed down on non-taxable (401ks, HSAs, backdoor Roths, etc.), but we wouldn't be willing to do that just to buy a fancier house. The real problem is you are living paycheck to paycheck on a high income and probably ought not to be considering a house purchase until you get your finances straightened out. At your income you should be saving 100-150k a year easily and still have money for all kinds of fun stuff. If you aren't willing to do that then the only answer is to make more money so you can afford more crap and a bigger house to put it in.

[Anonymous]

^^^^^^^^^

PP sounds like a ton of fun. Must be a blast to sit around and judge other peoples' life and choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^^^^^^^

PP sounds like a ton of fun. Must be a blast to sit around and judge other peoples' life and choices.

Fun is overrated. Seems like too much fun is what got OP into her paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. Maybe we should only limit replies to advice that is fun?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um, we didn't. We got an FHA loan and put down 3%. No regrets.

+1

+1