Reply to Are we the only family in the DMV who is priced out?

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[quote=Anonymous][mastodon][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DH and I are early 40s, two kids, HHI 300k gross. We have a downpayment of 300k set aside but are only interested in single family homes that are not total teardowns. We are priced out and have stopped looking.

DH interviewed for a higher paying job this summer but didn't pass the second round. I'm earning the max I can earn with my qualifications. Kids in public school and we are renting right now.

Are we the only ones in this situation?[/quote]

What do you consider a tear down?[/quote]

A house that requires more than 100k of rehab work after purchase or cannot be rehabbed without being torn down to the foundation.

The realtor we looked at houses with showed us two of these. Then he told us to ask our parents for another 200k so he could put us into a house for 1.1.

We have credit scores over 800.[/quote]

A big part of the problem is this expectation that everybody needs to spend $100k plus on a sparkling new kitchen and bathrooms, and let's redo the floors while we're at it.

[b]Some of you need to learn to live with dated kitchen cabinets for a few or even 10 years. Splurge on a new stove if you want.[/b] [/quote]

This is so true. I am guessing that these "tear downs" are perfectly fine houses, but OP has the HGTV virus. Get off of Instagram and buy a nice, normal house. There are options. You are not "priced out" of anything but unrealistic fantasies.[/quote]

Agree. We bought a very outdated house and spent 10 years doing the work piece by piece. Urgent must-fixes first, then the nice to haves later. In fairness it has been a real hassle and has taken all of our disposable income in that time, but now we have a house that fits our needs and tastes perfectly, with an extra $300k in equity, in a neighborhood we wouldn’t have been able to afford. We also could have done less with some projects (we moved the kitchen, added a full bath, etc.), but we had been living there long enough to know what extra money would improve livability for us the most.

That said, the housing market is completely different now. If we had bought at the top of our budget, we wouldn’t have had the discretionary income to do all of the work we did. Which means the true fixer uppers that need upgrades to get up to code and be safely livable are less feasible for families like mine and OP now. But DC in particular is full of young professionals that want a pretty turn key house, so the dated but livable ones tend to sit.[/quote]

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