Reply to Family of Four on 90k - An Upper Middle Class Existence

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]That's what I thought in 2004. I was wrong and so are you. Bit a fixer upper in a rough neighborhood and fix it up slowly, invest in your home and your community[/quote]

That's probably not going to work if you need your kids to attend their local public school.[/quote]

What I love most about PP was her idea that 'sweat equity' was what added value to her property. It was pure dumb luck to buy before the bubble and gentrification. And it could easily have been a bad bet, just like folks keep expecting acps schools to turnaround.

So the only way to make it to middle class living is to build a time machine or risk your life in a shady neighborhood?  And if you think DC will keep appreciating, go check out GMU Fuller discussion on the regions dropping GDP.  [/quote]

You're pretty clueless here.  Remember I bought a FORECLOSURE.  Yes, the work I have done on the home has added significant value.  I also didn't pay through the nose for the work unlike many here in DCUM-LALA-LAND.[/quote]

Yes, you gambled and won. Woo-hoo. I have friends who bought foreclosure in Phoenix who lost their shirts.  You bought a home where most people can't make a place to live (b/c schools are so bad). People on DCUM are not buying fancy homes, they are paying through the nose for decent schools and live in $ditboxes. The value you put into the house from renovation is maybe $100k, the rest is bubble appreciation. You get a clue and have some modesty. [/quote]

I don't know what happened to your friends, but it was only a very tiny gamble.  I was confident that the part of DC I was buying in (very central) with very strong housing stock and an increasing demand (and increasing prices) for areas directly adjacent, was very under priced.  This wasn't luck.  This was an understanding of the market.  For a capital city DC real estate still has areas that are very underpriced (see my recommendations of Mount Rainier and Hyattsville, there are others too).  There was a capacity to take a risk, yes, and to live in an area that I could see other white long tem DC residents FLINCH when I mentioned where I lived.  But the bottom line is that I needed somewhere to live.  I didn't buy to make an investment or to "gamble" I bought so that I would have a home to live in that wouldn't be subject to the whims of a landlord and I bought in the location I could because 1) it was what I could afford and 2) I liked it.

You need to stop thinking the world owes you everything on a silver platter.  You don't get your dream home straight away.  You look for what you can afford and what makes sense.  If you insist that you need a brand new home, a great school district and a low mortgage payment and you need it right now straight out of the gate, then welcome to the exhurbs.  You don't have to have the garage and the 4 bedrooms and the brand new kitchen with all new appliances.  And if you do, that's your CHOICE, don't come here whinging about how you can scrape by on $400k.

Those of us who bought ten years ago aren't just "lucky" because of some kind of timing miracle, we've had ten more years than you to pay down our debts and get established and fix up those houses.  In ten years time, when you are as old as we are and have let go of some of that millennial entitlement you are fostering you'll be having some similar conversations with those a decade younger than you who will be insisting that they'll never get their foot on the ladder and you're so lucky you bought your house in 2015.[/quote]

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