Reply to Why are DCUM salaries so much higher than in "real life"?

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Reply to "Why are DCUM salaries so much higher than in "real life"?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know DC is a HCOL area so salaries are higher than normal, but the $400K-$2M salaries that are often bandied about here are so unreal to me.  I can only think of three possibilities to explain this:

1)  DCUM is a congregation that specifically attracts this small subset of high earners

2)  These salaries are more common than I think, and they simply go unnoticed because people generally don't talk about money openly

3)  People are lying liars who lie about their income.

Which is it?[/quote]

Almost every person who posts on this site is lying and exaggerating. There is another current post in Money and Finance on having a 15 year vs. 30 year mortgage. What’s interesting there, is that every sound and conservative advisor knows that a 15 year mortgage is the way to go. Yet on DCUM, there is a high concentration of vehement opposition to a 15 year and support for a 30 year. This makes no sense for a group that is allegedly pulling in $500K+ in HHI. People on here know enough to lie about HHI, net worth, and home values. But, they’re not smart enough to know about the less obvious wealth revealing indicators. I especially like the ones in their mid-30s they already have 1M+ in their 401k and retirement plans. A near impossibility given federal limits on annual contributions. They’re just to dumb to know this isn’t possible. [/quote]

Actually, when your income is that high and the mortgage rates were as low as they were recently, it made total sense to go with a 30 year mortgage.  At that level of income, your home is a small part of your wealth and you should be aiming to keep things flexible.  [/quote]

Interesting. Then do what with the additional net income per month? The only smart move is to spend it on an investment that grows at a greater rate than that of the 30 year mortgage interest. This goes without saying.

But, are we to believe that the majority of homeowners in DMV that have 30 year mortgages have them for this reason? Total nonsense. [b]The majority of 30 year mortgages are taken because people cannot afford the monthly payments against a 15 year mortgage of the same principal amount.[/b] This is a very well researched and documented fact. Lenders and underwriters all over the country have detailed data on this. It is ESPECIALLY true in DMV, where countless people are trying to live too far beyond their means. So desperate to live inside the beltway or in NW D.C. that they’ll stretch to the financial limit. Then try to justify later as some outlier case of financial ingenuity. [/quote]

Look, you simply can’t extrapolate the personal finance research from “all over the country” to a very specific market.  What percentage of your neighbors have a college degree?  Went to graduate school?  Received financial assistance from their parents past age 18?  Do you know what that percentage is all over the country?[/quote]

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