Reply to 44, I don’t own a house but kids are in private and college is paid for…

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not OP or PP, but it seems entitled to complain that your parents don't help with a down payment when you acknowledge you have good salaries and your parents help with college for your kids.  You realize that most people have to save for a down payment and college, right?[/quote]

I'm not complaining. I'm noting.

And, I know very few people who did not receive some form of assistance from their parents. Hell, my parents got $5k from my grandparents in 1971 for their downpayment. My parents have been extremely generous, but there was never a discussion about in what way--I can't complain (and haven't) that they've already financed by kid's college education in advance, but I think that if 12 years ago, they had given me 1/3 of what they have put into our kid's college accounts, I would own a nice house and would be pretty heftily be paying into a 529. But they didn't.

I'm just commenting on the weirdness of it. When talking to my peers, a lot of them are really stressed about how to pay for college and are unhappy they can't send their kids to private school... but they own homes I can't imagine ever owning. I wonder who, in the end, is better off. I think, financially speaking, they are... but I dont regret prioritize my kid's education.[/quote] I guess it depends, and I can see both sides of it.  I dont think either way is "weird".  I grew up middle-class. I don't talk to most people I know about their money, or if their parents gave them any, but for my handful of close friends that we do have these types of conversations, none of them got money from their families for down payments or anything else.

I bought a very modest house (1600 sq ft in DC). I raised my kids in this house, and it's been about 20 years, so we are almost done paying the mortgage off. Our mortgage is $1200/mo, and the people that I know who are renters are paying much more than that. So I feel like I made a wise decision.  I didn't save anything for my kids' college, but that doesn't mean I didn't prioritize it. We talked about a budget, and we researched schools that fell within our limit.  We researched and applied for grants and were able to receive several.  My oldest went to a school that was 20k/yr. He got financial aid, and each semester we paid the remaining balance due after aid and grants. He graduated owing 10k in loans. My youngest is going to trade school.  I am big on public schools and never wished my kid went to private.

My kids will own this home when my husband and I die one day, and that makes me feel good to know I will be able to pass down a property to my kids.  My parents didn't have anything to pass down to me, and neither did my husbands. They were also never in a position to be able to help us financially.

I have zero regrets.  [/quote]

Yeah, you won the real estate lottery by moving to DC —and having $1200/month—when a house could be had for that. Someone who came five yeras later couldn't do that.

I've thought about it alot but what we should have done when we moved to DC 20 years ago, when I was in grad school and the wife was looking for a job—is over-extend ourself on a loan for a condo (maybe fudge a few numbers because they were handing out mortgages like candy), begged borrowed and stole to keep up with the payments for a few years.

The condos across the street from where we lived when I was in grad school could be had for $275-375k at the time, and five years later were selling for $500k. At that point, an upper NW rowhouse could be had for $750k, and I could have probably nailed down a $1200/month mortgage with my post-grad school career and whatever we could get out of the increased value of the condo. Today, the house would be worth $1.3m and my kids would be inheriting it.

But I thought it was a bad idea to borrow that much even if banks would give it. And honestly, I also know people who went bankrupt trying to buy at that point in their life. [/quote]

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