Most people don't save it, their parents give it to them.
I saved $80k for a $400k house. I had roommates, no kids, almost never went out to eat. It took me about 5 years.

Anonymous wrote:You're 38, have two small children, and are just now starting to save for your first house? And, your first house is going to be $1m? And your HHI is only $165k? The answer to your question is in your question.

True. I can't imagine buying a $1M starter home. Ours was a $250K condo in a sketchy neighborhood before kids with an 80/10/10 loan in 2001. Refinanced once in 2003 to get rid of PMI and once in 2005 to renovate. Sold in 2006 for $530K and put all equity into a $600k house in an equally sketchy neighborhood. Moved to our $750K forever home in 2012 and used $150K equity for the downpayment without selling the house. HHI is $200K now, but was $120K when we bought our condo. We are carrying two mortgages, feel very stretched, but the investment property will hopefully partially fund our retirement.

^ Everyone visiting this website is lucky; we all live in an incredibly rich country with affordable housing compared to most elsewhere.

Years and years and years and years of scrimping and saving.

People on this board don't understand the meaning of sacrifice and deferred gratification. They're either too rich to bother, or too silly to be careful with their money.

Everyone who used funds from gains on a prior house: just please realize you got lucky with the market.

If you make $165,000 you're not going to be buying a million dollar house! There are plenty of websites that will help you in estimating what is an affordable mortgage. You will need 20% of that and it will not be $200,000. If you are only saving $10,000 a year you need to look closely at where your money is going. Saving 10-15% is a basic rule of thumb. Figure out how to get there. If you are paying off big education loans that makes it more difficult.

Saved 40% of my income for 2.5 years

I didn't. I put down five percent which was $12k on a fixer upper which is now worth $900k.

I'm sorry. I would never have been able to buy if a $200k deposit was required.

We moved somewhere where it didn't take six figures to put 20% down. We also bought a house that didn't cost more than 2x HHI, and based our budget off our incomes, and not on the houses we saw on HGTV. This helped us pay off the house in our 20s.

If you haven't already done this: really scrutinize your budget category by category. To save for a house, we stopped going to restaurants almost all together, we brought our lunches (with reasonably priced food from non-fancy grocery stores), didn't spend much on clothes, I changed my hairstyle (I cut out chemical processing to save >$1000/year), we relied on cheaper forms of entertainment (board games at home and sometimes going to the movies with coupons instead of going to shows/concerts/bars), we didn't buy coffee, we don't pay for cable (I use an antenna and Netflix), and I shopped around for less expensive car and renters' insurance. Those are some of the small things that added up to several thousand/year saved.

The big things are where you can really save. I moved to a less expensive neighborhood, my husband and I shared a 1-bedroom apartment longer than was comfortable, I didn't have a car for a few years, and then later had a used car (would probably never buy new because of the savings), etc.

In short, there aren't any shortcuts. It takes increasing your income, cutting your spending, and/or waiting longer that you'd like to buy. Good luck!

Direct deposit to an online savings account that's not lined to any checking. That way you don't even notice It's there. Took us 6 years to save for a down payment with an HHI of about $200-$220. It wouldn't have taken as long if we didn't already have a mortgage, daycare payment, and student loans.

1. DH didn't have student loans, and I had minimal loans for law school (in-state tuition).

2. Lived with parents to quickly pay off loans and save for first home.

3. Bought a starter home and fixed it up.

4. Got lucky when we sold it and made $200k profit.

5. Traded up, but bought a home well within our means.

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.

Um, wow. It takes years, yes. PATIENCE. You were hoping there was a shortcut?

Have you re worked your budget OP?

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

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

I don't care what you do with your money, but if you waste it all on "fabulous vacations" don't expect any sympathy when you whine that you don't have any savings for a down payment on a house.