Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asking people that work in DC to go live in Baltimore is the absolute most NIMBY thing you can say

You already got yours in the DC area and now zoning has to stay frozen in amber so you can have a detached SFH close to metro. Ridiculous.

Except many people do it everyday. Keep whining.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asking people that work in DC to go live in Baltimore is the absolute most NIMBY thing you can say

You already got yours in the DC area and now zoning has to stay frozen in amber so you can have a detached SFH close to metro. Ridiculous.

Except many people do it everyday. Keep whining.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is definitely no housing crisis. We have migrants and immigrants finding housing no problem. I mean look how cheap housing is compared to incomes compared to most of the world.

They are living 10+ to a home which is a argument for a different thread.

It's really an argument for this same thread. When people are living 10+ to a house, because they can't afford less overcrowded housing, that's a housing crisis.

(And, of course, they are defiling the sanctity of the SFH neighborhood while they do so - which is what the OP is so upset about, according to the OP.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Asking people that work in DC to go live in Baltimore is the absolute most NIMBY thing you can say

You already got yours in the DC area and now zoning has to stay frozen in amber so you can have a detached SFH close to metro. Ridiculous.

OP will have that regardless of zoning changes (unless they decide to sell). What OP wants is their neighborhood to stay frozen in amber. Which is pretty entitled, given that OP doesn't own their neighborhood.

Anonymous wrote:Asking people that work in DC to go live in Baltimore is the absolute most NIMBY thing you can say

You already got yours in the DC area and now zoning has to stay frozen in amber so you can have a detached SFH close to metro. Ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:Asking people that work in DC to go live in Baltimore is the absolute most NIMBY thing you can say

You already got yours in the DC area and now zoning has to stay frozen in amber so you can have a detached SFH close to metro. Ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:Signed, a boomer that got their housing for 3 blueberries back in 1940 from a Sears catalog. Go talk to young people, even high earners, on how difficult it is to buy a house nowadays.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love that OP is defining entitlement as wanting to be able to afford housing on your salary.

I think it's entitled for people who already own houses to think they can dictate what happens to all the land around them, in order to ensure they can one day sell their home for 3-4x what they paid for it.

But I guess we just get to define words however we want now.

Except there is affordable housing, it's just that peoples' expectations don't match reality. Oh my God, so you can't afford a 3 or 4 bedroom home with a yard and a garage in your salary. Boo hoo. Who said you were entitled to that because you exist and work a job? Go buy a condo for less than $200k.

Of course no one ever wants to tell people they need to reset their expectations and Iive within their means because everyone is entitled to anything they want these days.

And where would I find this magical condo under 200K, given that my job is tied to DC?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a middle class person with a family who actually does live in an apartment (gasp) in NE DC (shocked silence), I just want to point out that actually there are thousands and thousands of homeless or under housed people in the area. I know because they hang out in my neighborhood.

I have zero issues living in an apartment but it seems obvious to me that we don't have enough low- and middle-income housing that is either close to commercial corridors or accessible to reliable transit. My spouse and I have also done the math on moving further out and commuting so that we could afford a SFH with a yard. For starters, everything further out is also more expensive than it used to be. And second, this would necessitate owning two cars, a major expense. And third it would require additional childcare to cover the hours we'd both spend commuting, at least three days a week. So it doesn't really work out even assuming we could find a SFH for 500k or less.

We are presently looking for jobs in another city where yes, pay is lower overall, but also where housing is much cheaper. I don't think we're the only middle-income family I'm this situation.

My spouse is a civil engineer and I am a preschool teacher.

Exactly. Personal decisions. You've now made the wise decision to move to another area with a lower COL so that you can buy. Literally proves my point. There is no crisis. There's only bloated expectations and entitlement.

Good luck when you can't find experienced teachers or civil engineers in the DMV because they all moved to Columbus and St. Louis and Philly where they can afford to own a SFH with okay schools close in.

It will be great when the city is just wealthy people, poor people, and a bunch of young professionals passing through on their way to other things. Have fun with that.

If we couldn't find teachers and civil engineers, etc., yes that would be a problem. But the fact is we don't have this problem at all. All service needs are met! There is literally no problem at all.

Do you read the educational forum? Teaching needs are not adequately met, at least in Fairfax County. As a former teacher, I couldn’t afford a tent in the town where I taught, so we moved. When I return to education, my expertise, gained from Fairfax County training, will benefit students that compete against DMV kids for college spots.

Look on the county websites. Lots of vacancies that 15 years ago would not have been there. As a woman, with a masters I stopped working as my entire county salary would have gone to child care and that was 15 years ago for one child. These jobs are not easily filled.

+1, it's genuinely hard to fill a lot of these roles. Another thing that happens is that you can hire freshly minted professionals into these jobs, but then they leave 5-10 years later because they have, or want to have, kids and they can't share a condo with a roommate anymore to save money. It is genuinely becoming critical because 10 years ago these folks had a decent number of options -- Wheaton, Rockville, parts of Alexandria, PG County. Now a 2 bedroom, one bathroom bungalow in Wheaton runs 500-600k, which at current interest rates is not affordable for a family of 3 with an HHI of 160k, especially when factoring in the cost of both commuting and childcare. When educated professionals can't afford 1200 square foot unrenovated homes outside the beltway, where the schools are so-so anyway, what do you expect them to do? Commute in from Howard County? At that point they will just get jobs in HoCo or Baltimore.

People in this thread keep saying "the market will correct" by raising wages, but that's not always what happens. Another option is to lower standards, and for cash strapped organizations (which includes most state and municipal government, including most school districts), they will often opt to go the other direction and lower entry standards. That means hiring less qualified, less educated, and less experienced people to perform the same jobs. So congrats! Your teachers and bridge inspectors won't be as good anymore. Surely that won't have any impact on your quality of life. Same thing with the people who manage the bureaucracy of government. You want to complain about your tax assessment? Good luck, because the assessor's office is understaffed with a 3 year backlog, and the people in charge can barely string three sentences together.

But you know, good luck with that. DC is going to be great when it's a few thousand very wealthy people and then millions of people living in poverty, with no middle class to speak of. What could go wrong?

Stop trying to buy a home then, idiots. Of you make $160k, go buy a condo or townhome in an affordable area. You realize billions of people with families make it work on the planet? What's wrong with living in a condo?

Here's a condo for below $190k with 3 bedrooms, which is plenty for a family of 4:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8830-Piney-Branch-Rd-APT-507-Silver-Spring-MD-20903/37325973_zpid/


Again, so many stupid expectations. Heaven forbid you live within your means.

That condo has a $1,126/mo HOA fee. That's why it's so cheap. It's not worth buying because it will never appreciated because that fee is likely to go up, not down. You would be better off renting.

I seriously question whether condos are good investments at all, at any price range. I likewise question the notion that condos are the means for middle income taxpayers to grow their wealth. And, certainly, the small condos that are being developed will never increase much in value.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a middle class person with a family who actually does live in an apartment (gasp) in NE DC (shocked silence), I just want to point out that actually there are thousands and thousands of homeless or under housed people in the area. I know because they hang out in my neighborhood.

I have zero issues living in an apartment but it seems obvious to me that we don't have enough low- and middle-income housing that is either close to commercial corridors or accessible to reliable transit. My spouse and I have also done the math on moving further out and commuting so that we could afford a SFH with a yard. For starters, everything further out is also more expensive than it used to be. And second, this would necessitate owning two cars, a major expense. And third it would require additional childcare to cover the hours we'd both spend commuting, at least three days a week. So it doesn't really work out even assuming we could find a SFH for 500k or less.

We are presently looking for jobs in another city where yes, pay is lower overall, but also where housing is much cheaper. I don't think we're the only middle-income family I'm this situation.

My spouse is a civil engineer and I am a preschool teacher.

Exactly. Personal decisions. You've now made the wise decision to move to another area with a lower COL so that you can buy. Literally proves my point. There is no crisis. There's only bloated expectations and entitlement.

Good luck when you can't find experienced teachers or civil engineers in the DMV because they all moved to Columbus and St. Louis and Philly where they can afford to own a SFH with okay schools close in.

It will be great when the city is just wealthy people, poor people, and a bunch of young professionals passing through on their way to other things. Have fun with that.

If we couldn't find teachers and civil engineers, etc., yes that would be a problem. But the fact is we don't have this problem at all. All service needs are met! There is literally no problem at all.

Do you read the educational forum? Teaching needs are not adequately met, at least in Fairfax County. As a former teacher, I couldn’t afford a tent in the town where I taught, so we moved. When I return to education, my expertise, gained from Fairfax County training, will benefit students that compete against DMV kids for college spots.

Look on the county websites. Lots of vacancies that 15 years ago would not have been there. As a woman, with a masters I stopped working as my entire county salary would have gone to child care and that was 15 years ago for one child. These jobs are not easily filled.

+1, it's genuinely hard to fill a lot of these roles. Another thing that happens is that you can hire freshly minted professionals into these jobs, but then they leave 5-10 years later because they have, or want to have, kids and they can't share a condo with a roommate anymore to save money. It is genuinely becoming critical because 10 years ago these folks had a decent number of options -- Wheaton, Rockville, parts of Alexandria, PG County. Now a 2 bedroom, one bathroom bungalow in Wheaton runs 500-600k, which at current interest rates is not affordable for a family of 3 with an HHI of 160k, especially when factoring in the cost of both commuting and childcare. When educated professionals can't afford 1200 square foot unrenovated homes outside the beltway, where the schools are so-so anyway, what do you expect them to do? Commute in from Howard County? At that point they will just get jobs in HoCo or Baltimore.

People in this thread keep saying "the market will correct" by raising wages, but that's not always what happens. Another option is to lower standards, and for cash strapped organizations (which includes most state and municipal government, including most school districts), they will often opt to go the other direction and lower entry standards. That means hiring less qualified, less educated, and less experienced people to perform the same jobs. So congrats! Your teachers and bridge inspectors won't be as good anymore. Surely that won't have any impact on your quality of life. Same thing with the people who manage the bureaucracy of government. You want to complain about your tax assessment? Good luck, because the assessor's office is understaffed with a 3 year backlog, and the people in charge can barely string three sentences together.

But you know, good luck with that. DC is going to be great when it's a few thousand very wealthy people and then millions of people living in poverty, with no middle class to speak of. What could go wrong?

Stop trying to buy a home then, idiots. Of you make $160k, go buy a condo or townhome in an affordable area. You realize billions of people with families make it work on the planet? What's wrong with living in a condo?

Here's a condo for below $190k with 3 bedrooms, which is plenty for a family of 4:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8830-Piney-Branch-Rd-APT-507-Silver-Spring-MD-20903/37325973_zpid/


Again, so many stupid expectations. Heaven forbid you live within your means.

That condo has a $1,126/mo HOA fee. That's why it's so cheap. It's not worth buying because it will never appreciated because that fee is likely to go up, not down. You would be better off renting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A reminder of how incredibly affordable the DC area is.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1535-Lincoln-Way-102-McLean-VA-22102/2061487338_zpid/

249k is not affordable for a one bedroom. Plus insurance, utilities and how. And what if you have kids? Hoa is $600 a month.

lol are you serious?? What do you expect home prices to be? I honestly want to know what you think you a 3 bedroom house in McLean should cost.

It's entitlement mentality. It is mental rot. Americans have been told their entire lives they deserve everything just for existing. Anyone should have the fundamental right to live wherever they want despite their incomes. Why aren't there $125,000 homes to buy in Arlington, Potomac, Bethesda, McClean, etc. Wah wah wah

You are entirely missing the point. People cannot afford rent either. Why do you think stores and restaurants are short staffed.

Because they aren’t paying for enough or should shut down? Just like all the other industries did when salaries couldn’t match the labor pool?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A reminder of how incredibly affordable the DC area is.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1535-Lincoln-Way-102-McLean-VA-22102/2061487338_zpid/

249k is not affordable for a one bedroom. Plus insurance, utilities and how. And what if you have kids? Hoa is $600 a month.

lol are you serious?? What do you expect home prices to be? I honestly want to know what you think you a 3 bedroom house in McLean should cost.

It's entitlement mentality. It is mental rot. Americans have been told their entire lives they deserve everything just for existing. Anyone should have the fundamental right to live wherever they want despite their incomes. Why aren't there $125,000 homes to buy in Arlington, Potomac, Bethesda, McClean, etc. Wah wah wah

You are entirely missing the point. People cannot afford rent either. Why do you think stores and restaurants are short staffed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love that OP is defining entitlement as wanting to be able to afford housing on your salary.

I think it's entitled for people who already own houses to think they can dictate what happens to all the land around them, in order to ensure they can one day sell their home for 3-4x what they paid for it.

But I guess we just get to define words however we want now.

Except there is affordable housing, it's just that peoples' expectations don't match reality. Oh my God, so you can't afford a 3 or 4 bedroom home with a yard and a garage in your salary. Boo hoo. Who said you were entitled to that because you exist and work a job? Go buy a condo for less than $200k.

Of course no one ever wants to tell people they need to reset their expectations and Iive within their means because everyone is entitled to anything they want these days.