Anonymous wrote:We bought an outdated 3BR townhouse in Alexandria in 2012 for $350k. Renovated slowly and sold it in 2020 for $700k. Took the $500k from that sale and bought a $1.5M home. That home is now estimated at over $2M. Real estate is a ladder. Can’t just jump into the top.

2012 was the 3 minutes when houses prices dipped after the crash, a unique time.

How much did you spent renovating— usually renovations don’t earn back their costs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can buy a starter condo, build equity and sell after 15 years, that’s 600k toward your next home down and you are barely 40-45 years old.

Condos never build ann equity as single family homes, 15 years later you are going to be lighting years behind. You can never catch up unless you score a job that pays $200k+ . And we can all have those jobs, can we?

I made $50K off a condo I bought for under $200K in Falls Church. This was a significant portion of a starter home for me and my spouse.

Anonymous wrote:Our quite common DMV path was condo, townhouse, sfh. sfh was after marriage and kids.

How did you buy a condo as a single 20 something?

When was this, that’s an important data point.

My husband and I make $300K and recently bought a $650K townhome (we bought below our means but plan to have children soon and between daycare costs/job uncertainty wanted a home we could afford on one income).

A large chunk of our downpayment came from me selling a cheap condo I bought when I was 25. Hardly put anything down on it and it was a modest building in a lower cost of living area. But I sold it five years later and made $50K. I work at a big consulting firm and it makes me wonder (absent significant student loans or other debt) when my colleagues making $150-200K a year complain about not being able to afford a house. You can afford something, just not the million dollar home in Arlington! You have to start small, build equity, and work your way up.

We bought an outdated 3BR townhouse in Alexandria in 2012 for $350k. Renovated slowly and sold it in 2020 for $700k. Took the $500k from that sale and bought a $1.5M home. That home is now estimated at over $2M. Real estate is a ladder. Can’t just jump into the top.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can buy a starter condo, build equity and sell after 15 years, that’s 600k toward your next home down and you are barely 40-45 years old.

Condos never build ann equity as single family homes, 15 years later you are going to be lighting years behind. You can never catch up unless you score a job that pays $200k+ . And we can all have those jobs, can we?

If you don't have money to buy a SFH, you shouldn't be comparing yourself to people who do. That option is off the table. Of course people who started with more money and made more money over the years are going to end up with more money than you.

The question is who is going to be further ahead: the version of you that buys a condo and stays for 5-10 years or the version of you that rents for 5-10 years. A lot of it is going to come down to whether the actual time ends up being closer to 5 or closer to 10 years.

Anonymous wrote:Our quite common DMV path was condo, townhouse, sfh. sfh was after marriage and kids.

And then it all came crashing when the single family homes became obscenely expensive while townhomes and condos’ appreciation started to hit the ceiling .

Anonymous wrote:we are replacing our own children with cheap disposable foreign labor. our kids are not able to afford health insurance, let along buy a house.

The post features a graph showing the percentage of U.S. 30-year-olds who are both married and homeowners dropping from around 50% in 1950 to 15% in 2025, drawing on Census Bureau and Pew Research data that confirm declining marriage rates (from 90% in 1962 to 52% in 2019) and young adult homeownership (from 42% in 1982 to 29% in 2021).

this is the result of letting the investor class drive immigration to their benefit.

Which has little, if anything, to do with immigration. Also, as of today H1B is totally fine with MAGA.

Our quite common DMV path was condo, townhouse, sfh. sfh was after marriage and kids.

Anonymous wrote:You can buy a starter condo, build equity and sell after 15 years, that’s 600k toward your next home down and you are barely 40-45 years old.

Condos never build ann equity as single family homes, 15 years later you are going to be lighting years behind. You can never catch up unless you score a job that pays $200k+ . And we can all have those jobs, can we?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look into condos, townhouses and the entire eastern side of the DC metro area. Cheaper places exist, you just have ruled them out as unacceptable.

None of those will appreciate, so you are falling far behind those who bought in desirable areas.

As I said, you have ruled them out as unacceptable. They still are homes that exist that cost less than $1 million.

Anonymous wrote:Look into condos, townhouses and the entire eastern side of the DC metro area. Cheaper places exist, you just have ruled them out as unacceptable.

None of those will appreciate, so you are falling far behind those who bought in desirable areas.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Out first house cost 500k and we lived in it for 11 years. You need a starter home.

Starter homes in DC are <$1M. Not everyone is willing to have a 2 car, 1 hour commute lifestyle. And you have to go REALLY far out for prices to get lower than one mil.

Oops meant >$1M obvs.

Just because you don't personally find the numerous sub-$1MM starter homes available to you acceptable doesn't mean they don't exist.

You keep crying, moaning, and renting, I'll keep building equity while I'm paying my $2,200 single family starter home mortgage that also allows me to invest thousands of spare dollars a month and let's see who gets a million dollar home first.

+1
This is what we did. Our starter home was in a neighborhood that would send much of DCUM running for the smelling salts. That fully-paid off house helped us get into our current $1.5M home.

When did you buy it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Out first house cost 500k and we lived in it for 11 years. You need a starter home.

Starter homes in DC are <$1M. Not everyone is willing to have a 2 car, 1 hour commute lifestyle. And you have to go REALLY far out for prices to get lower than one mil.

Oops meant >$1M obvs.

Just because you don't personally find the numerous sub-$1MM starter homes available to you acceptable doesn't mean they don't exist.

You keep crying, moaning, and renting, I'll keep building equity while I'm paying my $2,200 single family starter home mortgage that also allows me to invest thousands of spare dollars a month and let's see who gets a million dollar home first.

+1
This is what we did. Our starter home was in a neighborhood that would send much of DCUM running for the smelling salts. That fully-paid off house helped us get into our current $1.5M home.

Name the neighborhood. Do you have kids?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Out first house cost 500k and we lived in it for 11 years. You need a starter home.

Starter homes in DC are <$1M. Not everyone is willing to have a 2 car, 1 hour commute lifestyle. And you have to go REALLY far out for prices to get lower than one mil.

Oops meant >$1M obvs.

Just because you don't personally find the numerous sub-$1MM starter homes available to you acceptable doesn't mean they don't exist.

You keep crying, moaning, and renting, I'll keep building equity while I'm paying my $2,200 single family starter home mortgage that also allows me to invest thousands of spare dollars a month and let's see who gets a million dollar home first.

+1
This is what we did. Our starter home was in a neighborhood that would send much of DCUM running for the smelling salts. That fully-paid off house helped us get into our current $1.5M home.