Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We did. You need high paying jobs and to live below your means to save up a down payment before you have kids.

OR . . . You needed to stretch yourself 10 years ago when you were in your 20s before kids, when housing prices were low and interest rates were sub 3%. It pays to know what you want when you’re young.

This is my suspicion on some level too.

OP wanted to stay in lockstep with the lifestyle of her peers. She either rented a lifestyle that she truly couldn’t afford (maybe overly nice apartments, splurge vacations) and now the bill has sort of come due. Those peers either had better jobs or family money and she can no longer keep. So she’s bitter.

That’s the only reason I can think OP believes she entitled to a $2-3M home in a premier neighborhood. Because most people get that that is sort of reserved for only the *most* affluent of families.

Actually a lot of couples without generational wealth are purchasing these homes.

It’s not that difficult when you’re young, married and renting to sock away a lot of cash.

And/or you get on the property ladder early

My DH and I saved 100k in one year on a 300k HHI without kids. It wasn’t that difficult. We purchased our first home with 15% down and then rolled the equity into our next home, which is $2 million.

Problem there are also plenty of couples who are too good for entry level homes and condos. They rent in expensive areas and complain about housing prices. You don’t start off in your dream home.

This is why you build equity in properties.

We are in our 40s now. No generational wealth at all. Kids are in elementary.

We started with a condo in our 20s. Two good paying jobs but nothing amazing. Absolutely scrimped and saved for that thing. Worked hard and moved up — income starts increasing.

Then we took the equity from that coupled with a rise in income and bought a row house in Shaw. House after that was upper NW; nothing spectacular but good enough. Now we are in our forever home ($3M+) still in DC because I’d never live in the suburbs but in a very very nice part of DC. All of this done by rolling up equity from the previous property and increasing our own income.

Point is: we didn’t start out there and most people don’t (who the hell in their 20s wants to live in McLean???). And our kids are still young enough that they will have almost 10 years in this house before leaving for college. Start small and grow from there.

I live in Bethesda, in an older neighborhood with a lot of original homes that would be considered “starter homes” - I used to call our house that, but it seems we will be raising our kids in this house and that is working out fine.

We bought our house at age 30 via a combination of aggressive saving, low interest rate, not having our first kid until mid 30s, being fine with a house with old bathrooms and kitchen and no garage, and stretching beyond our means to buy it in the hopes that our incomes will continue to grow (we took this last risk because we were buying in a “good” neighborhood so knew we could always sell the house and come out ahead).

Sadly new builds are starting to creep in … these are the homes that drive up the neighborhood home prices and make it so prohibitively expensive for younger families doing it on their own to buy in.

There are a lot of young families that seem to buy those homes and I guess they do it with inheritence or family support, but I can’t concern myself with what everyone else is doing. There will always be people more well off than I am and those who are not. I’m very grateful to own and be able to raise my kids in a sf home (I - happily - grew up in apartments).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re conflating the value of homes in a neighborhood with the value of the neighbors. Teachers, nurses, firefighters, etc., may not live in the most expensive neighborhoods, but I’d be thrilled to have them as neighbors. Moreover, even the most expensive neighborhoods aren’t immune from crime.

I am a middle-aged nurse living in a DMV zip code with even higher price-per-sq-ft homes than Bethesda or McLean.

It’s actually not great living among the newer arrival millennials who get to buy a $2.8M colonial because Dad set up a trust fund. They tend to be Zach/Emilys with vocal fry (both sexes, yuck) and a poor grasp of community. They outsource absolutely everything and their kids are socially awkward due to being raised by cheap help.

On this totally unrelated topic, Thank you for naming this! I live in one of these neighborhoods and kept asking my husband why so many women talk like this. I have a friend who caught it after hanging out with them for too long. I thought I was nuts— had no idea this was a thing. It’s painful listening to them speak.

The vocal fry thing has been superseded by young women who talk with a low almost drag queen insouciance. I kid you not. I also tend to hear it among minority female college grads. I dont know it is some effort to compensate for not being white so affect a tone of low voiced blitheness.

Anonymous wrote:People buy these homes after their kids are in middle school/high school. Not when their kids haven't been born yet.

This is what we did. Bought our starter home at 27 for $200k, sold that for $1m then bought a home for $2m. Now 53 and current home is $7m but my income has increased A LOT. We had very low incomes in our 20s. Like most people, we upgraded over time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re conflating the value of homes in a neighborhood with the value of the neighbors. Teachers, nurses, firefighters, etc., may not live in the most expensive neighborhoods, but I’d be thrilled to have them as neighbors. Moreover, even the most expensive neighborhoods aren’t immune from crime.

I am a middle-aged nurse living in a DMV zip code with even higher price-per-sq-ft homes than Bethesda or McLean.

It’s actually not great living among the newer arrival millennials who get to buy a $2.8M colonial because Dad set up a trust fund. They tend to be Zach/Emilys with vocal fry (both sexes, yuck) and a poor grasp of community. They outsource absolutely everything and their kids are socially awkward due to being raised by cheap help.

This is very true! I live in affluent neighborhood. Everyone sticks to themselves and everything is outsourced. It’s lonely and everyone appears miserable.

we got lucky because this isn’t our experience at all, even among those who do have trust funds. Great community and involved families. People have help as far as nannies and cleaners but it does not have a huge impact. Parents are still very involved.

Anonymous wrote:We raised kids in Bethesda, bought over 27 years ago, and now lots of young families are moving in. We discuss it, because we couldn't afford our house today, and we wonder how all these kids can afford the brand new homes popping up throughout our neighborhood. Our guess is mommy and daddy are helping significantly, because none are old enough to make big law partner, or be similarly employed

Yes, it’s true. I’m the PP who bought ten years ago but I would say at least half of our peers have family money and trust funds. Maybe more. I have a lot of close friends and know many of the derails. Not judging but that is the reality. I’m jealous if anything!

Anonymous wrote:Not many people buy a $2+ million home for their first home. A lot of people had kids in a $600k home, sold it for $1 million and then bought a $2+ million home.

This is us, sort of. Live in a 1.25-5m neighborhood.

Bought no frills house in great hood 590k at 32 .. Had 2 kids.
House is now worth 1.6 at 42

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We bought at $2M under 35 (still under 35). Our HHI is around 750k, no parent contributions. We also pay for our nanny and private school on our own. It’s tight (seriously, no complaints though, we made our choices and know where we can cut back if needed) but we don’t spend much besides on the house and kids.

This is crazy to me as someone your age ish who makes the same. I had no idea people in our income bracket were stretching this much to “have it all.”

We’ve done all our retirement calculations and saving what we need to for retirement, and I don’t know what else we’d be saving more money for other than our kids anyways. We don’t intend on buying a second home, we don’t drive fancy cars, we’re not necessarily committed to private school and would be perfectly happy sending our kids to public.

Bethesda will always be nicer than Rockville just as McLean will always be nicer than Vienna, but people should live within their means and not obsess about what they can’t reasonably afford or the extra parental help they aren’t receiving.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re conflating the value of homes in a neighborhood with the value of the neighbors. Teachers, nurses, firefighters, etc., may not live in the most expensive neighborhoods, but I’d be thrilled to have them as neighbors. Moreover, even the most expensive neighborhoods aren’t immune from crime.

I am a middle-aged nurse living in a DMV zip code with even higher price-per-sq-ft homes than Bethesda or McLean.

It’s actually not great living among the newer arrival millennials who get to buy a $2.8M colonial because Dad set up a trust fund. They tend to be Zach/Emilys with vocal fry (both sexes, yuck) and a poor grasp of community. They outsource absolutely everything and their kids are socially awkward due to being raised by cheap help.

On this totally unrelated topic, Thank you for naming this! I live in one of these neighborhoods and kept asking my husband why so many women talk like this. I have a friend who caught it after hanging out with them for too long. I thought I was nuts— had no idea this was a thing. It’s painful listening to them speak.

When you say "generational wealth" do you mean having parents who can help with down payments or something more than that?

Our four kids all bought houses in very nice and close in DMV suburbs with our providing the down payments, but we are not "wealthy" at all. Many parents elected to spend small fortunes on private schools and colleges. We didn't do that. And that how we got all of our kids into their own homes.

Anonymous wrote:We did. You need high paying jobs and to live below your means to save up a down payment before you have kids.

OR . . . You needed to stretch yourself 10 years ago when you were in your 20s before kids, when housing prices were low and interest rates were sub 3%. It pays to know what you want when you’re young.

Anonymous wrote:I was raised in an upper middle class neighborhood, where either parents were rich or both parents worked. My dad was in sales and my mom didn't work. It sucked. Had I lived in a less affluent neighborhood I'd have been happier, but I still remember getting teased in sixth grade because I'd never been on an airplane, or to Disney. I remember friends saying flat out they didn't want to come over when it was warm out because we didn't have central AC. I remember new friends laughing at our basement that there wasn't even carpeting and you could see all the pipes and it was just lit with bare lightbulbs. I remember being on a long car ride in HS with three friends who talked about their favorite places in London and Paris, and I didn't even have a passport.

But had we lived somewhere a bit less affluent, I'd have gone through childhood feeling very different. And still would have happily gone to a state college.

weird. I was raised in mclean and we were renters and lived in multiple houses over the years. family had one car and I saint go on a plane until i was an adult. My childhood was great as I still have a large tight knit local group of childhood friends. Nobody gave a shit about how much money my parents didn’t have.