No twenty-something can afford a 2 million house through a job. It's always parents and trust funds and so on. They happened to have been delivered through the right vagina.

We have paid entirely for college, wedding, car etc - for both kids. We have set them up with seed money, starting a job money, starting married life money ...and helped them to save when we allowed them to live with us for free. Our home is open to my kids and their families forever for free.

We are in the sit and watch mode right now. We have around a million more to give to each of them while we are alive. We have quite a fat pension for us to live well get medical care and travel eyc. But there will not be much more left for them to inherit after we die - except for our home, some jewelry and some money from grandparents. So maybe 600K each in current value.

But, gifts come with conditions. We don't want them to buy a house in a seller's market and with economic and job uncertainties. They can always choose to live with us for free forever - we don't mind. But once they have found a house, it should be something our family approves of and we do all the due diligence. So, the money will flow down to them as DP, only if we think that it is worthwhile investment and they are financially sound and not living above their means.

Maybe we convert the downpayment into a loan with federal lowest rates etc. We have options. But my kids are also in the early stages of their career. And maybe another 4 years before the first born thinks of having kids. We do not know where they will eventually land. We are hoping DMV.

Anonymous wrote:I know an acquaintance who just did this. They only have a handful of years work experience. I make pretty decent money at 29 but I can’t even fathom buying a $1M house let alone 2 million.

Why do you know the adult child of an acquaintance just bought a house, let alone exactly what they paid and their work experience? Sounds like you're cyber-stalking the guy and his family members.

Anonymous wrote:I know an acquaintance who just did this. They only have a handful of years work experience. I make pretty decent money at 29 but I can’t even fathom buying a $1M house let alone 2 million.

Inheritance/trust fund. Period. Stop pretending you know everything about some "acquiescence's" finances. Gainfully employed, plus grandpa left the kid $500K+ cash (which is hardly uncommon), he's easily going to get approved on $2M house.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents gave them a downpayment and they make a lot, like $250-$400K+ - dual income, but it really depends on how much DP they got as a gift from the parents. Gotta get the mortgage before the kids come and mom goes part time.

They only have a single income and her husband works a government or contracting type job. So it’s weird. Idk how someone makes that much with only a few years work experience and in a government role

Likely family help or maybe some art stock picks. I see this all the time with friends who have three kids and one parent stays at home and other parent works for the government. All three kids at Sidwell and they take nice vacations.

Usually they have family money, from parents or grandparents. Sometimes family will help them buy a local sfh, to ensure they stay in the area.

Government contracting can be lucrative, but not actually working as a fed.

There are sometimes people that have unique circumstances (grit, luck, high paying jobs, etc) that allow them to buy a pricey house young.

More often the answer is family money and it looks like that is what happened in this particular case from OP’s report back.

Many of us like to think we were self made without recognizing all the luck and privilege that we started with.

DH and I had our undergrad paid for but we both put ourselves through law school with loans. We are both Feds.

We benefitted from

Job stability
The joint finances of a couple
Relatively low educational debt
A good real estate market (buying a condo that doubled in value over a few years)
Good interest rates

We own a 1.7M house and have PITI under 5K/month.

We did not have family help with a down payment, but we may help our kids one day.

Did we have advantages not everybody has, absolutely.

Mommy and Daddy

trust fund

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents gave them a downpayment and they make a lot, like $250-$400K+ - dual income, but it really depends on how much DP they got as a gift from the parents. Gotta get the mortgage before the kids come and mom goes part time.

They only have a single income and her husband works a government or contracting type job. So it’s weird. Idk how someone makes that much with only a few years work experience and in a government role

Likely family help or maybe some art stock picks. I see this all the time with friends who have three kids and one parent stays at home and other parent works for the government. All three kids at Sidwell and they take nice vacations.

Govcon can mean a lot of things. I know many running small businesses with <20 FTE making millions each year. And there are a lot of those around here.

Trust fund...rich family.

Anonymous wrote:Go to open houses, OP. See how often the parents of one of the buyers goes with the couple. You’re not competing with your peers for that house. You’re competing with your peers’ parents and even their grandparents’ net worth for that coveted house.

wow well said

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate how everyone assumes this is family help. My dh and I both graduated w/ zero debt and took high paying jobs right out of school where we had crazy hours so spent barely any money and stashed everything away. We also had each saved a lot from our jobs before senior year and working senior year. Add to that our sign on bonuses, which we both invested. I bought a coop my first year out of undergrad and had a great turn on it. Sold it 3 years later and combined that profit with what each of us had saved up. We used that for the down payment on a $2.2M house and my half of the monthly expenses were not any higher than what my monthly carrying cost for my 2 bedroom coop had been. The new property was a DC row house w/ a legal basement apartment that we rented out for I think $2200.
It annoyed me to no end when I’d hear people say must be nice to have generous parents or whatever. This was all on us while the bitter friends were going on endless instagram worthy trips right out of college. Yes our hours sucked for the first 5/6 years but we knew they would get better so we just kept our heads down and sticking money away. We were definitely lucky with both the stock market and real estate market timing, too.

Great, it's still family money.

DP. How is that “family money”?

t

It’s not explicitly family money, but in this day and age, graduating with no college debt is a form of advantage if you have parents who can fully cover it.

Then again, graduating with no debt is also not value neutral: some people choose cheaper colleges deliberately to be frugal, some people have merit scholarships, but also! some people win those merit scholarships *because* they had other advantages…honestly the whole system kinda falls apart when you scrutinize it and try to bean-count.

I was in a PhD program where we all received fixed stipends, yet people had wildly different advantages: some had parents sending them rent money, some had partners bankrolling them…it made me crazy but all of these things are some combo of both choices AND privileges

But I think we can all agree housing prices in this area are out of control lol

Of course prices are out of control. But joining the military to pay for school isn’t family money or “privilege.” Except I guess the privilege of being physically healthy enough to join.

Right but you aren’t buying a house first year out of undergrad on an officers salary. You would do your 4 year turn, and then MAYBE cash into a high salary (I think MD and JAG have longer tours though right?)

JAG spouse and I met in law school. I did biglaw, spouse did JAG. We bought a $1.8 million house at 2.5% interest with a VA loan (0 down). It’s our first and only house.

Interest rates aren’t 2.5% anymore so this isn’t particularly relevant.

Well, we got to assume the prior military couple owner’s loan, which is an awesome benefit of being in the military. So those rates are still available for people seeking out assumable loans.

But in any case, OP asked how it can be done. Buying 5 years ago or getting an assumable loan are two such ways!

Except with assumable loans you need to pay the seller for any accumulated equity with cash… Not so easy for many

If the prior family put down nothing and lived there for a couple of years (common for military families), there is little to no equity thanks to fixed amortization schedules. That’s how it worked out for me.

Look, we got lucky AND worked really hard. A lot came together to make this happen. But we didn’t get any family help.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate how everyone assumes this is family help. My dh and I both graduated w/ zero debt and took high paying jobs right out of school where we had crazy hours so spent barely any money and stashed everything away. We also had each saved a lot from our jobs before senior year and working senior year. Add to that our sign on bonuses, which we both invested. I bought a coop my first year out of undergrad and had a great turn on it. Sold it 3 years later and combined that profit with what each of us had saved up. We used that for the down payment on a $2.2M house and my half of the monthly expenses were not any higher than what my monthly carrying cost for my 2 bedroom coop had been. The new property was a DC row house w/ a legal basement apartment that we rented out for I think $2200.
It annoyed me to no end when I’d hear people say must be nice to have generous parents or whatever. This was all on us while the bitter friends were going on endless instagram worthy trips right out of college. Yes our hours sucked for the first 5/6 years but we knew they would get better so we just kept our heads down and sticking money away. We were definitely lucky with both the stock market and real estate market timing, too.

Great, it's still family money.

DP. How is that “family money”?

t

It’s not explicitly family money, but in this day and age, graduating with no college debt is a form of advantage if you have parents who can fully cover it.

Then again, graduating with no debt is also not value neutral: some people choose cheaper colleges deliberately to be frugal, some people have merit scholarships, but also! some people win those merit scholarships *because* they had other advantages…honestly the whole system kinda falls apart when you scrutinize it and try to bean-count.

I was in a PhD program where we all received fixed stipends, yet people had wildly different advantages: some had parents sending them rent money, some had partners bankrolling them…it made me crazy but all of these things are some combo of both choices AND privileges

But I think we can all agree housing prices in this area are out of control lol

Of course prices are out of control. But joining the military to pay for school isn’t family money or “privilege.” Except I guess the privilege of being physically healthy enough to join.

Right but you aren’t buying a house first year out of undergrad on an officers salary. You would do your 4 year turn, and then MAYBE cash into a high salary (I think MD and JAG have longer tours though right?)

JAG spouse and I met in law school. I did biglaw, spouse did JAG. We bought a $1.8 million house at 2.5% interest with a VA loan (0 down). It’s our first and only house.

Interest rates aren’t 2.5% anymore so this isn’t particularly relevant.

Well, we got to assume the prior military couple owner’s loan, which is an awesome benefit of being in the military. So those rates are still available for people seeking out assumable loans.

But in any case, OP asked how it can be done. Buying 5 years ago or getting an assumable loan are two such ways!

Except with assumable loans you need to pay the seller for any accumulated equity with cash… Not so easy for many

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate how everyone assumes this is family help. My dh and I both graduated w/ zero debt and took high paying jobs right out of school where we had crazy hours so spent barely any money and stashed everything away. We also had each saved a lot from our jobs before senior year and working senior year. Add to that our sign on bonuses, which we both invested. I bought a coop my first year out of undergrad and had a great turn on it. Sold it 3 years later and combined that profit with what each of us had saved up. We used that for the down payment on a $2.2M house and my half of the monthly expenses were not any higher than what my monthly carrying cost for my 2 bedroom coop had been. The new property was a DC row house w/ a legal basement apartment that we rented out for I think $2200.
It annoyed me to no end when I’d hear people say must be nice to have generous parents or whatever. This was all on us while the bitter friends were going on endless instagram worthy trips right out of college. Yes our hours sucked for the first 5/6 years but we knew they would get better so we just kept our heads down and sticking money away. We were definitely lucky with both the stock market and real estate market timing, too.

Great, it's still family money.

DP. How is that “family money”?

t

It’s not explicitly family money, but in this day and age, graduating with no college debt is a form of advantage if you have parents who can fully cover it.

Then again, graduating with no debt is also not value neutral: some people choose cheaper colleges deliberately to be frugal, some people have merit scholarships, but also! some people win those merit scholarships *because* they had other advantages…honestly the whole system kinda falls apart when you scrutinize it and try to bean-count.

I was in a PhD program where we all received fixed stipends, yet people had wildly different advantages: some had parents sending them rent money, some had partners bankrolling them…it made me crazy but all of these things are some combo of both choices AND privileges

But I think we can all agree housing prices in this area are out of control lol

Of course prices are out of control. But joining the military to pay for school isn’t family money or “privilege.” Except I guess the privilege of being physically healthy enough to join.

Right but you aren’t buying a house first year out of undergrad on an officers salary. You would do your 4 year turn, and then MAYBE cash into a high salary (I think MD and JAG have longer tours though right?)

JAG spouse and I met in law school. I did biglaw, spouse did JAG. We bought a $1.8 million house at 2.5% interest with a VA loan (0 down). It’s our first and only house.

Interest rates aren’t 2.5% anymore so this isn’t particularly relevant.

Well, we got to assume the prior military couple owner’s loan, which is an awesome benefit of being in the military. So those rates are still available for people seeking out assumable loans.

But in any case, OP asked how it can be done. Buying 5 years ago or getting an assumable loan are two such ways!