Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somebody in the other thread the OP referenced noted that many desirable neighborhoods are full of residents that were "grandfathered in" and could not now easily afford the houses they live in. So if you move into a $1 million house, there probably many families that bought their houses for half that a few years ago and are living a lifestyle well below what a $1 million house implies. So this would pose a favorable force on OP's concerns about being "outclassed" by neighbors.

Waving hand-- Over here! We are in southern McLean HHI of $150-$180k. We could not afford our current home and still keep our current work/family life balance. However, unless poster has children in MS and HS, that is changing fast. Families with younger kids definitely make more than the MS/HS cohort. We used to call our section of McLean the "braownbag" section, but that is changing faster than the teardowns are being turned into McMansions.

This stuff makes me upset but whatever. We have a HHI of over 300K but since we just started out and are in our early 30s and have high kids costs we don't have enough saved to buy in places where people make half.

Why is that upsetting to you. The pp just stated her HHI but not how hard she has worked to afford her lifestyle. I have a similar HHI and I live in a well over 1 million home, but we've worked and invested since we were in our early 20's. We are very handy with our hands and have invested in real estate by buying shitty homes and worked at it ourselves, we were landlords while our friends were partying in college. So yes, you make more money than we do, probably smarter too, but not more deserving of a better lifestyle, we likely have worked harder. But it's easier to think there's come kind of inheritance involve, not good planning and hard work.

I'm sure most people in DC work hard, whether hammering and painting or attorneying it teaching.

Please do not come off so much better than everyone else because you had the risk profile and resources to afford to be a real estate speculator while still in college. Most of us were borrowing money to pay for college.

You can afford hat fancy neighborhood only because the bubble paid off your speculation; your elbow grease and 'hard work' really had nothing to do with it and added little real value. You just won the roulette wheel, but with a speculative leveraged bet like real estate (like saying you graduated and didn't have a job and the bubble wasn't pushing up prices) you would quickly go bankrupt. Or be bailed out by family, I suspect.

If you have said I married a guy with a plain and who knows how to put is nose to the grinder you would be right. But you're completely wrong about you speculative idea. We moved here 4 years ago for our jobs from an average to low real estate market. We were shocked by the sticker price for real estate. It took us a year to recover from our shock and then we went to work. In our home state we had 6 rental units we have been renting for 15 years. Being a landlord, handyman, accountant for 6 units is no walk in the park when dealing with some of the renters we've had to deal with. Anyway, moving here meant we had to sell some of our real estate investments. We put down $750,000 on a 1.2 million dollar home that is now worth about 1.6 million. If we sell the rest of the stuff we can pay off the mortgage, but we're keeping them to pay for kids college. We're able to afford this area on < 200k because of elbow and grease hard work not real estate speculation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused here, you worry about "exotic vacations" but you are willing to spend 1mil on a house? And your HHI is 200K?

I would worry about not fitting in with you in your 1 million dollar house.

Agreed, and OP seems to be in my HHI (and I'm essentially without debt other than the mortgage).

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused here, you worry about "exotic vacations" but you are willing to spend 1mil on a house? And your HHI is 200K?

I would worry about not fitting in with you in your 1 million dollar house.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somebody in the other thread the OP referenced noted that many desirable neighborhoods are full of residents that were "grandfathered in" and could not now easily afford the houses they live in. So if you move into a $1 million house, there probably many families that bought their houses for half that a few years ago and are living a lifestyle well below what a $1 million house implies. So this would pose a favorable force on OP's concerns about being "outclassed" by neighbors.

Waving hand-- Over here! We are in southern McLean HHI of $150-$180k. We could not afford our current home and still keep our current work/family life balance. However, unless poster has children in MS and HS, that is changing fast. Families with younger kids definitely make more than the MS/HS cohort. We used to call our section of McLean the "braownbag" section, but that is changing faster than the teardowns are being turned into McMansions.

This stuff makes me upset but whatever. We have a HHI of over 300K but since we just started out and are in our early 30s and have high kids costs we don't have enough saved to buy in places where people make half.

Why is that upsetting to you. The pp just stated her HHI but not how hard she has worked to afford her lifestyle. I have a similar HHI and I live in a well over 1 million home, but we've worked and invested since we were in our early 20's. We are very handy with our hands and have invested in real estate by buying shitty homes and worked at it ourselves, we were landlords while our friends were partying in college. So yes, you make more money than we do, probably smarter too, but not more deserving of a better lifestyle, we likely have worked harder. But it's easier to think there's come kind of inheritance involve, not good planning and hard work.

I'm sure most people in DC work hard, whether hammering and painting or attorneying it teaching.

Please do not come off so much better than everyone else because you had the risk profile and resources to afford to be a real estate speculator while still in college. Most of us were borrowing money to pay for college.

You can afford hat fancy neighborhood only because the bubble paid off your speculation; your elbow grease and 'hard work' really had nothing to do with it and added little real value. You just won the roulette wheel, but with a speculative leveraged bet like real estate (like saying you graduated and didn't have a job and the bubble wasn't pushing up prices) you would quickly go bankrupt. Or be bailed out by family, I suspect.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somebody in the other thread the OP referenced noted that many desirable neighborhoods are full of residents that were "grandfathered in" and could not now easily afford the houses they live in. So if you move into a $1 million house, there probably many families that bought their houses for half that a few years ago and are living a lifestyle well below what a $1 million house implies. So this would pose a favorable force on OP's concerns about being "outclassed" by neighbors.

Waving hand-- Over here! We are in southern McLean HHI of $150-$180k. We could not afford our current home and still keep our current work/family life balance. However, unless poster has children in MS and HS, that is changing fast. Families with younger kids definitely make more than the MS/HS cohort. We used to call our section of McLean the "braownbag" section, but that is changing faster than the teardowns are being turned into McMansions.

This stuff makes me upset but whatever. We have a HHI of over 300K but since we just started out and are in our early 30s and have high kids costs we don't have enough saved to buy in places where people make half.

Why is that upsetting to you. The pp just stated her HHI but not how hard she has worked to afford her lifestyle. I have a similar HHI and I live in a well over 1 million home, but we've worked and invested since we were in our early 20's. We are very handy with our hands and have invested in real estate by buying shitty homes and worked at it ourselves, we were landlords while our friends were partying in college. So yes, you make more money than we do, probably smarter too, but not more deserving of a better lifestyle, we likely have worked harder. But it's easier to think there's come kind of inheritance involve, not good planning and hard work.

I'm sure most people in DC work hard, whether hammering and painting or attorneying it teaching.

Please do not come off so much better than everyone else because you had the risk profile and resources to afford to be a real estate speculator while still in college. Most of us were borrowing money to pay for college.

You can afford hat fancy neighborhood only because the bubble paid off your speculation; your elbow grease and 'hard work' really had nothing to do with it and added little real value. You just won the roulette wheel, but with a speculative leveraged bet like real estate (like saying you graduated and didn't have a job and the bubble wasn't pushing up prices) you would quickly go bankrupt. Or be bailed out by family, I suspect.

If you have said I married a guy with a plain and who knows how to put is nose to the grinder you would be right. But you're completely wrong about you speculative idea. We moved here 4 years ago for our jobs from an average to low real estate market. We were shocked by the sticker price for real estate. It took us a year to recover from our shock and then we went to work. In our home state we had 6 rental units we have been renting for 15 years. Being a landlord, handyman, accountant for 6 units is no walk in the park when dealing with some of the renters we've had to deal with. Anyway, moving here meant we had to sell some of our real estate investments. We put down $750,000 on a 1.2 million dollar home that is now worth about 1.6 million. If we sell the rest of the stuff we can pay off the mortgage, but we're keeping them to pay for kids college. We're able to afford this area on < 200k because of elbow and grease hard work not real estate speculation.

You bought 15 years ago. I don't begrudge your elbow grease or 'plan' but your value was generated by the Fed then and in the last 4 years (go go gadget QE!). I mean 1.2 to 1.6 in 4 years? What improvements did you make, wallpaper with 100 dollar bills?

But your holier than though attitude about people partying in college was the annoying part, kind if judgemental and in no way related to this discussion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing is worth the loss of time with your children.

OP here; that is our feeling as well, but we see a lot of middle income families moving out to those far-flung neighborhoods instead of living in the condos and townhouses we are squeezing into. We feel like we might have missed a memo!

The memo said, you can find a job in Rockville (or surrounding areas) and a house. No loss of time with your children and you can choose public vs. private instead of feeling forced into one or the other.

Rockville is quite a hike from downtown. Most of friends commute an hr from north Bethesda to downtown, let alone rockville

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AU Park.

Its full of "mid 200" income couples.

You'll be dead center on the income range.

+1, and Glover Park.Good public schools, parks,quiet neighborhood. Our HHi is more like $130k and we fit in or at least nobody has to us to take a hike.

Once the kids hit middle school, the private school tuition starts to take its toll if you're making less than $250,000. Or you can gamble on Deal and Wilson, which are not very good.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing is worth the loss of time with your children.

OP here; that is our feeling as well, but we see a lot of middle income families moving out to those far-flung neighborhoods instead of living in the condos and townhouses we are squeezing into. We feel like we might have missed a memo!

The memo said, you can find a job in Rockville (or surrounding areas) and a house. No loss of time with your children and you can choose public vs. private instead of feeling forced into one or the other.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing is worth the loss of time with your children.

OP here; that is our feeling as well, but we see a lot of middle income families moving out to those far-flung neighborhoods instead of living in the condos and townhouses we are squeezing into. We feel like we might have missed a memo!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somebody in the other thread the OP referenced noted that many desirable neighborhoods are full of residents that were "grandfathered in" and could not now easily afford the houses they live in. So if you move into a $1 million house, there probably many families that bought their houses for half that a few years ago and are living a lifestyle well below what a $1 million house implies. So this would pose a favorable force on OP's concerns about being "outclassed" by neighbors.

Waving hand-- Over here! We are in southern McLean HHI of $150-$180k. We could not afford our current home and still keep our current work/family life balance. However, unless poster has children in MS and HS, that is changing fast. Families with younger kids definitely make more than the MS/HS cohort. We used to call our section of McLean the "braownbag" section, but that is changing faster than the teardowns are being turned into McMansions.

This stuff makes me upset but whatever. We have a HHI of over 300K but since we just started out and are in our early 30s and have high kids costs we don't have enough saved to buy in places where people make half.

Why is that upsetting to you. The pp just stated her HHI but not how hard she has worked to afford her lifestyle. I have a similar HHI and I live in a well over 1 million home, but we've worked and invested since we were in our early 20's. We are very handy with our hands and have invested in real estate by buying shitty homes and worked at it ourselves, we were landlords while our friends were partying in college. So yes, you make more money than we do, probably smarter too, but not more deserving of a better lifestyle, we likely have worked harder. But it's easier to think there's come kind of inheritance involve, not good planning and hard work.

I'm sure most people in DC work hard, whether hammering and painting or attorneying it teaching.

Please do not come off so much better than everyone else because you had the risk profile and resources to afford to be a real estate speculator while still in college. Most of us were borrowing money to pay for college.

You can afford hat fancy neighborhood only because the bubble paid off your speculation; your elbow grease and 'hard work' really had nothing to do with it and added little real value. You just won the roulette wheel, but with a speculative leveraged bet like real estate (like saying you graduated and didn't have a job and the bubble wasn't pushing up prices) you would quickly go bankrupt. Or be bailed out by family, I suspect.

If you have said I married a guy with a plain and who knows how to put is nose to the grinder you would be right. But you're completely wrong about you speculative idea. We moved here 4 years ago for our jobs from an average to low real estate market. We were shocked by the sticker price for real estate. It took us a year to recover from our shock and then we went to work. In our home state we had 6 rental units we have been renting for 15 years. Being a landlord, handyman, accountant for 6 units is no walk in the park when dealing with some of the renters we've had to deal with. Anyway, moving here meant we had to sell some of our real estate investments. We put down $750,000 on a 1.2 million dollar home that is now worth about 1.6 million. If we sell the rest of the stuff we can pay off the mortgage, but we're keeping them to pay for kids college. We're able to afford this area on < 200k because of elbow and grease hard work not real estate speculation.

Umm you have 6 rental units you bought BEFORE THE BUBBLE so please spare us and get over your hard work bullshit.

Anonymous wrote:I agree. I was that kid. I did more than ok. Also recommend taking a trip for a week to another part of the country. DCUM is not reality.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somebody in the other thread the OP referenced noted that many desirable neighborhoods are full of residents that were "grandfathered in" and could not now easily afford the houses they live in. So if you move into a $1 million house, there probably many families that bought their houses for half that a few years ago and are living a lifestyle well below what a $1 million house implies. So this would pose a favorable force on OP's concerns about being "outclassed" by neighbors.

Waving hand-- Over here! We are in southern McLean HHI of $150-$180k. We could not afford our current home and still keep our current work/family life balance. However, unless poster has children in MS and HS, that is changing fast. Families with younger kids definitely make more than the MS/HS cohort. We used to call our section of McLean the "braownbag" section, but that is changing faster than the teardowns are being turned into McMansions.

This stuff makes me upset but whatever. We have a HHI of over 300K but since we just started out and are in our early 30s and have high kids costs we don't have enough saved to buy in places where people make half.

Why is that upsetting to you. The pp just stated her HHI but not how hard she has worked to afford her lifestyle. I have a similar HHI and I live in a well over 1 million home, but we've worked and invested since we were in our early 20's. We are very handy with our hands and have invested in real estate by buying shitty homes and worked at it ourselves, we were landlords while our friends were partying in college. So yes, you make more money than we do, probably smarter too, but not more deserving of a better lifestyle, we likely have worked harder. But it's easier to think there's come kind of inheritance involve, not good planning and hard work.

I'm sure most people in DC work hard, whether hammering and painting or attorneying it teaching.

Please do not come off so much better than everyone else because you had the risk profile and resources to afford to be a real estate speculator while still in college. Most of us were borrowing money to pay for college.

You can afford hat fancy neighborhood only because the bubble paid off your speculation; your elbow grease and 'hard work' really had nothing to do with it and added little real value. You just won the roulette wheel, but with a speculative leveraged bet like real estate (like saying you graduated and didn't have a job and the bubble wasn't pushing up prices) you would quickly go bankrupt. Or be bailed out by family, I suspect.

If you have said I married a guy with a plain and who knows how to put is nose to the grinder you would be right. But you're completely wrong about you speculative idea. We moved here 4 years ago for our jobs from an average to low real estate market. We were shocked by the sticker price for real estate. It took us a year to recover from our shock and then we went to work. In our home state we had 6 rental units we have been renting for 15 years. Being a landlord, handyman, accountant for 6 units is no walk in the park when dealing with some of the renters we've had to deal with. Anyway, moving here meant we had to sell some of our real estate investments. We put down $750,000 on a 1.2 million dollar home that is now worth about 1.6 million. If we sell the rest of the stuff we can pay off the mortgage, but we're keeping them to pay for kids college. We're able to afford this area on < 200k because of elbow and grease hard work not real estate speculation.

You bought 15 years ago. I don't begrudge your elbow grease or 'plan' but your value was generated by the Fed then and in the last 4 years (go go gadget QE!). I mean 1.2 to 1.6 in 4 years? What improvements did you make, wallpaper with 100 dollar bills?

But your holier than though attitude about people partying in college was the annoying part, kind if judgemental and in no way related to this discussion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somebody in the other thread the OP referenced noted that many desirable neighborhoods are full of residents that were "grandfathered in" and could not now easily afford the houses they live in. So if you move into a $1 million house, there probably many families that bought their houses for half that a few years ago and are living a lifestyle well below what a $1 million house implies. So this would pose a favorable force on OP's concerns about being "outclassed" by neighbors.

Waving hand-- Over here! We are in southern McLean HHI of $150-$180k. We could not afford our current home and still keep our current work/family life balance. However, unless poster has children in MS and HS, that is changing fast. Families with younger kids definitely make more than the MS/HS cohort. We used to call our section of McLean the "braownbag" section, but that is changing faster than the teardowns are being turned into McMansions.

This stuff makes me upset but whatever. We have a HHI of over 300K but since we just started out and are in our early 30s and have high kids costs we don't have enough saved to buy in places where people make half.

Why is that upsetting to you. The pp just stated her HHI but not how hard she has worked to afford her lifestyle. I have a similar HHI and I live in a well over 1 million home, but we've worked and invested since we were in our early 20's. We are very handy with our hands and have invested in real estate by buying shitty homes and worked at it ourselves, we were landlords while our friends were partying in college. So yes, you make more money than we do, probably smarter too, but not more deserving of a better lifestyle, we likely have worked harder. But it's easier to think there's come kind of inheritance involve, not good planning and hard work.

I'm sure most people in DC work hard, whether hammering and painting or attorneying it teaching.

Please do not come off so much better than everyone else because you had the risk profile and resources to afford to be a real estate speculator while still in college. Most of us were borrowing money to pay for college.

You can afford hat fancy neighborhood only because the bubble paid off your speculation; your elbow grease and 'hard work' really had nothing to do with it and added little real value. You just won the roulette wheel, but with a speculative leveraged bet like real estate (like saying you graduated and didn't have a job and the bubble wasn't pushing up prices) you would quickly go bankrupt. Or be bailed out by family, I suspect.

If you have said I married a guy with a plain and who knows how to put is nose to the grinder you would be right. But you're completely wrong about you speculative idea. We moved here 4 years ago for our jobs from an average to low real estate market. We were shocked by the sticker price for real estate. It took us a year to recover from our shock and then we went to work. In our home state we had 6 rental units we have been renting for 15 years. Being a landlord, handyman, accountant for 6 units is no walk in the park when dealing with some of the renters we've had to deal with. Anyway, moving here meant we had to sell some of our real estate investments. We put down $750,000 on a 1.2 million dollar home that is now worth about 1.6 million. If we sell the rest of the stuff we can pay off the mortgage, but we're keeping them to pay for kids college. We're able to afford this area on < 200k because of elbow and grease hard work not real estate speculation.