I live in north old town in a condo that's almost a hundred years old. Immediately behind us are townhomes that sell for 800-900K. I wonder who lives in them pretty much every time I drive through. I know only one couple and they're a Dr/Dentist pair. It's hard to immagine there are enough couples like that in the area to fill all these townhomes, and all the new ones that are being built, but they seem to be selling, so I guess I live in a bubble of sorts.

We're a fed family. Our condo neighbors work in nonprofits, research, and social work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My immediate neighbors in McLean:

1. Successful real estate developer
2. Successful doctor
3. Large business owner
4. Another successful doctor
5. VP of a large US corporation
6. VP of yet another large US corporation
7. Owner of a popular website
8. Chinese, son of a rich Taiwanese widow
9. Us, small business owner

Homes range from 1.5M to 5M+ We are somewhere in the middle. All first generation successful people, no old money, no engineers, no techies, no government workers, and surprisingly no lawyers.

Yeah, as an engineer I see this list and realized I made poor choices financially; growing up I thought being an engineer would be good money, I mean they made $60k/year (where I grew up homes routinely sell for $60k). Having full knowledge of the true expenses of most urban areas is something that came to us too late to alter our path. I could try making an app I guess; Yo got a $1M in funding, so I really should hook on to that bubble.

I'm the PP. Even though we are small business owners now, I was an EE by training, and still tell people that I am an engineer if I don't want to let on the fact that I own a business. My title at my business is "Technical Director", and I get my hands dirty. Half of my office is a workshop/lab. I made the transition from engineering to business about 10 years ago, after I got my MBA. I believe engineers make excellent business owners once they make the transition. Because we are rational, logical, analytical, and results oriented. The toughest part of the transition for me is multi-tasking, and managing resources - people, time, and money.

If you have a unique idea for an app, go for it. You might get lucky and get it popular like Yo. You could try coding it yourself. Spend money or hire people only when absolutely necessary.

PP here. I have thougt of that, an app is a safe branch out. But what about starting on engineering consulting or such? We have no safety net, no family to help us out or such (and in face we expect to be supporting parents and possibly even troubled siblings as well as our kids). If I quit and start a company but it doesn't work out, I'm not as clear that re/entering workforce at 45 will be easy, engineer jobs seem somewhat scarce here. California is a different story, though I have read a lot of stories of ageism? If we had a good fallback option or my wife made enough money at a job she enjoyed I would consider this gamble. But it's hard to take these risks from a stable decent job; and really most wealthy people had to take risks, i just suspect most of them had more of a safety net (failure might mean moving in with your parents out side a major metro, not looking for homeless shelters).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My immediate neighbors in McLean:

1. Successful real estate developer
2. Successful doctor
3. Large business owner
4. Another successful doctor
5. VP of a large US corporation
6. VP of yet another large US corporation
7. Owner of a popular website
8. Chinese, son of a rich Taiwanese widow
9. Us, small business owner

Homes range from 1.5M to 5M+ We are somewhere in the middle. All first generation successful people, no old money, no engineers, no techies, no government workers, and surprisingly no lawyers.

Yeah, as an engineer I see this list and realized I made poor choices financially; growing up I thought being an engineer would be good money, I mean they made $60k/year (where I grew up homes routinely sell for $60k). Having full knowledge of the true expenses of most urban areas is something that came to us too late to alter our path. I could try making an app I guess; Yo got a $1M in funding, so I really should hook on to that bubble.

I'm the PP. Even though we are small business owners now, I was an EE by training, and still tell people that I am an engineer if I don't want to let on the fact that I own a business. My title at my business is "Technical Director", and I get my hands dirty. Half of my office is a workshop/lab. I made the transition from engineering to business about 10 years ago, after I got my MBA. I believe engineers make excellent business owners once they make the transition. Because we are rational, logical, analytical, and results oriented. The toughest part of the transition for me is multi-tasking, and managing resources - people, time, and money.

If you have a unique idea for an app, go for it. You might get lucky and get it popular like Yo. You could try coding it yourself. Spend money or hire people only when absolutely necessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My immediate neighbors in McLean:

1. Successful real estate developer
2. Successful doctor
3. Large business owner
4. Another successful doctor
5. VP of a large US corporation
6. VP of yet another large US corporation
7. Owner of a popular website
8. Chinese, son of a rich Taiwanese widow
9. Us, small business owner

Homes range from 1.5M to 5M+ We are somewhere in the middle. All first generation successful people, no old money, no engineers, no techies, no government workers, and surprisingly no lawyers.

My immediate neighbors in Mclean

1. recently layoff Technical Architect, working at Gov Job
2. family money, worked at world bank
3. owner of small business doing defense consulting
4. recently layoff Project Manager, gov work. not looking for job
5. 2 lawyers, they never talk to anyone
6. layoff Project Manager, private company, a few years back, hasn't found work

3 layoffs, all over 50. 1 family money. 1 successful company, 2 lawyers.

Well, laid off at 50 but probably bought years and years ago when prices were much cheaper, so they are probably doing better than us younger folks paying full retail for BOOMTIME DC housing but still working

Anonymous wrote:My immediate neighbors in McLean:

1. Successful real estate developer
2. Successful doctor
3. Large business owner
4. Another successful doctor
5. VP of a large US corporation
6. VP of yet another large US corporation
7. Owner of a popular website
8. Chinese, son of a rich Taiwanese widow
9. Us, small business owner

Homes range from 1.5M to 5M+ We are somewhere in the middle. All first generation successful people, no old money, no engineers, no techies, no government workers, and surprisingly no lawyers.

My immediate neighbors in Mclean

1. recently layoff Technical Architect, working at Gov Job
2. family money, worked at world bank
3. owner of small business doing defense consulting
4. recently layoff Project Manager, gov work. not looking for job
5. 2 lawyers, they never talk to anyone
6. layoff Project Manager, private company, a few years back, hasn't found work

3 layoffs, all over 50. 1 family money. 1 successful company, 2 lawyers.

Anonymous wrote:TONS of lawyers making over 300k. A lot of them are married to other lawyers. Professionals married to other professionals.

This is also a largely underdiscussed greatest explainers of wealth concentration on this forum. There's something like a 15-20% increase in intraprofessional marriage over the last 30 years, and the percentage in this area is probably higher. That's translates to a huge spike in HHI for a segment of the population.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of people with money here. TONS of lawyers making over 300k. A lot of them are married to other lawyers. Professionals married to other professionals. Lobbyists, consultants. You just don't know many of them. It all really depends on the circles you move in. I'm a professional married to a professional. So are all my friends and siblings. Plus, many of us bought our homes years ago.

If your siblings are all high paid professionals, I'm guessing you came from an upper middle class background or group up in an expensive urban area?

And yes, so many people bought before the bubble. How many could afford to buy them now?

This is the case with my friends. I grew up in Bethesda/Chevy Chase. I would be surprised if any of my friends make less than $300k in HHI.

Well, then I guess there are hopes from my kids! Growing up in rural south, I bought the whole "do what you love and the money will follow" canard. Oy!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of people with money here. TONS of lawyers making over 300k. A lot of them are married to other lawyers. Professionals married to other professionals. Lobbyists, consultants. You just don't know many of them. It all really depends on the circles you move in. I'm a professional married to a professional. So are all my friends and siblings. Plus, many of us bought our homes years ago.

If your siblings are all high paid professionals, I'm guessing you came from an upper middle class background or group up in an expensive urban area?

And yes, so many people bought before the bubble. How many could afford to buy them now?

This is the case with my friends. I grew up in Bethesda/Chevy Chase. I would be surprised if any of my friends make less than $300k in HHI.

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of people with money here. TONS of lawyers making over 300k. A lot of them are married to other lawyers. Professionals married to other professionals. Lobbyists, consultants. You just don't know many of them. It all really depends on the circles you move in. I'm a professional married to a professional. So are all my friends and siblings. Plus, many of us bought our homes years ago.

If your siblings are all high paid professionals, I'm guessing you came from an upper middle class background or group up in an expensive urban area?

And yes, so many people bought before the bubble. How many could afford to buy them now?

There are a lot of people with money here. TONS of lawyers making over 300k. A lot of them are married to other lawyers. Professionals married to other professionals. Lobbyists, consultants. You just don't know many of them. It all really depends on the circles you move in. I'm a professional married to a professional. So are all my friends and siblings. Plus, many of us bought our homes years ago.

Anonymous wrote:My immediate neighbors in McLean:

1. Successful real estate developer
2. Successful doctor
3. Large business owner
4. Another successful doctor
5. VP of a large US corporation
6. VP of yet another large US corporation
7. Owner of a popular website
8. Chinese, son of a rich Taiwanese widow
9. Us, small business owner

Homes range from 1.5M to 5M+ We are somewhere in the middle. All first generation successful people, no old money, no engineers, no techies, no government workers, and surprisingly no lawyers.

Yeah, as an engineer I see this list and realized I made poor choices financially; growing up I thought being an engineer would be good money, I mean they made $60k/year (where I grew up homes routinely sell for $60k). Having full knowledge of the true expenses of most urban areas is something that came to us too late to alter our path. I could try making an app I guess; Yo got a $1M in funding, so I really should hook on to that bubble.

Anonymous wrote:For what it's worth, we bought our $1m house in Cleve Park in our 20s and i'm a lawyer and she works in healthcare. We bough when our HHI was around 250-300k. I would say most buyers around here either have rich parents, are foreign money or dual-income families. Private school for kids would be the killer.

True, but as a lawyer you had a pretty stable job for the most part and a likely expectation of much higher salary in a relatively short amount of time. For GS-15, that is the end of the road salary-wise, so it is a much different bet for buying very expensive real estate. Even dual income GS-15 (which is actually fairly rare outside of lawyer families) are going to be stretched that's only $300k and some change. $1M probably doable, 1.2M pushing it.

My immediate neighbors in McLean:

1. Successful real estate developer
2. Successful doctor
3. Large business owner
4. Another successful doctor
5. VP of a large US corporation
6. VP of yet another large US corporation
7. Owner of a popular website
8. Chinese, son of a rich Taiwanese widow
9. Us, small business owner

Homes range from 1.5M to 5M+ We are somewhere in the middle. All first generation successful people, no old money, no engineers, no techies, no government workers, and surprisingly no lawyers.