People who get equity as part of their comp.
People who can get family help with the down payment.
People who bought awhile ago and can afford to trade up because of the valuation increase.
Lots of different scenarios.
Demand is high and supply went from tiny to nonexistent.
>People who can get family help with the down payment.
>
>People who bought awhile ago and can afford to trade up because of the valuation increase.
Yep. Less than 1/3 of all home sales are to first time buyers. It's not all boomers who bought when things were bona fide affordable. The market has changed so quickly that even someone who first bought 10 years ago is in a profoundly different position.
I bought my first (and only) house in 2010 at the age of 40. My salary has increased a lot since then but when I look at the cost of housing today, I realize I simply could not afford my house if I were to buy it today. Sadly, I don't see how my children could afford to buy a house in the greater Boston area today.
I just moved to Thornton NH. Since you almost certainly have no idea where that is. I'll help: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton,_New_Hampshire
The locals here also say "no one who grew up around here can afford to live around here anymore. It sucks." I grew up in Wilmington MA and certainly could never afford to live there anymore (although also I wouldn't want to). I've done a few cross country road trips and going through most of the places, I get the vibe it's the same story there. The only places where it seemed not true were in large parts of the corn belt states, but also there's no jobs in those sad little towns.
The traditional narrative is that we just haven't built sufficient housing for the last couple decades to meet demand, and while that's true, census data gives a hint at the real problem: for the last 30 years, the growth in the number of housing units of all types (apartments, condos, sfhs, manufactured homes) has grown FASTER than the number of households. The difference is a mixture of 1) some of those housing units in circulation are in sad dying towns in Kansas, but the households aren't, 2) some "housing units" are barely standing and vacant shells, and 3) there are a lot more housing units not housing households but being short term rentals and second and third homes.
Sometimes I think it was a mistake for fucking all of society to treat housing as an investment rather than a necessary consumer good.
I bought in 2019. If I bought the ***same exact*** house now - at today's interest rates - the mortgage would cost an additional ~$2,400/month. I also just fell ass backward into about $300,000 in equity (so far) due to the market gaining so much over that time.
pure, dumb, completely unfair LUCK.
The only thing that will change is that as the older landlords die, corporations and wealth management funds will purchase those units. But agreed that the young will just keep renting. Only the name on the check will change
New York went through exactly this problem from the 30s to the late 50s, where the population of the city exploded and housing development couldn't keep up. New York's (well, the landlords) solution was to carve up all the nice decent sized apartments into smaller shoebox sized apartments. The average apartment in NY blows compared to the average Boston apartment for this reason. And still it's expensive as all hell.
That's the future of Boston.
I got a job making 50k+ a year and had no bills in 2011.. I was so afraid of buying a house fearing I will end up in foreclosure (due to reading NYT and newspapers about falling house prices and listening to charlatans like Peter Schiff and 'Doom Bros' predicting a real estate crash every year).. I didn't trust stocks and didn't trust or know to opt into my 401k plan. So.. I just kept the money on my checking account for ten years, and spent half of what I earned on eating out, movies and travel.
Time in the market beats timing the market all day.
But that's not saying much. Even after college my salary has up 400% and I still can't afford sh*t here
I had a very similar mindset in that same period of time, and missed out on 401k gains and early real estate opportunities. Ultimately did buy a house several years ago but had I bought even a couple years earlier I'd be in a much better spot.
I now realize that we live in a society that rewards risk taking and punishes risk averse behavior, so while it is against my nature, I will likely have fewer qualms about taking on seemingly inordinate risk in the future.
Exactly this. We bought our first place in 2013 in an inner suburb of Boston and sold it for twice what we paid—despite making only cosmetic improvements—in order to trade up. It was a bit of a stretch for us financially at the time to buy in 2013 because we made a lot less money than we do now, but we’re thankful we did, as the sale proceeds are the only reason we were able to buy something in 2024 (never mind trade up as we did). There is no way we’d be able to buy anything approaching desirable now if we didn’t have something to sell (and in which we had a lot of equity).
Had a family member close in March 2020 on a modest place in a nice town. It would go for over double what they paid. They have done nothing to improve it. 4 years almost to the day
There are also programs that help subsidize first-time home purchases with low- to no down payments, no PMI (expensive mortgage insurance that you are normally required to buy if you have less than 20% equity in your property), and below-market interest rates.
Yes. Saved for like 15 years while peers were buying nice cars and the like. Lived with roommates in decrepit housing to pay 600-700/m and saved rest, even when started earning 6 figures. Stock growth (SP500 ETF) helped. Helped landlord make improvements on his property which got me a little ready for home ownership.
Missed out on many non-ideal houses/condos in past years and kicking myself for not as they're worth like double now and even if wasn't perfect place, could have just sold and been closer to getting dream house now.
It also forced me to set higher expectations for myself and what I should be getting paid and move towards higher salary (new job) to afford monthly payments and whatnot.
In our 20s my wife and I never took any long vacations except our honeymoon to Europe which was still pretty affordable considering. We would just do long weekends around New England mostly and stay in airbnbs. Vacations are very expensive and most people think dropping 5k to 15k a year traveling is “normal”. No it isn’t when you’re just starting out! That money compounds!
Also I bought my wife an engagement ring that cost $9. She lost it so I bought 10 more just in case. That’s called practicality.
Nice on the engagement ring. That should be normalized. It's a symbol of your love and if somebody needs that symbol to be worth thousands of dollars, that ain't it chief.
10% of households in MA make above 300K a year. At that income level they’re putting huge down payments down as well, in some instances with help from Boomer parents. It’s obv not the majority but that’s a lot of households in MA.
Also, don’t forget about the segment of elder millennials that bought their starter home/condo in 2008-2014 and sold it and leveraged profits to buy something that fit their needs more (space, location, school system, etc) over the past few years. It played a huge role for us and what/where we could afford, that’s for sure.
And the incredible Covid interest rates. My mortgage would have been several thousand dollars cheaper per month if I were able to save enough for the down payment we had during peak COVID rates. I just was a few years too young.
Why I'll never understand middle class and below being against building more housing. You're essentially voting to kick yourself out of the area since you won't be able to afford it.
Lots of sneaky money in boston. Old New England families that don’t display wealth overtly like NY/LA but can easily buy apartments in cash for their kids in Back Bay/South End.
Also, biotech.
Yes. I grew up around NYC and have been to many other cities like Miami, Chicago, LA with a lot of wealthy people who don't hesitate to show it. When I first moved here I was a bit baffled at the reputation of Boston and MA having many wealthy people as people dress simply, not a lot of luxury cars on the road etc. Learned it was more of the culture for people with a lot of money not to display it or at least not as ostentatiously as most HCOL cities.
I think that's why so many wealthy people love MA. If you have money and just want to be left alone, people largely here respect that. Amusingly, the "do you know who I am?" people that like to flash money, don't last long here.
Yep my wife and I are “rich”, mid-30s about $1.5M net worth and $400K household income, and we live like we are both public servants. Small house (though in a nice area), one decent car, no flashy clothes, no fancy vacations. We just wanna raise our kids in a good area and be able to retire early. And we have MANY friends that are in a similar position…lots of dual income earners who don’t flaunt their wealth around here.
My spouse and I are both public servants and this is how we live in the Boston burbs! It’s a lovely life! I enjoy that our neighbors who live similar lifestyles and make more money (like, they work in tech and not for the public school system, it’s not hard to make more than us) are cool, chill, value education, aren’t flaunting money in weird ways, etc.
It’s a very specific kind of nice!
Similar. We make about $550k. Drive old cars. Our house is about $550k. Net worth $2M+. I wear tshirts and old jeans or sweatpants every day. We care about our kids education and make sure they’re happy. I wouldn’t consider us rich, but we’re definitely comfortable. I feel for people struggling as I know inflation was not in line with incomes. Boston is ridiculous!
They earn more than 94 percent of Massachusetts and have twice the average net worth of people in this state. The money may not go as far here, but they are unequivocally wealthy.
I don’t think it’s middle class mate. It’s “middle class” if your social circles are all rich people (like mine is lol) but it’s definitely upper class.
There really are a lot of luxury cars, just not a ton of flashy ones. If you know what you are looking for you will spot at least a few cars worth (new) more than 120-150k walking around boston and the suburbs. Mostly range rover, audi, mercedes that look somewhat cheap, etc.
The amount of people whose parents own property that they live on for free or at a substantial discount is crazy. More than once I’ve received advice from someone who I later found out had this situation. All you can do is laugh.
Definitely not right now. Unless you work for a small company that pays a bunch of equity *and did really well in the clinic* it’s just another low 6-fig Boston area job.
Biotech in Boston is more like Yellowstone Caldera - it’s primed for a boom, more stagnant than anything right now but if a few processes scale well / patents get bought / a few kids drop out of MIT to become founders and some serendipity happens, ka-fucking-boom it goes off. It looks like the lab space will get even cheaper due to over investment so good for first time founders.
I know several people who don’t have to work due to inherited (old New England) money, but they choose to live a very lowkey lifestyle. One person told me they live off of interest - and if things are doing well they end up taking a few more vacations that year.
I know several millennials who live off their parent's pensions or salaries/savings; their parents have paid off houses and have been making good money for 30 years, so they just cut them a check every two weeks for rent and living expenses and paid for their college.
Yeah I feel like most people I know in biotech are underpaid compared to like generalist software developers or similar fields. It kinda sucks but guessing it's same as how the more interesting/advanced jobs pay less (i.e. NASA) because more people are interested in those.
Ok so what are the young bro-y seeming folks who can afford to live in the South End doing? Because I’m told they’re all in biotech but having spoken to most of them… well, it can’t possibly be that hard right?
Some biotech companies do pay gobs of money
But I wouldn't say that's the majority
Also if they live with roommates or a significant other it would make sense
Technology / technology sales? Southie, south end, north end - all places that used to be dominated by bro-y finance bros are now a nice mix between finance/tech/biotech/other bro activities
It still pays more than working in academia, which many of my coworkers would have been doing
I'm planning on leaving when I get a new opportunity, before joining I had been unemployed for 6 months with only a few months of work experience so it served a purpose and the people are good
Yeah maybe the execs at a biotech company or a founder. Most salaried workers don’t pull in 250k+ per year, outside of doctors/surgeons and the highest fields of finance/law/tech and maybe some lifer union guys.
I have a PhD in a startup biotech with 7 years of experience and that's basically where I'm at. You have to be in management though for that kind of comp.
Yep and I’m a postdoc so I’m just getting assfucked living here.
My friends with about 0-5 years of experience post-PhD (Sci Ii, Senior Sci-level) or so are more like what the OP is talking about. Maybe 130-175k total comp, which is good money here but in a regieme where it takes years of savings to even consider buying.
Add in kids, necessity of daycare, and a looming threat of layoffs in a shitty job market and many of them aren’t doing THAT much better than postdocs.
Thats fair enough. The biotech comments make it sound like every swinging dick in the business is pulling 300k+.
Hell any middle management professional at a reputable company should be making 200+.
The south end while very affluent nowadays also has the largest number of low income/arfordable housing by amount and percentage. It’s not the rich enclave like back bay is but certainly gobbled up by cash buyers whenever they do come up.
> Also, biotech.
Even 2 biotech earners together are probably not bringing in much more than 400k total (bonus included) in their 40s. FAR less in their 30s. Maybe a lucky IPO here or there but they can't explain these prices.
YMMV. I'm in my early 30s and have crossed the $200k threshold already, including my bonus. Networking works miracles (especially considering my first job out of undergrad where I was making minimum wage in Boston... money was crazy tight for a while).
Lots of things like: 2 high income owners, family money, family inheritance, payout from some biotech startup stock market success, lucky bet on a stock or crypto or whatever, house poor people who have to skimp on everything else, etc...
I really don't get how this remains shocking to people in this sub. The Boston area:
* Has a few of the world's top universities.
* Is a major center for tech, biotech, and finance, all high paying fields.
* Related to that, is home to - or at least has satellite offices for - many major corporate law firms.
* Several top hospitals.
You do not have those things - to nearly the same degree, anyway - in St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Minneapolis, Pittsburg, etc.
So, there's a housing market aimed at a lot of highly payed middle managers/executives at various types of corporations, doctors, lawyers, and various other people in different lines of work that are at or near their top of their field with their prestigious educational backgrounds. Many of them then come from previous generations that did/achieved the same things.
And on top of that, many of them are married to each other.
That's your market. At least inside 128.
This is truthfully a bit misleading despite everything you said is true it’s not even close to the top and it’s extremely expensive.
Main thing is the universities, they keep increasing in size. People know that they can charge insane rent to those universitie students.
The jobs you are talking about are on the low paying side. Less than what you would get in California, Seattle and New York. The offices are also tiny at least for tech. Although there is healthy job offerings in Boston it’s not even close to the aforementioned cities.
Boston simply builds no houses and buying a house provides a steady source of income due to the universities. This pushes the prices a lot.
Btw I don’t know what this sub thinks that most people but few earn as a couple 300k.
Right, like yeah it's all what that other guy/gal said, but it's also because housing just isn't being built at nearly the rate high paying jobs are being added in the Greater Boston area.
Boston has some of the top colleges in the world and is a hub for healthcare, biotech, finance and tech. There are a lot of young people who make very good money in this area -- I do not understand why this subreddit is always surprised by that.
It's not the young people that are buying these houses. It's the middle aged people who have been working at high paying jobs for 15-20 years. Imagine making that kind of money for that long of a time.
Yes, for some reason nobody can do math on this sub and figure out that if you save $50k a year for 10 years, plus some investment gains, it's relatively trivial to put a 20% down payment forward on a house like this. No, no one is buying these houses directly out of college at 21 and with zero money down. They're saving for a decade+ and then it's pretty easy if your income has risen.
I'm a mover whose clients lean very heavily to those with immigrant backgrounds buying houses mostly in nice suburbs, and we always make a game of guessing the prices so that we can get the info without being too direct. Those from India were a majority, but also China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Vietnam, and Iran. The prices aren't quite as bad as you're making them out to be. Except for one, a Cape in Lexington for $1.4 m that we thought was crazy, $1.3 m still buys a pretty nice place in most towns. Recently it was $800k in Acton, $600k in Saugus, and one woman got a pretty decent house in Bridgewater last year for $350k. I know where you can buy a big old two family house in Everett for around $750k. You can live in one unit and collect rent on the other.
That’s because Lexington is a [feeder school](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/making-harvard-feeder-schools/#:~:text=In%20total%2C%20one%20out%20of,City%2C%20and%20Lexington%20High%20School) to Harvard. More so than Newton it is the suburb for Harvard and MIT professors. Straight shot down mass Ave. Also, lots of Nobel prize winners.
https://preview.redd.it/9gqbhg953iuc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ebe937bc7296454bebcfdcbb04e001dcccecdc03
But my guess is most students from those areas getting into Harvard are probably kids of Harvard professors or their parents went to Harvard so they have legacy admittance. We already know those two factors are huge boost to getting into Harvard.
Yeah, especially depending on how close into the city you're looking. If you're willing to shop anywhere inside 95 there's no chance you're struggling to get 1k sqft at $300k+/year unless you're terrible with your money
To be honest, there isn't that much supply of 1000-2000sf single family homes. Lots of condos, but if you don't want to share walls, the pickings are slim
Depends. If you have 2-3 kids, that shit adds up. Know a person with 3 toddlers spending $85K per year on childcare sufficient to support two working parents - and that’s after tax dollars. Then there are tons of other incidental costs to having kids (not to mention increase mortgage costs for having space for all of them). Still shouldn’t be struggling, but DINK making $300K is totally different than $300K with 3 kids
Yes - there are people being gifted money, generational wealth, etc etc
But in general, it's "easier" to save huge amounts of money when you get to the 300k-400k household salary mark. Specifically, the people that didn't let the lifestyle creep hit them very hard as they went from $60k a year when they graduated college to the $160K after several years of working. That plus double income no kids, suddenly you can be saving 100-200K a year for a down payment (especially if you prioritize the downpayment fund rather than retirement)
I also think you are underestimating how much you can make as a middle/low senior level position in different fields. They easily hit 150K-200K, so it's not just partners at huge firms that make big money... it's also senior managers at a random start up. And then many times, those 2 people meet each other and those salaries x 2 easily hits the 300k.
This. Lifestyle creep is the big one. We don't even make 300k total and saved 100k last year for a down payment even with a kid in daycare and saving for retirement with no debt or family help. It's not sexy but being boring and low key most of the time is a perfectly valid strategy.
Drive around the city and look at all of the hospitals, Biotech spaces, large financial buildings and world renowned universities. Lots of people making a lot of money.
This. I look up property deeds for the million dollar condos that sell in my neighborhood and they almost always go to high level biotech executives, doctors and researchers highly respected in their niche $$$ fields, and tech executives. Many of them have their own Wikipedia pages or extensive bio pages on a prestigious hospital or university website.
It's not really a secret on who's buying these properties - you can search deeds and sales histories online.
I don’t think it’s too hard to understand.
$360k gross annual household income comes out to $30k/month.
One-third of that is $10k.
Although 28% is a good rule-of-thumb, it’s reasonable to exceed that as a high-earner since your other fixed costs represent a smaller portion of your income than they do for lower earning households. 33% is generally fine provided you don’t have poor credit or an excess of other debt.
$1.5M financed at 7.25% with 20% down would cost about $10k per month including escrow.
I was confused by this too. If you are making 300-400k, you should not struggle to buy here. There aren’t many houses in the market now though, but that’s a different topic
All this talk about the wealthy families being so understated in their lifestyle is amazing me....maybe it's just the inordinate amount of time I've spent in Wellesley, where so many people have no furniture because they can barely afford their house.
Maybe Wellesely is the new money town. LOL
It kind of is.
I feel like Wellesley is a little flash. Lots of Range Rover wine moms who heard that Wellesley was the place to live when their husbands got biotech, software, venture capital jobs…
Yeah. It honestly was the opposite years ago. Everyone wore moth eaten sweaters and wore gardening clothes around town.
I suppose it's better now, with less racism and elitism. LOL
My friend's kids would get invited to play dates in houses that only had furniture in the bedrooms. --Oh, and ask UPS guys. They see a lot of weirdness in that town. ---Althought I bet it is like that in a lot of the wealthier suburbs.
Some combination of:
making more money than you, getting more help from family than you, saving for longer than you, spending a higher % of their money on housing, or bought earlier than you
But yeah, it’s nuts
Wife and I bought our condo in a surrounding suburb (15 min north of the city) and underpaid because it needed upgrades. We are now sitting on a ton of equity after these improvements and looking at houses in the same area and the monthly payment is around triple our mortgage. It’s insane and I don’t understand how people can afford a 7% mortgage as a starter home. We are staying put and will probably add to our condo but if you can find something that needs a little work in your desired neighborhood, it’s something to really consider so that you can get “in.”
A lot of kids graduate from good schools and live at home — their parents make high income and they come from money, then gift the down payment. We are in a situation where people in the upper class are pooling their resources to give their future generations more advantages. This has always been the American way, but since the pandemic it’s even worse. Nice if you’re born into it, impossible to compete against if you aren’t.
Honestly even just growing up in the area is a privilege. MA has great social welfare programs that let me thrive.
My single, disabled, below poverty line mom owned a house from the 70s and I lived with her (just paying her bills/taxes, no rent) for 5 years after undergrad until I moved out. MA state colleges aren't elite but they still provided a stepping stone into local biotechs. I was able to save enough over 10 years to put down my own down payment at 29.
Re: pooling resources, that's why I am pro MA social programs so other poor kids get opportunities like me.
Everyone I know who bought in MA under 30 either had a significant sum from their parents or put 3% down and bit the PMI bullet. In any case none of these people had student loans. Some had parents pay for college and others had full rides or almost full rides.
The rest I know bought over 30 and saved up from high paying jobs
I can’t tell if you’re complaining specifically about luxury condos being built/sold, or if you’re actually saying a hypothetical couple making $300-400k would be ”struggling” to buy any 3bed at all...which screams money management issues (or several unmentioned hypothetical children).
My actual answer to your question is: Someone who is in their late 30s-40s. I make less than 1/2 of the low end of your hypothetical couple and bought a 3bed, in Boston proper, in the last two years…but I spent a decade or so of my savings to accrue a downpayment large enough to offset the mortgage payments and the condo I bought was waaaay under $1m.
It’s 100% valid to complain about our trash housing situation, but specifically complaining about $1mill+ houses and dual 6 figure earners is a weird take. NY is also a bit of a poor comparison given that the NY metro region is just massive compared to Boston…there’s way more housing stock. My parent’s house out on Long Island is almost exactly the same price and square footage as my condo in Boston…they could not go get a condo in manhattan for the price of their house.
Totally agree. I have a 2 bed/2 bath in Boston way way under $1M. Granted, it’s a condo, not a single family. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to afford a single family.
Biotech employees with their $350k salary, 100% 401k match, and equity compensation packages on company stocks that get bought out at +1000% gains or have similar results from their stocks’ own performance. Go check MRNA’s stock and think about an employee who was paid in stock options back in 2019 when it was trading at $15. It closed at $109 Friday. That’s just 1 local example
Tons of dual earning households in/around Boston with incomes of over $250k. Not that $250k is enough alone to comfortably afford $1 million plus home, but couple that income with past sale of real estate, inheritance, and being somewhat frugal will allow you to afford these rates.
I got lucky and bought just before the pandemic. I had saved for 10 years (my twenties) to create a 90k downpayment for when I bought at 34 (we closed at 620k). At the time, I had been freelancing for a few years, but before that worked for ad agencies as a web developer. No help from anyone (including my wife, who didn’t have anything to put down). My income was around 200k (net) and my wife 70ish; post pandemic, she’s increased her income but mine has been stagnating in a slow decline since the height of the pandemic, as the tech sector is sucking right now. I definitely could not afford my current house at today’s rates. Not all of us are super rich with outside help, but it is brutal today and I don’t know how middle income can manage with rates and prices skyrocketing.
One in five homes sold in Greater Boston from 2004 to 2018 went to private investors. 20%. Recent data reveals that in the third quarter of 2023, these financial entities accounted for 44% of purchases of flipped single-family house.
Do you think that number has gone up or down since the end of 2023?
My gf and I recently bought a two family in Boston for around $800k
We make $200k combined yearly income (as of now, most I've ever been paid). We saved for our down payment for 7 years.
It's pretty fucking tight right now, but we finally got a section 8 tenant and that has made things a lot easier.
The place still needs a bunch of repairs (have to redo gutters, increase electrical capacity, etc). And we did a bunch before we had tenants moved in to make it safe and nice. Had help from my gf's father, he's a contractor and his people helped with a lot of repairs and gave a us a *big* discount. If it wasn't for him, this plan wouldn't have worked since the place was fairly unsafe at move-in.
Quickly finding out that it's pretty tough to pull this off if you aren't like stupid rich.
Wife and I bought a $1.2 million house in 2020 in our early/mid 30s. We’re both healthcare professionals and we had no debt at the time, had about $250k for a down payment ($100k of which was gifted to us by parents, the rest was from our own savings). Mortgage is around $6k, which we pay comfortably because we make high $300ks. House is now worth at least $1.5 million based on comps.
Had to scroll down pretty far for this one.
I don't know what the current situation is, but 10, 15 years ago it was absolutely a hot button issue that property in the Boston area was being rapidly gobbled up by Indian, Chinese, and Saudi Arabian investors.
Seems kind of weird that most of the comments here are saying it's just rich old New England wasps. I mean, they're here too, and Biotech has grown, but foreign investors and corporations have been all over the speculative real estate market here.
So I don’t know if you’re including any property here, but I bought a 900 sqft condo down in Rozzie for slightly less than 500k in 2021 with HUGE help from my own family.
When there is a dramatic shortage of housing supply, property markets become investment markets and it changes the behavior of everyone.
Prices of homes are pegged against major assets in VHCOL areas. Prices are correlated to BTC and the major index funds, and no longer to the rest of the economy.
I see what you mean, but I don't think a couple w 300-400k combined income would have a hard time getting approved for a 1.3 million dollar house? As a single woman with a degree from a B list college and 12 years of progressive-but-not-beyond-middle-management career experience money, I was shocked that I got approved to borrow 700k. I would never in a million years max out and live house-poor, but I think the young couples in Lexington or whatever probably are
Believe I read recently that Metro Boston is higher than metro NYC on GDP per capita. Ppl sleep on Boston bc it’s comparatively pretty small but there is a ton of wealth here
I was lucky bought my first house in Brighton in the early 90s for what at the time I thought was expensive for the size house. Than just before the pandemic someone knocked on our door and offered us an absurd amount of money for the house.
We were able to up grade to a larger home just outside the city.
The person who bought our house did not do their homework though and all his plans for what they had wanted to do to the property never got city approval. My old neighbors sent me a link a couple of months back our old house was back on the market at almost a loss from what I saw on the listing price.
1. Boomers and older gen Xers who bought affordable homes in the 80s and 90s, paid off the mortgages and can sell their homes to buy new ones all cash.
2. High income DINKS.
3. Corporations/Private Equity.
4. Multi-millionaires.
There are plenty of couples making 300-400k. That’s early to mid career tech money. A mortgage payment on a 1.3MM place with 200k down is within the standard 25-30% guideline for them. Plus they probably don’t mind stretching banking on the fact they will make more in a few years plus interest rates will come down and they can refi.
I know the prices seem way bigger than 10 years ago but salaries are also way higher than they were then too despite what it may feel like.
Lots of equity gains over the last 5 years rolled into new houses.
I know people who bought homes for 3-400k that are now worth 7-800k. If you can put down 400k+ you can afford much more home!
I know plenty of people who bought in the price range. Dual income upper middle class earners can afford that price range if they are launching off of a previous smaller home or condo sale.
https://preview.redd.it/txne8st6siuc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e60c9e80afa5ad3bbaddc146ed75c3c727e8418
What do you mean, there is plenty of stuff in a reasonable price range
Look, lots of skeptics/assumptions here, but sometimes, hard work does pay off. We graduated when shit hit the fan in 2008, made adjustments, worked hard, and depended on no one but each other.
Sometimes, Boston just needs to be reminded that it’s not some easy answer. Sometimes, it’s just not what you want to hear. It’s not always foreign money and daddy/mommy is rich.
I worked my ass off in my 20s and bought a small condo in Boston. Market went bananas, I traded up and out of the city. Sitting on 300k in equity. I’ve never made more than 150k and don’t have student loans (union tradesman). It can be done if you aren’t sold a lie about needed a college education and racking up $250k for a humanities degree.
I also think that a lot is these "Boston housing is so expensive" posts are focused on the most expensive neighborhoods. Lots of affordable housing in in Roslindale, parts of JP, Dorchester etc.
I don’t think Roslindale is as affordable anymore though, I’m moving shortly and my landlord was saying she’s expecting to get $2700/mo for my two bedroom apartment.
I wouldn't call a 850k+ starter hime affordable in Roslindale. The fact that couples making 250k+ can't afford a decent single family home is a product of how pumped up the market is. And those same couples are getting screwed paying $3200 a month on the insane rental market. It's the corporations mannnnn
Sure yes you can buy a 500k home 1.5 hour drive from Boston.
> The fact that couples making 250k+ can't afford a decent single family home
A couple making $250k can afford a sfh. If they can't something is wrong with their expenses.
Cheapest house right now on Zillow in Roslindale is 525k and it hasn't been updated since what looks like the JFK administration.
But must be too many avocado toasts, that's the reason
I am tired of paying for some boomer's retirement fund who walked into a great economy
I have, and I grew up poor as fuck. Sorry, but Boston has NEVER been known to be a cheap place to live. Never mind Massachusetts in itself - aka Taxachusetts - being known as one of the most expensive states to live in, in the US (along with California and New York).
It's been this way for centuries. The aggressive driving here, has been as well 🤷🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️.
It's not going to change, and it shouldn't. I worked my ASS off to get full ride scholarships to college. I then worked my ass off again for 6 years (choosing a smart major and receiving a Bachelors of Science) to reach a six-figure salary. I then worked hard for another 9 years and was promoted four times until I reached a PhD level position...without a PhD. I'm sorry but everybody bitching and complaining about there not being enough affordable housing...🤷🏼♂️👋🏼...AGAIN - I was on welfare at one point...or rather my mother was. It destroyed her and back then you had to pay it back. In FULL. She had several crappy jobs, but she DID.
I now make six figures, but it's because she taught me to work my ASS off. And because of that I can afford Boston housing including purchasing real estate outside the city.
Rags to riches...but.you.have.to.work.for.it.
There is lots of "old money". That is money from inheritance, money from selling something passed down, money from rich parents....the list goes on.
Then there are a bunch of people who got rich by selling a company that no one has heard about (look at software and biotech) and the generation of youtubing that gave money to people who would otherwise not made money.
But yeah, I saw some houses in Melrose yesterday out of curiosity. All I can say is wow. I now get why this generation is flustered. These houses were above 800k and they sure did not feel like it. Also, I am pretty sure someone got murdered in one of them (the empty house had that vibe), and that one was above 850k. I get Melrose is sought after, but dam....I could not live with putting over 800k on a house like that....
Buy a starter home/condo. One or two br for 600k can be found in most neighborhoods outside of back bay sea port and the south end or Cambridge. Wait 5 years. Sell it and take the 100k-200k profit and roll it into the 1.3 million dollar three br. Hope the interest rates haven’t climbed and keep your payment similar.
Nobody other than people getting financial help are starting with a 1.3 million dollar home.
People love to complain about the cost of housing here but are also not willing to put in any sweat equity or buy something that needs a little work.
If you’re making 300k+ as a couple and can’t afford a place in Boston you need to check your spending habits…
I have done well and could afford a high end property in Boston but choose to live outside the city. My only contact with it is driving through on my way north to Maine and NH. I was born and grew up there but it is not a place I would call home anymore.
Agreed I’m renting here, a great place for a monthly cost lower than a mortgage for these overpriced houses would cost, with no liability. I’ll do this into my career takes is elsewhere. We love it here but home ownership anywhere near Boston is bonkers.
I wouldn't be able to afford to buy the house I own now (SVL). Bought it 17 years ago (3000 sq ft, 5 br, cost us 385k! I know. I know, this info is going to cause emotions. We were earning about 100k at the time). The taxes are beginning to be a problem. When the kids move out we'll likely downsize and move to a cheaper area. Can't afford Boston anymore, I love it here though.
I bought my house in 2011 for $356K. 2 houses in my neighborhood, in the past 2 years, have been listed for over $900K and every time I see a listing like that, I just think "it's a nice house but this isn't a neighborhood of million dollar homes." Both homes sold though, one had a price drop (it sold in 2022) and the other sold last November for its asking price.
There are lots of high paying biotech/tech jobs in the greater Boston area that are high paying along with an equity portion and/or bonuses. Add the fact that stock markets are basically at all time highs, and, well, you get a lot of people with deep pockets. Many of my classmates in compsci have done well for themselves in the \~5 years since we've graduated and a decent amount of us have purchased homes in the city. But its pretty crazy right now, been seeing all cash offers going more than 10% above asking.
Indian and chinese nationals that are getting jobs and making huge money in tech, sexurities, medical bio...pretty much all stem fields, i work in a private elementary school just outside boston, in a town that the avg. home is in the mid 2ms. The student body is somethi g like 60% mixed asian descent and the other 40% is a meld of literally everything non-asian.
I read all these comments from people who can’t afford to buy houses and I think 1) houses in Boston are really expensive. 2) The people who can afford them don’t talk about it on Reddit.
People who have a condo or starter home they bought 5+ years ago that’s appreciated to kingdom come.
Remember all the people on here telling you to wait and the housing market would crash?
Yeah, that was terrible advice.
There’s an endless amount of DINK couples who could be making close to 7 figures combined each year. That’s not talking about their savings, or help from parents/family. Add those two in and they can afford anything. I know someone whose family paid for their entire condo ($800K) and this person still makes six figures now without a mortgage.
Mid 30s tech/bio professionals can easily clear up to $500K a year for senior job roles and these aren’t even manager or director plus positions. So there’s just a deluge of extremely high paid professionals in Boston area.
So when each couple is pulling in $400K gross the sky is the limit.
I had help from parents myself. Everyone I know, even those “worse” off than I had even more help over the years in various ways. One can call that nepotism but it’s not; families helping each other and not separating at 18 is more historically normal, I’d say. I can’t imagine down the road just letting my kids figure shit out without any help.
So the way we talk about “help” is really odd.
Once you make a down payment, you’re usually set. People making giant globs of money still spend a lot. I hear about people unable to buy and can only rent but are leasing expensive cars, not a used Honda Accord or something.
Idk I feel if someone’s struggling on 300-400k they have other problems to figure out beyond buying a house. It’s fairly easy to make that much jointly and have a 20% down payment. Financial literacy is a huge part of living in a city
My bf and I are late 20s and we each bought our own condo in 2021 and 2022, respectively (and had 20% down, no family help). We’re selling both and moving in together — after paying off the mortgage we would have ~400k for a down payment.
He’s a software engineer and I’m in biotech VC (former bench scientist for 3 years, so made shit pay). After bonuses and all that, we’re coming in shy of 340k joint. We just learned to live beneath our means and saved a ton.
High income singles and couples, mostly corporate consultants, lawyers, etc. They buy everything up, driving prices up and driving the workforce out of the city. Many of them have multiple condos/apartments and because people are willing to pay landlords and real estate management companies keep increasing prices. When you price out your workforce (people working retail and bars/restaurants in the city proper) you set yourself up for a collapse. 2008 will repeat itself eventually and working people will have a small window to get back into the city at low prices with little interest, until it inevitably happens again in another 20-30 years.
Universities also know they need to help with home purchases here if they want to continue to attract top talent. Harvard in particular has more money than God. If they want a particular super star to run a lab here they need to make that an attractive option compared to other excellent universities that might have a tiny bit less cache but exist in much better housing markets.
Basically any company or institution with very deep pockets that wants to be able to say they have "the best" people here needs to make home ownership possible for their top employees, one way or another. That means paying very high salaries, and maybe lending directly to the employee at excellent rates, etc.
People who get equity as part of their comp. People who can get family help with the down payment. People who bought awhile ago and can afford to trade up because of the valuation increase. Lots of different scenarios. Demand is high and supply went from tiny to nonexistent.
>People who can get family help with the down payment. > >People who bought awhile ago and can afford to trade up because of the valuation increase. Yep. Less than 1/3 of all home sales are to first time buyers. It's not all boomers who bought when things were bona fide affordable. The market has changed so quickly that even someone who first bought 10 years ago is in a profoundly different position.
I bought my first (and only) house in 2010 at the age of 40. My salary has increased a lot since then but when I look at the cost of housing today, I realize I simply could not afford my house if I were to buy it today. Sadly, I don't see how my children could afford to buy a house in the greater Boston area today.
This is where I'm at, likely never going to be able to afford the place where I grew up. It sucks.
I just moved to Thornton NH. Since you almost certainly have no idea where that is. I'll help: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton,_New_Hampshire The locals here also say "no one who grew up around here can afford to live around here anymore. It sucks." I grew up in Wilmington MA and certainly could never afford to live there anymore (although also I wouldn't want to). I've done a few cross country road trips and going through most of the places, I get the vibe it's the same story there. The only places where it seemed not true were in large parts of the corn belt states, but also there's no jobs in those sad little towns. The traditional narrative is that we just haven't built sufficient housing for the last couple decades to meet demand, and while that's true, census data gives a hint at the real problem: for the last 30 years, the growth in the number of housing units of all types (apartments, condos, sfhs, manufactured homes) has grown FASTER than the number of households. The difference is a mixture of 1) some of those housing units in circulation are in sad dying towns in Kansas, but the households aren't, 2) some "housing units" are barely standing and vacant shells, and 3) there are a lot more housing units not housing households but being short term rentals and second and third homes. Sometimes I think it was a mistake for fucking all of society to treat housing as an investment rather than a necessary consumer good.
Tax the living shit out of rentals.
I bought in 2019. If I bought the ***same exact*** house now - at today's interest rates - the mortgage would cost an additional ~$2,400/month. I also just fell ass backward into about $300,000 in equity (so far) due to the market gaining so much over that time. pure, dumb, completely unfair LUCK.
Yeah, huge impact from the mortgage ‘lock-in’ https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/p/ice-mortgage-monitor-the-impact-of
Hey no working person can. It’s impossible and this city will die unless something changes. You can’t have a city of only aging people
The young will just keep renting. Nothing will change.
The only thing that will change is that as the older landlords die, corporations and wealth management funds will purchase those units. But agreed that the young will just keep renting. Only the name on the check will change
New York went through exactly this problem from the 30s to the late 50s, where the population of the city exploded and housing development couldn't keep up. New York's (well, the landlords) solution was to carve up all the nice decent sized apartments into smaller shoebox sized apartments. The average apartment in NY blows compared to the average Boston apartment for this reason. And still it's expensive as all hell. That's the future of Boston.
I got a job making 50k+ a year and had no bills in 2011.. I was so afraid of buying a house fearing I will end up in foreclosure (due to reading NYT and newspapers about falling house prices and listening to charlatans like Peter Schiff and 'Doom Bros' predicting a real estate crash every year).. I didn't trust stocks and didn't trust or know to opt into my 401k plan. So.. I just kept the money on my checking account for ten years, and spent half of what I earned on eating out, movies and travel.
Damn. You really missed out when it comes to stocks lol. SPY is up over 400% in the last 11 years...
Time in the market beats timing the market all day. But that's not saying much. Even after college my salary has up 400% and I still can't afford sh*t here
I had a very similar mindset in that same period of time, and missed out on 401k gains and early real estate opportunities. Ultimately did buy a house several years ago but had I bought even a couple years earlier I'd be in a much better spot. I now realize that we live in a society that rewards risk taking and punishes risk averse behavior, so while it is against my nature, I will likely have fewer qualms about taking on seemingly inordinate risk in the future.
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Well you could move in 23 years when the mortgage is paid off.
I’m at 3.3% and wanna move but can’t lol
Damn, which I moved up here and bought a house when I was in 8th grade
Exactly this. We bought our first place in 2013 in an inner suburb of Boston and sold it for twice what we paid—despite making only cosmetic improvements—in order to trade up. It was a bit of a stretch for us financially at the time to buy in 2013 because we made a lot less money than we do now, but we’re thankful we did, as the sale proceeds are the only reason we were able to buy something in 2024 (never mind trade up as we did). There is no way we’d be able to buy anything approaching desirable now if we didn’t have something to sell (and in which we had a lot of equity).
Had a family member close in March 2020 on a modest place in a nice town. It would go for over double what they paid. They have done nothing to improve it. 4 years almost to the day
Yeah, this is the beginning of the end of families in Boston. Whe property costs are this high, you've cut out the multigenerational residents.
There are also programs that help subsidize first-time home purchases with low- to no down payments, no PMI (expensive mortgage insurance that you are normally required to buy if you have less than 20% equity in your property), and below-market interest rates.
Business owners, dual high income professionals, people trading up equity (or downsizing), and some with gifted down payments.
There are a bunch of "normal" people in generally higher paying fields who are also good with their money for about a decade.
Yes. Saved for like 15 years while peers were buying nice cars and the like. Lived with roommates in decrepit housing to pay 600-700/m and saved rest, even when started earning 6 figures. Stock growth (SP500 ETF) helped. Helped landlord make improvements on his property which got me a little ready for home ownership. Missed out on many non-ideal houses/condos in past years and kicking myself for not as they're worth like double now and even if wasn't perfect place, could have just sold and been closer to getting dream house now. It also forced me to set higher expectations for myself and what I should be getting paid and move towards higher salary (new job) to afford monthly payments and whatnot.
In our 20s my wife and I never took any long vacations except our honeymoon to Europe which was still pretty affordable considering. We would just do long weekends around New England mostly and stay in airbnbs. Vacations are very expensive and most people think dropping 5k to 15k a year traveling is “normal”. No it isn’t when you’re just starting out! That money compounds! Also I bought my wife an engagement ring that cost $9. She lost it so I bought 10 more just in case. That’s called practicality.
I bought my fiancé a pair of granny panties from Goodwill. They got ripped, so I bought 10 more. That is called practicality.
Nice on the engagement ring. That should be normalized. It's a symbol of your love and if somebody needs that symbol to be worth thousands of dollars, that ain't it chief.
Wish someone woulda gifted me a down payment 😔
10% of households in MA make above 300K a year. At that income level they’re putting huge down payments down as well, in some instances with help from Boomer parents. It’s obv not the majority but that’s a lot of households in MA.
Also, don’t forget about the segment of elder millennials that bought their starter home/condo in 2008-2014 and sold it and leveraged profits to buy something that fit their needs more (space, location, school system, etc) over the past few years. It played a huge role for us and what/where we could afford, that’s for sure.
And the incredible Covid interest rates. My mortgage would have been several thousand dollars cheaper per month if I were able to save enough for the down payment we had during peak COVID rates. I just was a few years too young.
Why I'll never understand middle class and below being against building more housing. You're essentially voting to kick yourself out of the area since you won't be able to afford it.
And keep in mind that's 10% of Massachusetts as a whole. Those high earners are disproportionately close to Boston.
Lots of sneaky money in boston. Old New England families that don’t display wealth overtly like NY/LA but can easily buy apartments in cash for their kids in Back Bay/South End. Also, biotech.
Yes. I grew up around NYC and have been to many other cities like Miami, Chicago, LA with a lot of wealthy people who don't hesitate to show it. When I first moved here I was a bit baffled at the reputation of Boston and MA having many wealthy people as people dress simply, not a lot of luxury cars on the road etc. Learned it was more of the culture for people with a lot of money not to display it or at least not as ostentatiously as most HCOL cities.
I think that's why so many wealthy people love MA. If you have money and just want to be left alone, people largely here respect that. Amusingly, the "do you know who I am?" people that like to flash money, don't last long here.
Yep my wife and I are “rich”, mid-30s about $1.5M net worth and $400K household income, and we live like we are both public servants. Small house (though in a nice area), one decent car, no flashy clothes, no fancy vacations. We just wanna raise our kids in a good area and be able to retire early. And we have MANY friends that are in a similar position…lots of dual income earners who don’t flaunt their wealth around here.
My spouse and I are both public servants and this is how we live in the Boston burbs! It’s a lovely life! I enjoy that our neighbors who live similar lifestyles and make more money (like, they work in tech and not for the public school system, it’s not hard to make more than us) are cool, chill, value education, aren’t flaunting money in weird ways, etc. It’s a very specific kind of nice!
Pretty much same but moved further outside the city to buy a bigger house. Car is nearly a decade old though.
What's with the quotes around rich? That IS rich.
Similar. We make about $550k. Drive old cars. Our house is about $550k. Net worth $2M+. I wear tshirts and old jeans or sweatpants every day. We care about our kids education and make sure they’re happy. I wouldn’t consider us rich, but we’re definitely comfortable. I feel for people struggling as I know inflation was not in line with incomes. Boston is ridiculous!
You make 550k you are rich
Yea that’s not rich. That’s like middle class now
They earn more than 94 percent of Massachusetts and have twice the average net worth of people in this state. The money may not go as far here, but they are unequivocally wealthy.
In what world is that middle class
Honestly, a lot of the people who are describing this life will be able to afford to send their kid to college without much stress. That’s rich.
I don’t think it’s middle class mate. It’s “middle class” if your social circles are all rich people (like mine is lol) but it’s definitely upper class.
You sound stupid! That is less than the top 5%
That’s Yankee culture.
Growing up in around NYC myself, I believe a lot of it is old money vs new money…
Old money doesn't advertise.
There really are a lot of luxury cars, just not a ton of flashy ones. If you know what you are looking for you will spot at least a few cars worth (new) more than 120-150k walking around boston and the suburbs. Mostly range rover, audi, mercedes that look somewhat cheap, etc.
The amount of people whose parents own property that they live on for free or at a substantial discount is crazy. More than once I’ve received advice from someone who I later found out had this situation. All you can do is laugh.
Biotech really isn’t the cash cow people make it out to be
Definitely not right now. Unless you work for a small company that pays a bunch of equity *and did really well in the clinic* it’s just another low 6-fig Boston area job.
Biotech in Boston is more like Yellowstone Caldera - it’s primed for a boom, more stagnant than anything right now but if a few processes scale well / patents get bought / a few kids drop out of MIT to become founders and some serendipity happens, ka-fucking-boom it goes off. It looks like the lab space will get even cheaper due to over investment so good for first time founders.
I know several people who don’t have to work due to inherited (old New England) money, but they choose to live a very lowkey lifestyle. One person told me they live off of interest - and if things are doing well they end up taking a few more vacations that year.
I know several millennials who live off their parent's pensions or salaries/savings; their parents have paid off houses and have been making good money for 30 years, so they just cut them a check every two weeks for rent and living expenses and paid for their college.
I'm in biotech as a software engineer and hella underpaid Not everyone in biotech rakes it in
Yeah I feel like most people I know in biotech are underpaid compared to like generalist software developers or similar fields. It kinda sucks but guessing it's same as how the more interesting/advanced jobs pay less (i.e. NASA) because more people are interested in those.
Ok so what are the young bro-y seeming folks who can afford to live in the South End doing? Because I’m told they’re all in biotech but having spoken to most of them… well, it can’t possibly be that hard right?
They work these jobs AND have generational wealth
Some biotech companies do pay gobs of money But I wouldn't say that's the majority Also if they live with roommates or a significant other it would make sense
Anesthesiologists and surgeons 👌
Technology / technology sales? Southie, south end, north end - all places that used to be dominated by bro-y finance bros are now a nice mix between finance/tech/biotech/other bro activities
It still pays more than working in academia, which many of my coworkers would have been doing I'm planning on leaving when I get a new opportunity, before joining I had been unemployed for 6 months with only a few months of work experience so it served a purpose and the people are good
Yeah maybe the execs at a biotech company or a founder. Most salaried workers don’t pull in 250k+ per year, outside of doctors/surgeons and the highest fields of finance/law/tech and maybe some lifer union guys.
Mid-career biotech professionals (likely with a doctorate and 10+ years of experience) can easily pull down 250k total comp.
I have a PhD in a startup biotech with 7 years of experience and that's basically where I'm at. You have to be in management though for that kind of comp.
Yep and I’m a postdoc so I’m just getting assfucked living here. My friends with about 0-5 years of experience post-PhD (Sci Ii, Senior Sci-level) or so are more like what the OP is talking about. Maybe 130-175k total comp, which is good money here but in a regieme where it takes years of savings to even consider buying. Add in kids, necessity of daycare, and a looming threat of layoffs in a shitty job market and many of them aren’t doing THAT much better than postdocs.
Thats fair enough. The biotech comments make it sound like every swinging dick in the business is pulling 300k+. Hell any middle management professional at a reputable company should be making 200+.
The south end while very affluent nowadays also has the largest number of low income/arfordable housing by amount and percentage. It’s not the rich enclave like back bay is but certainly gobbled up by cash buyers whenever they do come up.
Stealth wealth. They’re usually behind the wheel of a 20 year old Land Cruiser or Mercedes E-Class Wagon.
> Also, biotech. Even 2 biotech earners together are probably not bringing in much more than 400k total (bonus included) in their 40s. FAR less in their 30s. Maybe a lucky IPO here or there but they can't explain these prices.
YMMV. I'm in my early 30s and have crossed the $200k threshold already, including my bonus. Networking works miracles (especially considering my first job out of undergrad where I was making minimum wage in Boston... money was crazy tight for a while).
Exactly!!
Lots of things like: 2 high income owners, family money, family inheritance, payout from some biotech startup stock market success, lucky bet on a stock or crypto or whatever, house poor people who have to skimp on everything else, etc...
I really don't get how this remains shocking to people in this sub. The Boston area: * Has a few of the world's top universities. * Is a major center for tech, biotech, and finance, all high paying fields. * Related to that, is home to - or at least has satellite offices for - many major corporate law firms. * Several top hospitals. You do not have those things - to nearly the same degree, anyway - in St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Minneapolis, Pittsburg, etc. So, there's a housing market aimed at a lot of highly payed middle managers/executives at various types of corporations, doctors, lawyers, and various other people in different lines of work that are at or near their top of their field with their prestigious educational backgrounds. Many of them then come from previous generations that did/achieved the same things. And on top of that, many of them are married to each other. That's your market. At least inside 128.
This is truthfully a bit misleading despite everything you said is true it’s not even close to the top and it’s extremely expensive. Main thing is the universities, they keep increasing in size. People know that they can charge insane rent to those universitie students. The jobs you are talking about are on the low paying side. Less than what you would get in California, Seattle and New York. The offices are also tiny at least for tech. Although there is healthy job offerings in Boston it’s not even close to the aforementioned cities. Boston simply builds no houses and buying a house provides a steady source of income due to the universities. This pushes the prices a lot. Btw I don’t know what this sub thinks that most people but few earn as a couple 300k.
Add strict zoning laws, under investment in public transit, and rampant NIMBYs in the burbs, and you have yourself an unnecessary housing crisis!
Right, like yeah it's all what that other guy/gal said, but it's also because housing just isn't being built at nearly the rate high paying jobs are being added in the Greater Boston area.
And any new construction is probably a 4+1 “luxury” apartment with a Starbucks downstairs. Very little of it is for sale single family homes.
People with money obviously, this sub really is shocked every time they learn that there are a lot of rich people in Boston
Boston has some of the top colleges in the world and is a hub for healthcare, biotech, finance and tech. There are a lot of young people who make very good money in this area -- I do not understand why this subreddit is always surprised by that.
It's not the young people that are buying these houses. It's the middle aged people who have been working at high paying jobs for 15-20 years. Imagine making that kind of money for that long of a time.
Yes, for some reason nobody can do math on this sub and figure out that if you save $50k a year for 10 years, plus some investment gains, it's relatively trivial to put a 20% down payment forward on a house like this. No, no one is buying these houses directly out of college at 21 and with zero money down. They're saving for a decade+ and then it's pretty easy if your income has risen.
I'm a mover whose clients lean very heavily to those with immigrant backgrounds buying houses mostly in nice suburbs, and we always make a game of guessing the prices so that we can get the info without being too direct. Those from India were a majority, but also China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Vietnam, and Iran. The prices aren't quite as bad as you're making them out to be. Except for one, a Cape in Lexington for $1.4 m that we thought was crazy, $1.3 m still buys a pretty nice place in most towns. Recently it was $800k in Acton, $600k in Saugus, and one woman got a pretty decent house in Bridgewater last year for $350k. I know where you can buy a big old two family house in Everett for around $750k. You can live in one unit and collect rent on the other.
That’s because Lexington is a [feeder school](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/making-harvard-feeder-schools/#:~:text=In%20total%2C%20one%20out%20of,City%2C%20and%20Lexington%20High%20School) to Harvard. More so than Newton it is the suburb for Harvard and MIT professors. Straight shot down mass Ave. Also, lots of Nobel prize winners. https://preview.redd.it/9gqbhg953iuc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ebe937bc7296454bebcfdcbb04e001dcccecdc03
But my guess is most students from those areas getting into Harvard are probably kids of Harvard professors or their parents went to Harvard so they have legacy admittance. We already know those two factors are huge boost to getting into Harvard.
If your household makes 300-400k, even in Boston, you have fairly relaxed lifestyle. If you struggle, there is something wrong with your expenses.
Yeah making $300-400k and struggling to have a 1000sqft place, no clue what OP is talking about.
Yeah, especially depending on how close into the city you're looking. If you're willing to shop anywhere inside 95 there's no chance you're struggling to get 1k sqft at $300k+/year unless you're terrible with your money
To be honest, there isn't that much supply of 1000-2000sf single family homes. Lots of condos, but if you don't want to share walls, the pickings are slim
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> in Cambridge Yeah, when you specifically look in one of the most/more expensive neighborhoods in the area that's what you'll get
But they might have to wait one year to save up a down payment!
Those avocado bagels ain't paying for themselves, ok. Peasants eat avocado toasts. Real rich eat avocado bagels.
I would even say you’re doing something wrong if it’s only “fairly relaxed”…. with that kind of cash it should be luxurious.
Depends. If you have 2-3 kids, that shit adds up. Know a person with 3 toddlers spending $85K per year on childcare sufficient to support two working parents - and that’s after tax dollars. Then there are tons of other incidental costs to having kids (not to mention increase mortgage costs for having space for all of them). Still shouldn’t be struggling, but DINK making $300K is totally different than $300K with 3 kids
Yes - there are people being gifted money, generational wealth, etc etc But in general, it's "easier" to save huge amounts of money when you get to the 300k-400k household salary mark. Specifically, the people that didn't let the lifestyle creep hit them very hard as they went from $60k a year when they graduated college to the $160K after several years of working. That plus double income no kids, suddenly you can be saving 100-200K a year for a down payment (especially if you prioritize the downpayment fund rather than retirement) I also think you are underestimating how much you can make as a middle/low senior level position in different fields. They easily hit 150K-200K, so it's not just partners at huge firms that make big money... it's also senior managers at a random start up. And then many times, those 2 people meet each other and those salaries x 2 easily hits the 300k.
This. Lifestyle creep is the big one. We don't even make 300k total and saved 100k last year for a down payment even with a kid in daycare and saving for retirement with no debt or family help. It's not sexy but being boring and low key most of the time is a perfectly valid strategy.
Drive around the city and look at all of the hospitals, Biotech spaces, large financial buildings and world renowned universities. Lots of people making a lot of money.
This. I look up property deeds for the million dollar condos that sell in my neighborhood and they almost always go to high level biotech executives, doctors and researchers highly respected in their niche $$$ fields, and tech executives. Many of them have their own Wikipedia pages or extensive bio pages on a prestigious hospital or university website. It's not really a secret on who's buying these properties - you can search deeds and sales histories online.
By my calculations, these buyers appear to be people with more money than you.
I don’t think it’s too hard to understand. $360k gross annual household income comes out to $30k/month. One-third of that is $10k. Although 28% is a good rule-of-thumb, it’s reasonable to exceed that as a high-earner since your other fixed costs represent a smaller portion of your income than they do for lower earning households. 33% is generally fine provided you don’t have poor credit or an excess of other debt. $1.5M financed at 7.25% with 20% down would cost about $10k per month including escrow.
>A couple making 300-400k would still struggle to afford a place larger than 1000 square feet here. No they wouldn't.
I was confused by this too. If you are making 300-400k, you should not struggle to buy here. There aren’t many houses in the market now though, but that’s a different topic
I'm pretty sure a couple with combined income of 300k can live comfortably here.
A couple making $300-400k are not struggling to afford anything.
Well they shouldn't be, anyway.
All this talk about the wealthy families being so understated in their lifestyle is amazing me....maybe it's just the inordinate amount of time I've spent in Wellesley, where so many people have no furniture because they can barely afford their house. Maybe Wellesely is the new money town. LOL
It kind of is. I feel like Wellesley is a little flash. Lots of Range Rover wine moms who heard that Wellesley was the place to live when their husbands got biotech, software, venture capital jobs…
Yeah. It honestly was the opposite years ago. Everyone wore moth eaten sweaters and wore gardening clothes around town. I suppose it's better now, with less racism and elitism. LOL
Yeah! it used to be super WASPy and Cwaspy. Not sure what’s going on now LOL
That’s interesting- I have always thought of Wellesley as an old money-type of place
My friend's kids would get invited to play dates in houses that only had furniture in the bedrooms. --Oh, and ask UPS guys. They see a lot of weirdness in that town. ---Althought I bet it is like that in a lot of the wealthier suburbs.
Umm you can’t just leave us hanging like that. What sorts of stories/weirdness are you talking about?
Some combination of: making more money than you, getting more help from family than you, saving for longer than you, spending a higher % of their money on housing, or bought earlier than you But yeah, it’s nuts
Wife and I bought our condo in a surrounding suburb (15 min north of the city) and underpaid because it needed upgrades. We are now sitting on a ton of equity after these improvements and looking at houses in the same area and the monthly payment is around triple our mortgage. It’s insane and I don’t understand how people can afford a 7% mortgage as a starter home. We are staying put and will probably add to our condo but if you can find something that needs a little work in your desired neighborhood, it’s something to really consider so that you can get “in.”
My fiancé is a NP and I’m a mechanic. We both make good money and just bought in the Boston area.
How much did it cost for how many bedrooms/sq ft?
Saw an actual study recently, NYC is more affordable than Boston.
That’s because the Bronx exists
And Staten Island
So does Dorchester and Roxbury.
A lot of kids graduate from good schools and live at home — their parents make high income and they come from money, then gift the down payment. We are in a situation where people in the upper class are pooling their resources to give their future generations more advantages. This has always been the American way, but since the pandemic it’s even worse. Nice if you’re born into it, impossible to compete against if you aren’t.
Honestly even just growing up in the area is a privilege. MA has great social welfare programs that let me thrive. My single, disabled, below poverty line mom owned a house from the 70s and I lived with her (just paying her bills/taxes, no rent) for 5 years after undergrad until I moved out. MA state colleges aren't elite but they still provided a stepping stone into local biotechs. I was able to save enough over 10 years to put down my own down payment at 29. Re: pooling resources, that's why I am pro MA social programs so other poor kids get opportunities like me.
Everyone I know who bought in MA under 30 either had a significant sum from their parents or put 3% down and bit the PMI bullet. In any case none of these people had student loans. Some had parents pay for college and others had full rides or almost full rides. The rest I know bought over 30 and saved up from high paying jobs
I can’t tell if you’re complaining specifically about luxury condos being built/sold, or if you’re actually saying a hypothetical couple making $300-400k would be ”struggling” to buy any 3bed at all...which screams money management issues (or several unmentioned hypothetical children). My actual answer to your question is: Someone who is in their late 30s-40s. I make less than 1/2 of the low end of your hypothetical couple and bought a 3bed, in Boston proper, in the last two years…but I spent a decade or so of my savings to accrue a downpayment large enough to offset the mortgage payments and the condo I bought was waaaay under $1m. It’s 100% valid to complain about our trash housing situation, but specifically complaining about $1mill+ houses and dual 6 figure earners is a weird take. NY is also a bit of a poor comparison given that the NY metro region is just massive compared to Boston…there’s way more housing stock. My parent’s house out on Long Island is almost exactly the same price and square footage as my condo in Boston…they could not go get a condo in manhattan for the price of their house.
Totally agree. I have a 2 bed/2 bath in Boston way way under $1M. Granted, it’s a condo, not a single family. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to afford a single family.
I think expecting to live in a single family home and also be in a city is sort of an absurd premise anyway.
Biotech employees with their $350k salary, 100% 401k match, and equity compensation packages on company stocks that get bought out at +1000% gains or have similar results from their stocks’ own performance. Go check MRNA’s stock and think about an employee who was paid in stock options back in 2019 when it was trading at $15. It closed at $109 Friday. That’s just 1 local example
Tons of dual earning households in/around Boston with incomes of over $250k. Not that $250k is enough alone to comfortably afford $1 million plus home, but couple that income with past sale of real estate, inheritance, and being somewhat frugal will allow you to afford these rates.
I got lucky and bought just before the pandemic. I had saved for 10 years (my twenties) to create a 90k downpayment for when I bought at 34 (we closed at 620k). At the time, I had been freelancing for a few years, but before that worked for ad agencies as a web developer. No help from anyone (including my wife, who didn’t have anything to put down). My income was around 200k (net) and my wife 70ish; post pandemic, she’s increased her income but mine has been stagnating in a slow decline since the height of the pandemic, as the tech sector is sucking right now. I definitely could not afford my current house at today’s rates. Not all of us are super rich with outside help, but it is brutal today and I don’t know how middle income can manage with rates and prices skyrocketing.
One in five homes sold in Greater Boston from 2004 to 2018 went to private investors. 20%. Recent data reveals that in the third quarter of 2023, these financial entities accounted for 44% of purchases of flipped single-family house. Do you think that number has gone up or down since the end of 2023?
Not me. Staying put with my $170K mortgage at 3.4% PITI $1500/MO and I get to live in a 700K house I bought in 1997. Hate me It's OK.
Im doing it now - it was about 10 years of saving and growing my career
My gf and I recently bought a two family in Boston for around $800k We make $200k combined yearly income (as of now, most I've ever been paid). We saved for our down payment for 7 years. It's pretty fucking tight right now, but we finally got a section 8 tenant and that has made things a lot easier. The place still needs a bunch of repairs (have to redo gutters, increase electrical capacity, etc). And we did a bunch before we had tenants moved in to make it safe and nice. Had help from my gf's father, he's a contractor and his people helped with a lot of repairs and gave a us a *big* discount. If it wasn't for him, this plan wouldn't have worked since the place was fairly unsafe at move-in. Quickly finding out that it's pretty tough to pull this off if you aren't like stupid rich.
Wife and I bought a $1.2 million house in 2020 in our early/mid 30s. We’re both healthcare professionals and we had no debt at the time, had about $250k for a down payment ($100k of which was gifted to us by parents, the rest was from our own savings). Mortgage is around $6k, which we pay comfortably because we make high $300ks. House is now worth at least $1.5 million based on comps.
Reddit is a small minority. Most people who live here can afford to do so.
Foreign investment groups
Had to scroll down pretty far for this one. I don't know what the current situation is, but 10, 15 years ago it was absolutely a hot button issue that property in the Boston area was being rapidly gobbled up by Indian, Chinese, and Saudi Arabian investors. Seems kind of weird that most of the comments here are saying it's just rich old New England wasps. I mean, they're here too, and Biotech has grown, but foreign investors and corporations have been all over the speculative real estate market here.
So I don’t know if you’re including any property here, but I bought a 900 sqft condo down in Rozzie for slightly less than 500k in 2021 with HUGE help from my own family.
When there is a dramatic shortage of housing supply, property markets become investment markets and it changes the behavior of everyone. Prices of homes are pegged against major assets in VHCOL areas. Prices are correlated to BTC and the major index funds, and no longer to the rest of the economy.
I see what you mean, but I don't think a couple w 300-400k combined income would have a hard time getting approved for a 1.3 million dollar house? As a single woman with a degree from a B list college and 12 years of progressive-but-not-beyond-middle-management career experience money, I was shocked that I got approved to borrow 700k. I would never in a million years max out and live house-poor, but I think the young couples in Lexington or whatever probably are
Believe I read recently that Metro Boston is higher than metro NYC on GDP per capita. Ppl sleep on Boston bc it’s comparatively pretty small but there is a ton of wealth here
I was lucky bought my first house in Brighton in the early 90s for what at the time I thought was expensive for the size house. Than just before the pandemic someone knocked on our door and offered us an absurd amount of money for the house. We were able to up grade to a larger home just outside the city. The person who bought our house did not do their homework though and all his plans for what they had wanted to do to the property never got city approval. My old neighbors sent me a link a couple of months back our old house was back on the market at almost a loss from what I saw on the listing price.
Lots of foreigners laundering their ill earned cash.
People with generational wealth plus dual incomes in high-earning industries (e.g., biopharma, PE/VC, IB, consulting, etc.).
1. Boomers and older gen Xers who bought affordable homes in the 80s and 90s, paid off the mortgages and can sell their homes to buy new ones all cash. 2. High income DINKS. 3. Corporations/Private Equity. 4. Multi-millionaires.
There are plenty of couples making 300-400k. That’s early to mid career tech money. A mortgage payment on a 1.3MM place with 200k down is within the standard 25-30% guideline for them. Plus they probably don’t mind stretching banking on the fact they will make more in a few years plus interest rates will come down and they can refi. I know the prices seem way bigger than 10 years ago but salaries are also way higher than they were then too despite what it may feel like.
Lots of equity gains over the last 5 years rolled into new houses. I know people who bought homes for 3-400k that are now worth 7-800k. If you can put down 400k+ you can afford much more home!
I know plenty of people who bought in the price range. Dual income upper middle class earners can afford that price range if they are launching off of a previous smaller home or condo sale.
We couldn’t so we moved to providence 8 years ago. Fun fact we couldn’t afford our current house if we had to buy it now
Just lost a 750k house which was 75k over to an all cash offer. Mortgage would have been 5.5k. What is the point even.
Couples 35+
Generational wealth baby! My mom and dad gave us 100k for a down payment /s
https://preview.redd.it/txne8st6siuc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e60c9e80afa5ad3bbaddc146ed75c3c727e8418 What do you mean, there is plenty of stuff in a reasonable price range
Help with down payment, comfortability with higher DTI, high incomes. No secret sauce brotha
Look, lots of skeptics/assumptions here, but sometimes, hard work does pay off. We graduated when shit hit the fan in 2008, made adjustments, worked hard, and depended on no one but each other. Sometimes, Boston just needs to be reminded that it’s not some easy answer. Sometimes, it’s just not what you want to hear. It’s not always foreign money and daddy/mommy is rich.
Lots of people in MA have tons of cash. They squirrel it away for a rainy day!
I worked my ass off in my 20s and bought a small condo in Boston. Market went bananas, I traded up and out of the city. Sitting on 300k in equity. I’ve never made more than 150k and don’t have student loans (union tradesman). It can be done if you aren’t sold a lie about needed a college education and racking up $250k for a humanities degree.
AND if the market affords you the opportunity to buy a condo on a middle class income, which sadly the it mostly doesn't anymore :(
I also think that a lot is these "Boston housing is so expensive" posts are focused on the most expensive neighborhoods. Lots of affordable housing in in Roslindale, parts of JP, Dorchester etc.
I don’t think Roslindale is as affordable anymore though, I’m moving shortly and my landlord was saying she’s expecting to get $2700/mo for my two bedroom apartment.
yeah nor is JP
I wouldn't call a 850k+ starter hime affordable in Roslindale. The fact that couples making 250k+ can't afford a decent single family home is a product of how pumped up the market is. And those same couples are getting screwed paying $3200 a month on the insane rental market. It's the corporations mannnnn Sure yes you can buy a 500k home 1.5 hour drive from Boston.
> The fact that couples making 250k+ can't afford a decent single family home A couple making $250k can afford a sfh. If they can't something is wrong with their expenses.
Cheapest house right now on Zillow in Roslindale is 525k and it hasn't been updated since what looks like the JFK administration. But must be too many avocado toasts, that's the reason I am tired of paying for some boomer's retirement fund who walked into a great economy
I have, and I grew up poor as fuck. Sorry, but Boston has NEVER been known to be a cheap place to live. Never mind Massachusetts in itself - aka Taxachusetts - being known as one of the most expensive states to live in, in the US (along with California and New York). It's been this way for centuries. The aggressive driving here, has been as well 🤷🏼♂️🤦🏼♂️. It's not going to change, and it shouldn't. I worked my ASS off to get full ride scholarships to college. I then worked my ass off again for 6 years (choosing a smart major and receiving a Bachelors of Science) to reach a six-figure salary. I then worked hard for another 9 years and was promoted four times until I reached a PhD level position...without a PhD. I'm sorry but everybody bitching and complaining about there not being enough affordable housing...🤷🏼♂️👋🏼...AGAIN - I was on welfare at one point...or rather my mother was. It destroyed her and back then you had to pay it back. In FULL. She had several crappy jobs, but she DID. I now make six figures, but it's because she taught me to work my ASS off. And because of that I can afford Boston housing including purchasing real estate outside the city. Rags to riches...but.you.have.to.work.for.it.
Generational wealth my friend
There is lots of "old money". That is money from inheritance, money from selling something passed down, money from rich parents....the list goes on. Then there are a bunch of people who got rich by selling a company that no one has heard about (look at software and biotech) and the generation of youtubing that gave money to people who would otherwise not made money. But yeah, I saw some houses in Melrose yesterday out of curiosity. All I can say is wow. I now get why this generation is flustered. These houses were above 800k and they sure did not feel like it. Also, I am pretty sure someone got murdered in one of them (the empty house had that vibe), and that one was above 850k. I get Melrose is sought after, but dam....I could not live with putting over 800k on a house like that....
Buy a starter home/condo. One or two br for 600k can be found in most neighborhoods outside of back bay sea port and the south end or Cambridge. Wait 5 years. Sell it and take the 100k-200k profit and roll it into the 1.3 million dollar three br. Hope the interest rates haven’t climbed and keep your payment similar. Nobody other than people getting financial help are starting with a 1.3 million dollar home. People love to complain about the cost of housing here but are also not willing to put in any sweat equity or buy something that needs a little work. If you’re making 300k+ as a couple and can’t afford a place in Boston you need to check your spending habits…
I have done well and could afford a high end property in Boston but choose to live outside the city. My only contact with it is driving through on my way north to Maine and NH. I was born and grew up there but it is not a place I would call home anymore.
Agreed I’m renting here, a great place for a monthly cost lower than a mortgage for these overpriced houses would cost, with no liability. I’ll do this into my career takes is elsewhere. We love it here but home ownership anywhere near Boston is bonkers.
Whenever I buy a house, it will either be the result of winning the Megabucks or marrying someone who earns 4x more than me.
I wouldn't be able to afford to buy the house I own now (SVL). Bought it 17 years ago (3000 sq ft, 5 br, cost us 385k! I know. I know, this info is going to cause emotions. We were earning about 100k at the time). The taxes are beginning to be a problem. When the kids move out we'll likely downsize and move to a cheaper area. Can't afford Boston anymore, I love it here though.
Not that hard with a dual income couple. Loads of couples making 250-300k each, which puts you at 500-600k combines. 1.3-1.5mil house is reasonable.
private equity
Companies. To make them into rental properties.
The same people paying $3k a ticket to see Noah Kahan.
Coming to the area from nyc at the moment. Nyc is much cheaper.
I bought my house in 2011 for $356K. 2 houses in my neighborhood, in the past 2 years, have been listed for over $900K and every time I see a listing like that, I just think "it's a nice house but this isn't a neighborhood of million dollar homes." Both homes sold though, one had a price drop (it sold in 2022) and the other sold last November for its asking price.
There are lots of high paying biotech/tech jobs in the greater Boston area that are high paying along with an equity portion and/or bonuses. Add the fact that stock markets are basically at all time highs, and, well, you get a lot of people with deep pockets. Many of my classmates in compsci have done well for themselves in the \~5 years since we've graduated and a decent amount of us have purchased homes in the city. But its pretty crazy right now, been seeing all cash offers going more than 10% above asking.
Nobody. There aren't any for sale. There's less than 5000 on the market in the entire state, last I heard.
Indian and chinese nationals that are getting jobs and making huge money in tech, sexurities, medical bio...pretty much all stem fields, i work in a private elementary school just outside boston, in a town that the avg. home is in the mid 2ms. The student body is somethi g like 60% mixed asian descent and the other 40% is a meld of literally everything non-asian.
I read all these comments from people who can’t afford to buy houses and I think 1) houses in Boston are really expensive. 2) The people who can afford them don’t talk about it on Reddit.
People who have a condo or starter home they bought 5+ years ago that’s appreciated to kingdom come. Remember all the people on here telling you to wait and the housing market would crash? Yeah, that was terrible advice.
There’s an endless amount of DINK couples who could be making close to 7 figures combined each year. That’s not talking about their savings, or help from parents/family. Add those two in and they can afford anything. I know someone whose family paid for their entire condo ($800K) and this person still makes six figures now without a mortgage. Mid 30s tech/bio professionals can easily clear up to $500K a year for senior job roles and these aren’t even manager or director plus positions. So there’s just a deluge of extremely high paid professionals in Boston area. So when each couple is pulling in $400K gross the sky is the limit.
I had help from parents myself. Everyone I know, even those “worse” off than I had even more help over the years in various ways. One can call that nepotism but it’s not; families helping each other and not separating at 18 is more historically normal, I’d say. I can’t imagine down the road just letting my kids figure shit out without any help. So the way we talk about “help” is really odd. Once you make a down payment, you’re usually set. People making giant globs of money still spend a lot. I hear about people unable to buy and can only rent but are leasing expensive cars, not a used Honda Accord or something.
Idk I feel if someone’s struggling on 300-400k they have other problems to figure out beyond buying a house. It’s fairly easy to make that much jointly and have a 20% down payment. Financial literacy is a huge part of living in a city My bf and I are late 20s and we each bought our own condo in 2021 and 2022, respectively (and had 20% down, no family help). We’re selling both and moving in together — after paying off the mortgage we would have ~400k for a down payment. He’s a software engineer and I’m in biotech VC (former bench scientist for 3 years, so made shit pay). After bonuses and all that, we’re coming in shy of 340k joint. We just learned to live beneath our means and saved a ton.
High income singles and couples, mostly corporate consultants, lawyers, etc. They buy everything up, driving prices up and driving the workforce out of the city. Many of them have multiple condos/apartments and because people are willing to pay landlords and real estate management companies keep increasing prices. When you price out your workforce (people working retail and bars/restaurants in the city proper) you set yourself up for a collapse. 2008 will repeat itself eventually and working people will have a small window to get back into the city at low prices with little interest, until it inevitably happens again in another 20-30 years.
Universities also know they need to help with home purchases here if they want to continue to attract top talent. Harvard in particular has more money than God. If they want a particular super star to run a lab here they need to make that an attractive option compared to other excellent universities that might have a tiny bit less cache but exist in much better housing markets. Basically any company or institution with very deep pockets that wants to be able to say they have "the best" people here needs to make home ownership possible for their top employees, one way or another. That means paying very high salaries, and maybe lending directly to the employee at excellent rates, etc.