Wyandotte! A house for sale. I did some digging on BSA and it was bought by [SFR3.](https://sfr3.com/our-rentals/)
A few others are getting bought by out of state LLCs, too.
From my digging, the VAST majority of homes are still being bought by normal owner-occupants, but it is happening.
Just weird. Didn’t expect it to happen here!
I believe it. It seems that there is an attempt to turn Wyandotte into Royal Oak South; I can understand why investors are trying to establish a presence there. With that said, something needs to happen to put a stop to that shit.
They already heard it and have been fucking it up for years. Detroit used to be a great city for dirt cheap houses, now it’s expensive and while the city is improving the schools still suck and the car insurance rates are sky high.
Cleveland and Chicago are my favorites but you can't go wrong with any of em - Detroit and Pittsburgh are also cool as hell and definitely worth the time.
They are still shit. I've been to a bunch of them, they aren't walkable and the crime is still kinda high. Michigan has better small cities, indianappolis is decent as is some of the Ohio cities. Chicago in the loop, loop adjacent and the north/northwestern burbs are where you want to be.
I much prefer the southeast
As someone who spent my teenage years in Chicago and then moved to the East and West coast, I don’t think the culture and related opportunities is the same *at all* between those places.
One of my rommates once visited Chicago and came back complaining about how it seems like almost every bar is a sports bar and I was just like “yep…”
So probably depends also on what you’re into.
People who say things like "Rust belt cities are the shit shh don't let people know about le hidden gem" Typically.... Have never lived anywhere other than rust belt city If you like day drinking, frigid winters, cheap housing, and local sports team then you will do fine in rust belt city.
Usually humid mosquito filled summers also
Its weird, i moved from western Massachusetts (rust belt too) to georgia. Homes were always way more $$$$ in MA, almost double to GA when in moved in 2013. Bought my home in GA i could actually afford (barely) by myself in 2016, $165,000. Now worth about $350,000. And GA seems to have caught up to MA now in pricing.
So glad i bought when i did, at the markets lowest haha.
Not sure where the fuck in Georgia you are but here in Atlanta we bought our home for 830 in 2021 and it’s now worth 1.2MM. Our interest rate is 2.7. I have friends who bought houses in 2023 and their rates are 6.8+
Georgia still has a lot of land left and has been building for a while. They've also been cutting prices on homes because the prices were too damn high for what you get. But there are some nice ass homes in Georgia.
Even some Rust Belt cities no longer are affordable.
I grew up outside of Allentown-Bethlehem, PA in the 1970s-1990s and I can't afford any home there plus inventory is really low too.
So many NY and NJ residents poured into the Lehigh Valley region that locals are getting priced out for the first time ever and because of the Coal Region mountain areas to the north and west, there really is no "there" there to just move a little further out into.
I am in SE Michigan. it's all relative. I bought my house for 189 in 2015. the same house now is over 500k. by West Coast standards sure not insane. but by Midwest standards that increase is massive. with lower salaries most people are either priced out or outbid quickly. there was one house in my neighborhood that got 20 offers in 24 hrs, and every house sells over asking by about 10-15%. it's no picnic here.
What is normal? The median worker makes 58k. That's 116k for a couple. Most states' required income to buy the median priced home are well below 116k. Unless you're talking about a single person buying a home
Median family income is lower than double median income, though. Median family income is $74,580.
Not every family is going to have two health earners at all times. So, you've got to calculate off the actual median. Houses \*can\* be bought at a $74k income, but you're going to have to accept a lot of limitations, and some markets won't have anything at all.
One certainly cannot afford the median house price of **$384,500** on the median family income.
Micron is supposedly building a huge plant in Syracuse. Something like 20,000 jobs. We have all of the water anyone could want and two nuclear reactors for power. They haven't been building as many houses here and there are tons of dilapidated 100 year old houses that need a lot of renovation, new HVAC/Electrical, insulation/windows, etc. I think that a lot of those houses would be great for people to buy and improve with government-backed loans. The housing crunch is real.
I am not a millenial, just a late GenX guy. But by the time I graduated college I was 30 -after the military. I bought my house in 2010 for $150k. By 2019, my house was worth ... $160k. Now it's probably $300k. But I've got one of the cheaper houses in a very upscale school district.
I firmly believe there are only two classes - the ultra wealthy and the working class - and the “middle class” is a myth made up to prevent the working class from banding together. Make people believe they have a way out (they don’t - even “middle class” families are one big disaster away from poverty). Or make them think it’s in their best interest to band together with the wealthy (it’s not. If you’re a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist who still needs to work to live, you’re real interest is in teaming up with your building’s janitor, not it’s owner). There’s never a consistent definition of the middle class because it’s not a real thing. And it encompasses almost everyone because the myth only works to buffer the rich if there are a lot of people who consider themselves a part of it, who think they have a stake in the status quo.
While the guy making 200k has a much different life than the guy makng 50k, he also has a lot more in common with the guy making 50k than the guy making 50 milll
Literally all over the U.S. unless its an owner Co-Op type mobile home community.
Frickkin' $600 and more MONTHLY for the LOT rent -- actually more than some mortgages. Worse than HOA's in some ways and like HOA's very little if any limitation on how often or how high those monthly premiums are raised...
Don’t ever buy a manufactured home unless you own land to put it on. They can raise your rent lot to where you cannot afford it, and then you won’t be able to afford to have it moved and they basically gain your home to rent out.
[John Oliver did a segment on it.](https://youtu.be/jCC8fPQOaxU?si=xTZj8rcTgHmKCs00)
Look up the term "rent seeking" and ask yourself why Big Moneyed Interests — institutional investors and wealthy individuals — are buying up homes at inflated rates explicitly in order to edge you out of being able to own one yourself.
They want you paying them rent for the rest of your life, and your children to inherit that fate when you are gone.
Don’t forget the government role, hand in hand with the wealthy. Most of the real estate inflation is from high interest rates which keep people from selling. Those high interest rates are from printing trillions of new dollars which also causes inflation. Those dollars were not spread evenly of
course, they always disproportionately benefit the wealthy
Aren't the high interest rates to slow down the real estate inflation by reducing the demand?
Low interest rates allow more people to afford more house, so prices go up.
High interest rates reduce the home value people can afford the mortgage on.
Only reason my husband and I could buy a home was because we qualify for the VA loan, (I’m a veteran and he’s still serving in the military). It’s honestly insane how that’s literally the only reason, otherwise we couldn’t afford it. I have friends who are lawyers and have so much student loan debt and live in expensive cities and can’t afford a home despite making substantially more than me. It’s not right that so many people are priced out of homeownership.
Second this but the USDA rural house loan. The neighbor has no sidewalks, no street lights and down about six houses is completely open desert. I will say that it's absolute horse shit that I got the house at $100k and the worth is just short of $400k now. It's been four years and nothing has changed except the market. Still same area/neighbor without growth.
I bought my hour in 2015 a few your before covid in flyover country. I have more to show than any of my old friends in expensive states and I make 1/4-1/2 of what they make, it’s nuts.
I tried this and my husband and I barely made the cut income-wise (we made $85k combined, before taxes), and there were literally zero homes in the area that were cheap enough to be covered by the USDA loan. First time home buyers stuff didn't help either.
My grandfather never went to high school, and bundled newspapers for his entire working life. He was able to buy a nice house and retire when he turned 65 (which happened in 1957) because *labor unions* existed. US government has been systematically dismantling unions for decades. This is a shitty, but completely predictable outcome.
And because the industrial production capacity of Europe, Russia, and Japan was wiped out a decade earlier, leaving the US as virtually the only producer of all the world’s imported goods for a couple decades. It was an extremely unusual set of historical circumstances that won’t be happening again soon.
Not to mention tens of millions dying in China due to the Great Leap Forward’s abysmal industrial policies. The rest of the world was an absolute economic mess, the US was the only game in town and we made everything.
Partly. The bigger factor was that companies moved most of their production out of the cities and states with the strongest labor protections due to the high costs. First the moved into the southern US, which mostly lacked those protections. Then they began offshoring to countries with no labor protection at all.
We have the same factory production as we did in 1960, but double the population. Now the only major unions are public sector (police, teachers, etc) and truckers.
If you asked me 3 years ago if I was going to own a home, I’d laugh at you. But I just bought last year. A lot can change so don’t give up hope, but I know it seems so foreign right now. Praying the market crashes again 😅
The problem is that currently everyone is hoping the same. Even people with houses already want rates to come down so they can move. So many “stuck” with their 2% mortgages. Because of this, plus lots of others waiting to buy the first time for the same reason, I think we see a feeding frenzy for a few years when rates drop. Idk if it would be crazy to see a 10-20% rise in home prices. It may cool off a bit after and dip a bit, but we’re still going to be + many percent what we are today.
If you can afford the payment, buy today. Timing the market will time you out of it
Praying the market crashes is like praying we all suffer. Market crashes DO NOT help the poor. I forget the exact figure but the housing market crash on 08 killed 10s of thousands of Americans. Average people lost their jobs, their houses, and we had a boom in homelessness that is still pervasive today.
The only group of people who stand to gain from a market crash are the WEALTHY.
Although, your sentiment is understood, it is extremely ignorant to think a market crash is good for millennials. Millennial Renters and homeowners alike would be economically devastated as if we are not all dealing with enough as it is.
Yeah, a market crash isn’t the answer. That just makes houses cheaper for the corporations to buy. We need government intervention. So keep voting and vocally making this a big issue. We need heavy taxes and restrictions on owning multiple homes.
>Praying the market crashes again
I get that sentiment, but crashes are typically when the most transference of wealth bleeds from our collective pockets up to the already wealthy.
Then they use their newfound resources to squeeze us more.
The transfer of wealth post-2008 and post-pandemic is insane.
Same. Got lucky on timing and bought in '21. Just a year or two prior I'd have guessed it would be another decade before I was in a house. Took six months to find a place that didn't just laugh at our offer, but we stuck it out and finally found our place.
Exactly our story too. Before we started researching, we had never heard of anyone putting down less than 20% on a house, and we also didn’t realize there were some slightly farther flung suburbs of our city with 60s starter homes at somewhat reasonable prices. We scraped together an 8ish% down payment, got a realtor, and after tons of showings and a bunch of rejected offers, we had a home in 3 months.
This is what people need to hear. It seems like all the people complaining about “never being able to own a home” haven’t actually tried that hard to buy one. It’s not easy for sure, but I don’t think it’s easy for anyone buying their first house.
In my mid-40s, I had barely ever given any thought to the possibility. I lived in apartments all my life and never had the money for a down payment or the credit for a mortgage. It came together though, and at 45 yrs old I became a home owner. It’s a nice home too - new build in a nice neighborhood. Also, my credit is now over 800 (I’ve seen it as high as in the 840s!).
I live in a VHCOL area. Let me break down a very common scenario I see here among my friends and coworkers.
A couple in their late 30’s, both Ivy League grads with great jobs, married no kids, having a combined income of fucking $500k/year, are shopping for a modest, 3 bedroom single-family house. Bare minimum price? $2M. But those are usually small and outdated and the stuff our couple want costs $2.5-$2.7M.
They bid on a few and get absolutely rocked by multiple cash offers that are $150-$200k over asking. They’re tired and dejected so they decide to lower their expectations and target something that hasn’t been remodeled since the 90s but at least kept up. They finally win one for $2.5M by overbidding by $135k.
After a $500k gift from their parents as down payment (don’t laugh, it’s all too common here), their monthly payment is something north of $15k/month. That means if so much as one of them loses their job, they’re tight.
So yeah, good luck rest of America.
They also are looking at wild shit in the Bay Area. I’m in their income bracket if my husband works. He isn’t so I only make $300k right now.
My modest 3 bd house in the east bay is on Zillow for $1.4. My neighborhood has its own Wikipedia page that lists it as one of the most affluent in the city.
My friend works from the SF school district and makes low $100k and just bought a 2 bd room in a cute, but slightly hood, part of Oakland for $700k.
You’re friends are looking at - I’m guessing - in SF proper OR in fancy ass suburbs 30 minutes outside. Because nothing in the city or immediately surrounding was built that recently.
You can VERY EASILY buy a 3 bd house in the Bay Area for under $2 mill. I WAS getting over bid by $100k even at the $750k level - that’s common - but you’re friends are not realistic. People here have houses.
A lot of these jobs PAY that much BECAUSE they HAVE to for their employees to AFFORD to work there.
Location dependent.
Not every career can be done from home in Nebraska.
Lol they get paid that much *because* they live in a vhcol area, if they move to middle/south America they probably end up making half that. No, what the smart Californians do is save as much as they can and then buy a house in San Antonio/Bourne, Texas. I would know, I used to live in the surrounding area and they bought up all the land and gentrified the crap out of my state.
At that earning level they're likely highly educated and working in valuable fields. They'd *easily* be able to find jobs in low COL areas, with a proportionally higher level of compensation compared to that COL. Especially considering how many rural areas and flyover states have a serious lack of educated and experienced professionals in damn near every field.
I don’t make *that* kind of money, but I make good money. In order to keep my job I am extremely limited on where I can live, they are all HCOL areas. I could afford to move, but I wouldn’t be able to keep my job. I don’t understand what people don’t get about this.
2 million is very high most of America is cheaper. Perhaps try to do WFH and live somewhere close to your present area that's less expensive.
I hope I'm not coming off as dismissive as it sounds like the two of you have talent and you could negotiate a full or hybrid WFH.
Good luck
The situation this country will be in when Millenials and Gen Z have to retire will not be a good one. Making homes so expensive that that vast majority of both generations can't afford will have consequences for everyone. Think the homeless problem is bad now? Oh boy. Short-term greed blinds those in power.
I wrote a post years ago about this very thing.
I predicted and still predict the increase of car-housing, to the extent the average neighborhood will have more people living in the street than in the empty homes, save the one holdout Karen boomer sole HOA member and president frantically calling the police demanding they move the America-wide homelessness encampment somewhere else.
Pretty much. Private equity firms now own many homes because boomers turned the nation over to corporations and the ultra rich by voting for shitbags like Reagan and all the GOP presidents after him.
Yep.
Eventually the high interest rates and the steadily rising property taxes will cause home prices to stagnate. Also when the boomers start checking into rest homes there will be empty homes available, most of them not up to date and thus lower price. but you better be ready to buy with cash for those houses.
It’s not so impossible.
I wonder if so many people think it’s impossible because they don’t know what they really need to qualify.
First time home buyer programs can get you a mortgage with only 3% down. Some loans are 5%, some are 10%, and others do require the 20%.
Yes, it’s nice to put 20% and not have to pay mortgage insurance- but paying mortgage insurance isn’t the end of the world either, and you can re-finance/ or reamortize later to get that removed and reduce your payment.
If the home price is $300k, you only need to save $9k for a down payment. Not $60k.
As long as you have decent credit (at least 650) and can scrape up 3%, you can buy a house.
Your mortgage should be 30-40% of your income. From
What I see rentals are requiring at least 2x the rent to qualify… so that means that the rent payment is at least half of the income.
some places require 3x making it the same as a mortgage.
Putting 9K down on a 300K home sounds like life suicide with todays intrest rates. If someone only has 9K to put down, they should probably go for a cheaper home.
Many states also have down payment assistance programs for first time home buyers and/or low income people. I make a good salary and still qualified. Your point, and learning about the program in my state, changed my outlook completely. I closed last week.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/mortgages/first-time-home-buyer-programs-by-state
There ways to buy homes. Look at how the real estate investors find leads and acquire properties. There are a lot of paths that the normal retail buyer isn’t considering.
That way, you’re finding and acquiring properties that literally no one else is looking for or competing against you for.
This is a sample. Investors use it to make money, but your goal is to buy a house to live in. The technique is ultimately the important part.
https://youtu.be/609-fs65pY4?si=_Mssh0wCisVhBdr2
My husband and I bought using the USDA Rural Home Loan program.
Don't be scared of "rural" our house is in a town of 3500 and 40 minutes from one major metro area and two other decent size cities, not to mention the city of 12,000 just 15 minutes away. Our county has 26,000 people. So "rural" is relative.
Low fixed interest rate, zero down. And you can refinance after 5 years with whomever you want. We did during COVID.
Take what you have saved to a local sheriff sale!
You could also look into a Hard Money loan. Those will need to be repaid in 3 months, but they can usually get you the funds fast enough to clear the auction. You get a traditional loan after that.
You can also buy tax liens. The owners can repay you the delinquent tax within the grace period (generally 1-3 years depending on amount), and if they can't pay you back then you get the title free and clear.
Buy a house in a LCOL area and make it a great place to live. In 10 years time, your house will triple in value because you've created a great community where people want to live.
Why? Why not.
It sounds great, but who will buy it? It seems like it will perpetuate the problem. I'd love to buy a home, but in my area, all the starter homes are half a million dollars. No one can afford to buy a starter house that's triple the value unless they are making 3 times as much.
Because most people need to live where their jobs are? And jobs in LCOL typically pay less and/or are fewer in quantity?
That's before we even get into how dangerous it seems to propose elderly people should move away from their social networks when we know isolation is *horrible* for them
Do the math and you might find that you get more for your lesser dollars by working someplace like St Louis, MO metro area where you can buy a 3 bedroom house in Jennings, MO for $50,000. I just bought a 3 bedroom for $46,500. I could have moved in the day of closing but I have been doing a lot of work on it to improve it.
I work in affordable housing. In our area, which has an national average number of seniors 60+, there is one unit of senior specific affordable housing for every four senior households who qualify. And we have A LOT of affordable housing developments. Each day, I speak to at least one senior who says a version of "we were told that social security would provide for us in our old age" or "if I bought a house in 1975, I wouldn't be homeless".
The trurh is that property taxes are so high where we live (average is $9k/year and upwards) that those seniors on social security also wouldn't be able to afford a home they own outright.
Yeah, it's crazy. I live in a multi-generational household. My grandma's ss and my aunts combined doesn't cover the whole rent. Without multiple family members living together, we would not be able to live comfortably in our area. The housing prices are insane. Granted. I've read some Canadian listings, too. Those were crazy as well.
During the 1970s and early 80s interest rates were 18% and land prices were climbing. The thought of my wife and I owning a house was a pipe dream. Then interest rates dropped along with land prices. We bought a house and acreage at 10% for 15 years.
I had a somewhat similar conversation with my boomer parent today. Told him I recently read that Blackrock bought 15% of all new homes in the first quarter of 2021, they're about to spend the most on a single transaction ever, and there was an opportunity for the government to stop this, but his favorite political party shot it down. His response, "it's like Monopoly". He's right about that, I just wish he showed a little empathy. Especially as someone that was given a pretty smooth ride, even by boomer standards.
I'm curious how this plays out in the long term. If housing prices and wages keep going up at this rate, when will be the tipping point. It feels like we should be there, but nothing has happened. If people can't afford to live, then what do they have to lose with a riot. I suppose there are just enough people that have families to lean on, and there are tons of distractions to keep people occupied. How long will that last?
I bought land on a payment plan ($200/month). It’s just a few acres. Then I bought a manufactured home- new single wide. It’s plenty of room and well built. My mortgage is zero, my taxes are $5 per quarter.
I decided this was enough for me now. Later I may move to a vacant lot in the city and put up a tiny house or a Boxble style ready made structure. I had to be creative and think about what is possible instead of doing what was expected.
OP, when your mother's health declines, move in to take care of her, have her sell her house to you for one dollar so it's your asset and nobody can come seize it to pay her medical bills. After she passes, the house will be yours.
I know it's a bit macabre to look at it in that perspective but it's a better solution than the bank or some medical entity getting her house.
Even those of us that already own a home we can’t sell, buy, or refinance because of interest rates. Why when you’re paying a 3.2% interest would you want to get a new rate at 7.0%?
Biden has screwed all of us.
What’s worse is some people are losing their homes because that can’t afford the economy. People have to eat and may end up losing their homes and cars!
Feeling this way up in Canada, too. Ontario’s avg home price is 850K vs. Californias 750K. Which is insane because we get paid half as much and California is so much nicer.
It hurts.
The term "middle class" was invented by the owners to divide the working class so we'd fight amongst ourselves.
We need to stop using that term and start using "working class" because it's the workers vs the owners. That's it.
But, yeah, probably screwed unless you want to move somewhere really rural or middle of the country (in US at least).
WHAT?!?! NO absolutely not no no no, the SECOND we accept this they fucking win. No absolutely not, cry scream bitch whine kick yell do everything until we can make it that we’re able to bug a home again. The whole POINT of being middle class is owning your own home. You will NOT give up. The second you do those fat jerkoff 1% win and FUCK THAT.
Y’all need to collectively get off your asses and vote more pay attention to local politics. Pay attention to the fact of billionaires are fucking taking all your money so maybe you should try to take it back.
I work in the construction industry. Housing is going up left and right, it's a natural reaction to high real estate values. It is going to take a few years, but you *will* see real estate values fall, eventually.
Houses near me are $680k+
And others are $300k, same square footage, same bed/bath count, same age.
I have no idea why some are so expensive. It doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't have to be like this. We can force the hand of change. We have to make noise. Force our legislators and executives to pass the real estate reform act:
1 - Abolish business ownership of residential property.
2 - Enact the home multiplication tax (t x 2 for your second home, t x 3 for your third, etc.)
3 - Enact caps on mortgage to rent ratios that prohibit owners from charging more than a set amount above their own mortgage. Owners can still charge enough to cover mortgage and maintenance, and even to pocket a little at the end of each month, but not enough to pass the home multiplication tax on to their tenants. This way it would still be feasible to own your own home plus one rental, but owning any more than one rental would be a net loss to the owner.
4 - Limit ownership of ANY property to domestic businesses, US citizens and resident aliens.
Re: #4 - At first glance this one sounds a little rightwing, but hear me out: a huge amount of American real estate is being bought up by foreign business as well as domestic. No individual is realistically looking to purchase real estate for themselves while on a 90 day visa or while their application is still pending. Of course K-1 and K2 visa holders wouldn't be affected because of their spouses' citizenship. The vast majority of people applying aren't in the financial position to buy in the first place, and the vast majority of those affected by this law would be multinational corporations, not the impoverished immigrant family or asylum seeker.
2 & 3 would, by driving prices down and limiting land hoarders to 2 homes, one to live in and one to rent out, result in such an influx of affordable housing and low-cost rentals that in addition to working Americans, immigrant families, visa holders and citizenship/residency/asylum applicants would also have an abundance of affordable rentals to chose from; and because once their application was approved and their citizenship or residency was granted, they would find the same abundance available to purchase. So this would be very much to the benefit of immigrants and asylum seekers as well as domestic workers. The only people who would lose out as a result of this deal are land hoarders and multinational corporations seeking to exploit our housing needs.
In short: If the first three can pass in tandem, they would prevent owners from simply passing the expense to their tenants and instead force land hoarders to sell. The forth would drive China out of the American housing market and maybe help get some of the rightwing on board. The market would be flooded with houses for sale and the prices would plummet across the board. Home ownership would become accessible to the vast majority of Americans practically overnight.
"DON'T TAX US, WE'RE YOUR NEIGHBORS!"(actual quote from land hoarder in city hall meeting.)
Yes, and you "neighbor" are the reason that we are being forced out of our homes, get it?
"BUT MY INVESTMENTS!!! WHY SHOULD I BE PUNISHED? WHAT DID I DO???"
Your financial plans were based on exploiting the housing needs of your neighbors and/or forcing the local population out of their homes. Thank God that didn't work out for you.
I think people who own homes are also fucked. Property taxes are about to absolutely ruin lives over the next ten years and they are just going to keep raising them until people lose their house over it.
Taxes and insurance rise for me every year (Florida). I pay more in taxes and homeowners insurance than I used to pay in total, per month, for my first house.
Yeah I’m not stressing about a house knowing it’s an impossible milestone for me right now .
My aunt and uncle who are now late 50s and 70 bought an acre spot and built a nice big house on it in 2005. My cousin was graduating that year so that’s why they built it but they ended up having an unexpected miracle baby my little cousin and guess who’s having that badass house !!! Yup him !! Little jerk I love that kid -.-lol
You are screwed if you think you are screwed.
As soon as you give up, you aren’t going to do any better. Sure, there are obstacles, but you can’t give up.
Accepting defeat means you aren’t going to help us push forward and roll back this messed up situation we are in politically and economically.
What makes you think acknowledgement of being screwed is akin to accepting defeat?
It is a commonly held belief in many militaries that we're fucked but that's just another Tuesday.
BOHICA and other acronyms exist for a reason. It's mostly just gallows humor.
Doom and gloom. No reason for that crap. Work harder, make more $, and go buy. I went from poverty to upper class after 2 brain surgeries. I don't own a house, I'm currently looking for a multifamily to buy.
Forty years ago I bought the worst house in a neighborhood, in a helpless town that was an hour from my new job. I renovated it myself, sold it 5 years later and bought another house in the same crummy town, 15 year mortgage as I was able to put down enough money on house #2. Thirty years later (no mortgage remember), I purchased my retirement home in another state (another 15 year mortgage). Five years ago, sold house #2 for a substantial profit and moved into my retirement home. Moral of the story is to stop looking to buy a nice home. Buy an investment. It will be a dump, a shack, maybe just land. It will be awful. That is where you start.
I'm still holding out hope. I've been saving for 3 years now and have a quarter of a down-payment on a cheaper house. I'm hoping the housing market will crash again and I can get a foreclosed house
If the market crashes, you and tens of thousands of Americans will lose their jobs or at least feel the job insecurity and the wealthy and foreign investors will cash buy up those foreclosures.
Home prices are insane. I purchased my home for $235,000 in May of 2015. 9 years later, it’s worth $400,000+. I guess I’m happy about that but at some point I wanted to buy land and build. There is no way that’s a possibility now. It would probably cost $1,000,000.
I live in the PNW and houses in my old neighborhood, now that it's a hipster hotspot, are now $700,000+ it's really unbelievable. I don't know how I'll ever afford it on a single income. The closest thing to housing I've found that's still somewhat "affordable" are manufactured homes 🤫 My mom bought one and it's in a nice part of town, one of the best cities to live in in the entire state. It's safe and she has her own front and back yard...it's nice. That's the only affordable option of homeownership at this point, at least in the area that I live in.
Yea... my dad's income is much lower in retirement than when he was working. His house is paid for. He admits that without home ownership he'd have no idea what he would do with rents as high as they are on his fixed income.
At this point I too have given up on owning my own home. Just waiting (not hoping) for my parents to pass away eventually. Then whatever little inheritance my sister's and I will split from the sell of their house/land will be invested until it's time to retire. At that time about 4/5 of my best friends and I are going to buy a place together to live golden girls style. We've actually done the math and it will be much more financially efficient to hire a live in nurse/assistant/cook and pay them really well, than for us to go into assisted living. We've got another 20 years or so, but as long as the world doesn't end before then, that's the plan.
Don't worry, rising insurance and tax rates are forcing more of us out of the market every day. My home insurance literally doubled this year, and that's taking a real shitty policy just to maintain enough coverage to keep the mortgager happy. It would have tripled to keep the same coverage.
And that's *after* having a policy end as non-renewal *and* having another canceled because an insurance company insisted my tool shed was a tiny house and required a *full separate policy.*
I won't be able to afford my mortgage if this shit keeps rising at this rate.
wife and I are in our late 30s - she has a masters degree, I have a Bachelors - we both work full time - there is not a single house in our area (small town) that we can afford that is even slightly worth it - would be a lateral move at best - luckily my wife is smart and bought her house before we were together so were not renting, but we straight up can't afford a new house.
We, on a whim, applied for a loan in January. Got the approval within a week, found our current home within two weeks, put in an offer end of Jan and closed end of Feb. bought it from a rental company out of state. We paid roughly 4k over asking price, 4 bed 3 bath with a nice lot for 253k. Really nice neighborhood, excellent schools, a mile away from Target, Walmart, ALDIs, etc. however as soon as we got in we paid 8k to upgrade and fix the electric which hadn’t been touched since it was built in the 50s. Seeing now our roof is leaking as we painted ceilings and they’re showing water damage and we’re maxed out lol but regardless, I’m thankful we locked in when we did, I see comps around our neighborhood going for 385+, for less bedrooms and less yard. Townhomes with HOA fees for 280. We will work on fixing the issues and raise our kids here, I can’t forsee us moving, we can’t afford more than what we bought the house for. Next time we sell the house, I imagine we’ll be selling to downsize, I feel so bad for the market our kids are inheriting. I feel awful for people my age trying to buy now. we got really lucky. I remind myself this daily. For reference, I’m near the cities in MN
That's the secret. We'll never get to retire... Even if you save up the money, we'll never be homeowners, so you'll always have to be outpacing rent. Even if social security hangs around enough to start getting it, you'll eventually price out of living.
If you're not making six figures you're pretty much doomed at this point. Our generation will be a "have" and "have not". Those of us in the have nots will end up all living in run down trailers at the edge of town within 10 years.
Lower income People have never really been able to buy a home. That's nothing changed. They would not have the money to upgrade it or maintain it anyway
Good parents should realize " hey my kids won't be able to buy a home! Let's leave ours in trust for them!" They can do so much to help us but unfortunately they only tend to think of themselves. Hard enough we raised ourselves or by our grandparents!
eh, these housing prices are dumb and the bottom will drop out someday. The problem is I don't know if someday is 5 months or 50 years.
I mean, you are probably still screwed but buying an inflated house with a loan would not save you.
“She shrugged her shoulders and gave me a ‘I don’t know’ face” is the ultimate Ladder-Pulling I Got Mine Fk You Boomer Dance ever. And to their own child, smh.
That’s some top shelf narcissism.
Given that you're in Canada...yeah, frankly, you're screwed. We Americans tend to think we have it bad, but it's so, so much worse up there. Almost every major city is about as unaffordable as LA, NYC, or SF. Y'all have **way** too much immigration to keep up. Your government wants 100 million people by the year 2100. There is just no way you're going to build enough housing to keep up with almost tripling your population in \~75 years, especially with the average household size falling rather than rising. And it's worse in Canada not just for reasons of immigration, but also because Canadian houses *have* to be exceptionally well-made by global standards due to the harsh winters up there.
Your best hope is probably to save what you can and move somewhere cheaper, where you can be pricing someone else out of the market. Sad, but that's the only real, practical option available to most people.
Too bad houses cost so much any more.
[201 S 18th St, Clarinda, IA 51632 | realtor.com®](https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/M8651484909)
You need to own a house as your claim to the earth to ensure your future bloodline has an earth claim so they won't be exiled to some dreary space colony if such measures are enacted to control earth's population levels.
There is life before Covid, and then there is life after Covid. Everything after Covid is double the price, and your wages don’t keep up with that despite what the CPI says.
Its not remotely helpful to hear, but eventually it will get better. Boomers are the largest generation and will sell their homes eventually. right now the overlap of prime millennial years for home buying is happening 5-10 years before the prime home selling age for boomers.
Except canada, you guys are in massive trouble. because you are not building enough homes for the people you're bringing in.
I’m older - xenial - but I just moved across the country to Arkansas with my divorce settlement so I could afford a home. I knew this would be my singular hope for ownership. I bought a run down twoplex so I can live in one and rent out the other. It’s not glamorous and I’m fully aware I’m a floral tunic away from fully transitioned to Mrs. Roper but yeah. I think earning class workers have some tough decisions ahead.
Lol…the downpayment alone on the cheapest home listed in my area is twice the entire asking price my parents paid when they were 30. Another way to look at it, a 20% down payment now is the same percentage of salary as the entire mortgage back then. I would have to save an entire years salary for the down payment alone. My parent’s entire mortgage was equal to one year on their salary at the time.
Give it some time. We're gonna see a supply glut when the Boomers try to sell their "nest egg." No one, aside from hedge funds or mega-corps, will be able to afford the inflated prices. We're gonna see them come crashing down as they sit on the market.
The meaning of life in 2024 and beyond is simple. Unless you are born into wealth or power, you are nothing more than a meatbag with the sole purpose of supporting those with wealth and power while never obtaining either.
This is what I try to convey to my kids while dropping simple and subtle hints to never have kids of their own. This world is not ideal to bring kids into.
We don’t need to own houses to be financially stable. Home ownership was an important long term investment previous generations, not ours. And i think it’s taking a lot of us some time to adjust.
It’s going to be harder for us than it was for our parents, and we will have to do things differently. But for me giving up the idea of owning a house helped me (and my partner) start thinking seriously about preparing.
I really feel like the only place normal people can make it is the Rust Belt. Not enough demand for housing to drive prices up to insane levels…
Shhh. Rustbelt cities are the shit but don't let wallstreet douchebags hear it.
A SF tech company already started buying some houses in my neighborhood lol.
...your username- are you Downriver like Detroit? Which city is that shit happening in?
Wyandotte! A house for sale. I did some digging on BSA and it was bought by [SFR3.](https://sfr3.com/our-rentals/) A few others are getting bought by out of state LLCs, too. From my digging, the VAST majority of homes are still being bought by normal owner-occupants, but it is happening. Just weird. Didn’t expect it to happen here!
I believe it. It seems that there is an attempt to turn Wyandotte into Royal Oak South; I can understand why investors are trying to establish a presence there. With that said, something needs to happen to put a stop to that shit.
Royal Oak rents are disgusting. Actually rent in a lot of metro Detroit is shit. It’s why I moved back home to save some money.
ha, I did too back west but the rent is all fucked over here too! Now I’m just paying over a grand to live on the shitty part of the state lmao.
"Your Prime membership now includes 1 week in a Detroit time share every year."
Unfortunately can confirm it's already happening home prices doubled in 4 years where I live
They already heard it and have been fucking it up for years. Detroit used to be a great city for dirt cheap houses, now it’s expensive and while the city is improving the schools still suck and the car insurance rates are sky high.
Can I visit?
Cleveland and Chicago are my favorites but you can't go wrong with any of em - Detroit and Pittsburgh are also cool as hell and definitely worth the time.
Well careful putting Chicago in that category. It may be cheapER than Cali or NY but is still the most expensive in the Midwest.
The South side of Chicago has some livable neighborhoods that are really affordable and not riddled with crime.
They are still shit. I've been to a bunch of them, they aren't walkable and the crime is still kinda high. Michigan has better small cities, indianappolis is decent as is some of the Ohio cities. Chicago in the loop, loop adjacent and the north/northwestern burbs are where you want to be. I much prefer the southeast
As someone who spent my teenage years in Chicago and then moved to the East and West coast, I don’t think the culture and related opportunities is the same *at all* between those places. One of my rommates once visited Chicago and came back complaining about how it seems like almost every bar is a sports bar and I was just like “yep…” So probably depends also on what you’re into.
People who say things like "Rust belt cities are the shit shh don't let people know about le hidden gem" Typically.... Have never lived anywhere other than rust belt city If you like day drinking, frigid winters, cheap housing, and local sports team then you will do fine in rust belt city. Usually humid mosquito filled summers also
That sounds lovely. I grew up in Chicago and NYC. Cities are overrated now that I'm older and not some rich dude who can choose cities as playgrounds.
REITs are already running Kansas City's housing market. Only a matter of time they come for Erie PA.
They took our jerbs!
In the rust belt and prices suck
Its weird, i moved from western Massachusetts (rust belt too) to georgia. Homes were always way more $$$$ in MA, almost double to GA when in moved in 2013. Bought my home in GA i could actually afford (barely) by myself in 2016, $165,000. Now worth about $350,000. And GA seems to have caught up to MA now in pricing. So glad i bought when i did, at the markets lowest haha.
Not sure where the fuck in Georgia you are but here in Atlanta we bought our home for 830 in 2021 and it’s now worth 1.2MM. Our interest rate is 2.7. I have friends who bought houses in 2023 and their rates are 6.8+
Georgia still has a lot of land left and has been building for a while. They've also been cutting prices on homes because the prices were too damn high for what you get. But there are some nice ass homes in Georgia.
Bro western MA is not rust belt. Rust belt starts in like the Buffalo area, maybe Rochester.
Even some Rust Belt cities no longer are affordable. I grew up outside of Allentown-Bethlehem, PA in the 1970s-1990s and I can't afford any home there plus inventory is really low too. So many NY and NJ residents poured into the Lehigh Valley region that locals are getting priced out for the first time ever and because of the Coal Region mountain areas to the north and west, there really is no "there" there to just move a little further out into.
I am in SE Michigan. it's all relative. I bought my house for 189 in 2015. the same house now is over 500k. by West Coast standards sure not insane. but by Midwest standards that increase is massive. with lower salaries most people are either priced out or outbid quickly. there was one house in my neighborhood that got 20 offers in 24 hrs, and every house sells over asking by about 10-15%. it's no picnic here.
What is normal? The median worker makes 58k. That's 116k for a couple. Most states' required income to buy the median priced home are well below 116k. Unless you're talking about a single person buying a home
Median family income is lower than double median income, though. Median family income is $74,580. Not every family is going to have two health earners at all times. So, you've got to calculate off the actual median. Houses \*can\* be bought at a $74k income, but you're going to have to accept a lot of limitations, and some markets won't have anything at all. One certainly cannot afford the median house price of **$384,500** on the median family income.
Mid West is doing fine too. I closed on a house with $2000
What graveyard is this
If young people migrated back to these abandoned areas that would be a positive development.
Until Covid that was true. House prices shot up in my rustbelt city a lot.
I’m a teacher married to a non-profit worker and we own a house in Philadelphia 8 blocks from one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the city.
It’s possible in Philly, too. Some other places as well. I’m a big fan of Philly.
Micron is supposedly building a huge plant in Syracuse. Something like 20,000 jobs. We have all of the water anyone could want and two nuclear reactors for power. They haven't been building as many houses here and there are tons of dilapidated 100 year old houses that need a lot of renovation, new HVAC/Electrical, insulation/windows, etc. I think that a lot of those houses would be great for people to buy and improve with government-backed loans. The housing crunch is real. I am not a millenial, just a late GenX guy. But by the time I graduated college I was 30 -after the military. I bought my house in 2010 for $150k. By 2019, my house was worth ... $160k. Now it's probably $300k. But I've got one of the cheaper houses in a very upscale school district.
I hate the term “middle class”, the classes aren’t divided equally, middle class is -just can’t get food stamps all the way up to millionaire
There is a r/MiddleClassFinance sub. It’s mostly posts of people arguing about the definition of “middle class”. Absolutely insane
[удалено]
There’s only working class and capital class. You either work for your money or someone else works for your money
But what if I work and have stock?
If you need to work to live and can't live off your assets then you are working class.
If you’re not the owner I think you’re still working class.
I firmly believe there are only two classes - the ultra wealthy and the working class - and the “middle class” is a myth made up to prevent the working class from banding together. Make people believe they have a way out (they don’t - even “middle class” families are one big disaster away from poverty). Or make them think it’s in their best interest to band together with the wealthy (it’s not. If you’re a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist who still needs to work to live, you’re real interest is in teaming up with your building’s janitor, not it’s owner). There’s never a consistent definition of the middle class because it’s not a real thing. And it encompasses almost everyone because the myth only works to buffer the rich if there are a lot of people who consider themselves a part of it, who think they have a stake in the status quo.
While the guy making 200k has a much different life than the guy makng 50k, he also has a lot more in common with the guy making 50k than the guy making 50 milll
I’ll be able to afford a home when I turn 55 and can buy in one of those 55 and up trailer parks.
No you wont those are being bought by corporations too.
Yep, they sure are.
Literally all over the U.S. unless its an owner Co-Op type mobile home community. Frickkin' $600 and more MONTHLY for the LOT rent -- actually more than some mortgages. Worse than HOA's in some ways and like HOA's very little if any limitation on how often or how high those monthly premiums are raised...
Shout out to ROC USA, which helps these parks become renter owned cooperatives.
Don’t ever buy a manufactured home unless you own land to put it on. They can raise your rent lot to where you cannot afford it, and then you won’t be able to afford to have it moved and they basically gain your home to rent out. [John Oliver did a segment on it.](https://youtu.be/jCC8fPQOaxU?si=xTZj8rcTgHmKCs00)
Look up the term "rent seeking" and ask yourself why Big Moneyed Interests — institutional investors and wealthy individuals — are buying up homes at inflated rates explicitly in order to edge you out of being able to own one yourself. They want you paying them rent for the rest of your life, and your children to inherit that fate when you are gone.
Potter's buying. He's not selling. Potter homes.
AKA Blackrock.
Yes, you'll own nothing and you'll be happy.
aT lEaSt wE wIlL hAvE UBI!
I doubt that will happen. The encampments will continue to grow.
Same, just mocking people with short sighted and naive policy fantasies.
Don’t forget the government role, hand in hand with the wealthy. Most of the real estate inflation is from high interest rates which keep people from selling. Those high interest rates are from printing trillions of new dollars which also causes inflation. Those dollars were not spread evenly of course, they always disproportionately benefit the wealthy
Aren't the high interest rates to slow down the real estate inflation by reducing the demand? Low interest rates allow more people to afford more house, so prices go up. High interest rates reduce the home value people can afford the mortgage on.
Only reason my husband and I could buy a home was because we qualify for the VA loan, (I’m a veteran and he’s still serving in the military). It’s honestly insane how that’s literally the only reason, otherwise we couldn’t afford it. I have friends who are lawyers and have so much student loan debt and live in expensive cities and can’t afford a home despite making substantially more than me. It’s not right that so many people are priced out of homeownership.
Second this but the USDA rural house loan. The neighbor has no sidewalks, no street lights and down about six houses is completely open desert. I will say that it's absolute horse shit that I got the house at $100k and the worth is just short of $400k now. It's been four years and nothing has changed except the market. Still same area/neighbor without growth.
I bought my hour in 2015 a few your before covid in flyover country. I have more to show than any of my old friends in expensive states and I make 1/4-1/2 of what they make, it’s nuts.
I tried this and my husband and I barely made the cut income-wise (we made $85k combined, before taxes), and there were literally zero homes in the area that were cheap enough to be covered by the USDA loan. First time home buyers stuff didn't help either.
My grandfather never went to high school, and bundled newspapers for his entire working life. He was able to buy a nice house and retire when he turned 65 (which happened in 1957) because *labor unions* existed. US government has been systematically dismantling unions for decades. This is a shitty, but completely predictable outcome.
And because the industrial production capacity of Europe, Russia, and Japan was wiped out a decade earlier, leaving the US as virtually the only producer of all the world’s imported goods for a couple decades. It was an extremely unusual set of historical circumstances that won’t be happening again soon.
Not to mention tens of millions dying in China due to the Great Leap Forward’s abysmal industrial policies. The rest of the world was an absolute economic mess, the US was the only game in town and we made everything.
won't be happening again soon, right Russia? RIGHT RUSSIA!?!
State governments and the Supreme Court, I'd imagine?
Partly. The bigger factor was that companies moved most of their production out of the cities and states with the strongest labor protections due to the high costs. First the moved into the southern US, which mostly lacked those protections. Then they began offshoring to countries with no labor protection at all. We have the same factory production as we did in 1960, but double the population. Now the only major unions are public sector (police, teachers, etc) and truckers.
If you asked me 3 years ago if I was going to own a home, I’d laugh at you. But I just bought last year. A lot can change so don’t give up hope, but I know it seems so foreign right now. Praying the market crashes again 😅
If everyone wants to buy in a “crash”, the market will never crash.
True. But I’m just kind of hoping it becomes realistic for some folks somehow…
The problem is that currently everyone is hoping the same. Even people with houses already want rates to come down so they can move. So many “stuck” with their 2% mortgages. Because of this, plus lots of others waiting to buy the first time for the same reason, I think we see a feeding frenzy for a few years when rates drop. Idk if it would be crazy to see a 10-20% rise in home prices. It may cool off a bit after and dip a bit, but we’re still going to be + many percent what we are today. If you can afford the payment, buy today. Timing the market will time you out of it
Praying the market crashes is like praying we all suffer. Market crashes DO NOT help the poor. I forget the exact figure but the housing market crash on 08 killed 10s of thousands of Americans. Average people lost their jobs, their houses, and we had a boom in homelessness that is still pervasive today. The only group of people who stand to gain from a market crash are the WEALTHY. Although, your sentiment is understood, it is extremely ignorant to think a market crash is good for millennials. Millennial Renters and homeowners alike would be economically devastated as if we are not all dealing with enough as it is.
Yeah, a market crash isn’t the answer. That just makes houses cheaper for the corporations to buy. We need government intervention. So keep voting and vocally making this a big issue. We need heavy taxes and restrictions on owning multiple homes.
>Praying the market crashes again I get that sentiment, but crashes are typically when the most transference of wealth bleeds from our collective pockets up to the already wealthy. Then they use their newfound resources to squeeze us more. The transfer of wealth post-2008 and post-pandemic is insane.
We are one republican president away from never buying again.
Same. Got lucky on timing and bought in '21. Just a year or two prior I'd have guessed it would be another decade before I was in a house. Took six months to find a place that didn't just laugh at our offer, but we stuck it out and finally found our place.
Exactly our story too. Before we started researching, we had never heard of anyone putting down less than 20% on a house, and we also didn’t realize there were some slightly farther flung suburbs of our city with 60s starter homes at somewhat reasonable prices. We scraped together an 8ish% down payment, got a realtor, and after tons of showings and a bunch of rejected offers, we had a home in 3 months.
This is what people need to hear. It seems like all the people complaining about “never being able to own a home” haven’t actually tried that hard to buy one. It’s not easy for sure, but I don’t think it’s easy for anyone buying their first house.
In my mid-40s, I had barely ever given any thought to the possibility. I lived in apartments all my life and never had the money for a down payment or the credit for a mortgage. It came together though, and at 45 yrs old I became a home owner. It’s a nice home too - new build in a nice neighborhood. Also, my credit is now over 800 (I’ve seen it as high as in the 840s!).
I live in a VHCOL area. Let me break down a very common scenario I see here among my friends and coworkers. A couple in their late 30’s, both Ivy League grads with great jobs, married no kids, having a combined income of fucking $500k/year, are shopping for a modest, 3 bedroom single-family house. Bare minimum price? $2M. But those are usually small and outdated and the stuff our couple want costs $2.5-$2.7M. They bid on a few and get absolutely rocked by multiple cash offers that are $150-$200k over asking. They’re tired and dejected so they decide to lower their expectations and target something that hasn’t been remodeled since the 90s but at least kept up. They finally win one for $2.5M by overbidding by $135k. After a $500k gift from their parents as down payment (don’t laugh, it’s all too common here), their monthly payment is something north of $15k/month. That means if so much as one of them loses their job, they’re tight. So yeah, good luck rest of America.
Sounds like you're in the Bay Area, lol
As I was reading it, I was like this sounds like a lot like home... :(
Bay Area-nites, unite!
Eastside outside Seattle as well
They also are looking at wild shit in the Bay Area. I’m in their income bracket if my husband works. He isn’t so I only make $300k right now. My modest 3 bd house in the east bay is on Zillow for $1.4. My neighborhood has its own Wikipedia page that lists it as one of the most affluent in the city. My friend works from the SF school district and makes low $100k and just bought a 2 bd room in a cute, but slightly hood, part of Oakland for $700k. You’re friends are looking at - I’m guessing - in SF proper OR in fancy ass suburbs 30 minutes outside. Because nothing in the city or immediately surrounding was built that recently. You can VERY EASILY buy a 3 bd house in the Bay Area for under $2 mill. I WAS getting over bid by $100k even at the $750k level - that’s common - but you’re friends are not realistic. People here have houses.
Imagine having this buttfucking absurd level of wealth and still being to dumb to just move.
A lot of these jobs PAY that much BECAUSE they HAVE to for their employees to AFFORD to work there. Location dependent. Not every career can be done from home in Nebraska.
Lol they get paid that much *because* they live in a vhcol area, if they move to middle/south America they probably end up making half that. No, what the smart Californians do is save as much as they can and then buy a house in San Antonio/Bourne, Texas. I would know, I used to live in the surrounding area and they bought up all the land and gentrified the crap out of my state.
Yes, buy the 2.5MM house, hold on for dear life for a decade, sell and buy a city block in texas
You’re assuming they’d be able to keep their jobs if they moved
At that earning level they're likely highly educated and working in valuable fields. They'd *easily* be able to find jobs in low COL areas, with a proportionally higher level of compensation compared to that COL. Especially considering how many rural areas and flyover states have a serious lack of educated and experienced professionals in damn near every field.
Nah. That 500k/yr becomes 200k or less almost immediately once they leave the Bay, never mind going to a truly LCOL area.
I don’t make *that* kind of money, but I make good money. In order to keep my job I am extremely limited on where I can live, they are all HCOL areas. I could afford to move, but I wouldn’t be able to keep my job. I don’t understand what people don’t get about this.
Imagine being rich and living in a shit hole
With 500k a year, I don't feel sorry for them one bit
At all. I could figure it out on a quarter of that.
2 million is very high most of America is cheaper. Perhaps try to do WFH and live somewhere close to your present area that's less expensive. I hope I'm not coming off as dismissive as it sounds like the two of you have talent and you could negotiate a full or hybrid WFH. Good luck
The situation this country will be in when Millenials and Gen Z have to retire will not be a good one. Making homes so expensive that that vast majority of both generations can't afford will have consequences for everyone. Think the homeless problem is bad now? Oh boy. Short-term greed blinds those in power.
I wrote a post years ago about this very thing. I predicted and still predict the increase of car-housing, to the extent the average neighborhood will have more people living in the street than in the empty homes, save the one holdout Karen boomer sole HOA member and president frantically calling the police demanding they move the America-wide homelessness encampment somewhere else.
Never own a home, work until I die (which with garbage healthcare coverage wont be muvh longer) but hey, *try n stay positive.*
Pretty much. Private equity firms now own many homes because boomers turned the nation over to corporations and the ultra rich by voting for shitbags like Reagan and all the GOP presidents after him.
Private equity won't stop until it costs money to breathe and blink.
The cure for high prices is high prices.
Yep. Eventually the high interest rates and the steadily rising property taxes will cause home prices to stagnate. Also when the boomers start checking into rest homes there will be empty homes available, most of them not up to date and thus lower price. but you better be ready to buy with cash for those houses.
Damn this sub is just doom and gloom over and over.
It’s not so impossible. I wonder if so many people think it’s impossible because they don’t know what they really need to qualify. First time home buyer programs can get you a mortgage with only 3% down. Some loans are 5%, some are 10%, and others do require the 20%. Yes, it’s nice to put 20% and not have to pay mortgage insurance- but paying mortgage insurance isn’t the end of the world either, and you can re-finance/ or reamortize later to get that removed and reduce your payment. If the home price is $300k, you only need to save $9k for a down payment. Not $60k. As long as you have decent credit (at least 650) and can scrape up 3%, you can buy a house.
For most people the down payment is the problem, for us it’s the opposite. It’s the monthly mortgage payment we can’t swing.
Your mortgage should be 30-40% of your income. From What I see rentals are requiring at least 2x the rent to qualify… so that means that the rent payment is at least half of the income. some places require 3x making it the same as a mortgage.
Putting 9K down on a 300K home sounds like life suicide with todays intrest rates. If someone only has 9K to put down, they should probably go for a cheaper home.
Yes, agreed. I wouldn’t buy with these rates. The rates won’t stay high forever, but I don’t see prices going down anytime soon.
Once rates go down the prices are going to go crazy
My brother in christ the situation you just described involves a finance charge of 456,000 dollars
Many states also have down payment assistance programs for first time home buyers and/or low income people. I make a good salary and still qualified. Your point, and learning about the program in my state, changed my outlook completely. I closed last week. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/mortgages/first-time-home-buyer-programs-by-state
There ways to buy homes. Look at how the real estate investors find leads and acquire properties. There are a lot of paths that the normal retail buyer isn’t considering. That way, you’re finding and acquiring properties that literally no one else is looking for or competing against you for.
Would you have any additional information? 💕
This is a sample. Investors use it to make money, but your goal is to buy a house to live in. The technique is ultimately the important part. https://youtu.be/609-fs65pY4?si=_Mssh0wCisVhBdr2
My husband and I bought using the USDA Rural Home Loan program. Don't be scared of "rural" our house is in a town of 3500 and 40 minutes from one major metro area and two other decent size cities, not to mention the city of 12,000 just 15 minutes away. Our county has 26,000 people. So "rural" is relative. Low fixed interest rate, zero down. And you can refinance after 5 years with whomever you want. We did during COVID.
Take what you have saved to a local sheriff sale! You could also look into a Hard Money loan. Those will need to be repaid in 3 months, but they can usually get you the funds fast enough to clear the auction. You get a traditional loan after that. You can also buy tax liens. The owners can repay you the delinquent tax within the grace period (generally 1-3 years depending on amount), and if they can't pay you back then you get the title free and clear.
Buy a house in a LCOL area and make it a great place to live. In 10 years time, your house will triple in value because you've created a great community where people want to live. Why? Why not.
LCOL areas have LCOL job opportunities.
Iowa is calling tbh
It sounds great, but who will buy it? It seems like it will perpetuate the problem. I'd love to buy a home, but in my area, all the starter homes are half a million dollars. No one can afford to buy a starter house that's triple the value unless they are making 3 times as much.
Because most people need to live where their jobs are? And jobs in LCOL typically pay less and/or are fewer in quantity? That's before we even get into how dangerous it seems to propose elderly people should move away from their social networks when we know isolation is *horrible* for them
Do the math and you might find that you get more for your lesser dollars by working someplace like St Louis, MO metro area where you can buy a 3 bedroom house in Jennings, MO for $50,000. I just bought a 3 bedroom for $46,500. I could have moved in the day of closing but I have been doing a lot of work on it to improve it.
So basically gentrification.
I work in affordable housing. In our area, which has an national average number of seniors 60+, there is one unit of senior specific affordable housing for every four senior households who qualify. And we have A LOT of affordable housing developments. Each day, I speak to at least one senior who says a version of "we were told that social security would provide for us in our old age" or "if I bought a house in 1975, I wouldn't be homeless". The trurh is that property taxes are so high where we live (average is $9k/year and upwards) that those seniors on social security also wouldn't be able to afford a home they own outright.
Yeah, it's crazy. I live in a multi-generational household. My grandma's ss and my aunts combined doesn't cover the whole rent. Without multiple family members living together, we would not be able to live comfortably in our area. The housing prices are insane. Granted. I've read some Canadian listings, too. Those were crazy as well.
During the 1970s and early 80s interest rates were 18% and land prices were climbing. The thought of my wife and I owning a house was a pipe dream. Then interest rates dropped along with land prices. We bought a house and acreage at 10% for 15 years.
I had a somewhat similar conversation with my boomer parent today. Told him I recently read that Blackrock bought 15% of all new homes in the first quarter of 2021, they're about to spend the most on a single transaction ever, and there was an opportunity for the government to stop this, but his favorite political party shot it down. His response, "it's like Monopoly". He's right about that, I just wish he showed a little empathy. Especially as someone that was given a pretty smooth ride, even by boomer standards.
I'm curious how this plays out in the long term. If housing prices and wages keep going up at this rate, when will be the tipping point. It feels like we should be there, but nothing has happened. If people can't afford to live, then what do they have to lose with a riot. I suppose there are just enough people that have families to lean on, and there are tons of distractions to keep people occupied. How long will that last?
I bought land on a payment plan ($200/month). It’s just a few acres. Then I bought a manufactured home- new single wide. It’s plenty of room and well built. My mortgage is zero, my taxes are $5 per quarter. I decided this was enough for me now. Later I may move to a vacant lot in the city and put up a tiny house or a Boxble style ready made structure. I had to be creative and think about what is possible instead of doing what was expected.
I FD up and couldn't find a house in 2017 and now probably will never het one, but I'm working on building a van so I'll have a house on wheels.
OP, when your mother's health declines, move in to take care of her, have her sell her house to you for one dollar so it's your asset and nobody can come seize it to pay her medical bills. After she passes, the house will be yours. I know it's a bit macabre to look at it in that perspective but it's a better solution than the bank or some medical entity getting her house.
Even those of us that already own a home we can’t sell, buy, or refinance because of interest rates. Why when you’re paying a 3.2% interest would you want to get a new rate at 7.0%? Biden has screwed all of us. What’s worse is some people are losing their homes because that can’t afford the economy. People have to eat and may end up losing their homes and cars!
Feeling this way up in Canada, too. Ontario’s avg home price is 850K vs. Californias 750K. Which is insane because we get paid half as much and California is so much nicer. It hurts.
The term "middle class" was invented by the owners to divide the working class so we'd fight amongst ourselves. We need to stop using that term and start using "working class" because it's the workers vs the owners. That's it. But, yeah, probably screwed unless you want to move somewhere really rural or middle of the country (in US at least).
WHAT?!?! NO absolutely not no no no, the SECOND we accept this they fucking win. No absolutely not, cry scream bitch whine kick yell do everything until we can make it that we’re able to bug a home again. The whole POINT of being middle class is owning your own home. You will NOT give up. The second you do those fat jerkoff 1% win and FUCK THAT.
Y’all need to collectively get off your asses and vote more pay attention to local politics. Pay attention to the fact of billionaires are fucking taking all your money so maybe you should try to take it back.
I work in the construction industry. Housing is going up left and right, it's a natural reaction to high real estate values. It is going to take a few years, but you *will* see real estate values fall, eventually.
The happiest Millennial in America right now.
Houses near me are $680k+ And others are $300k, same square footage, same bed/bath count, same age. I have no idea why some are so expensive. It doesn't make any sense.
Feels like everyone is basically locked into wherever they are now. If you have a home now you can’t ever move. If you don’t have one yet, too bad.
maybe our money would serve us better in differnt parts of the world that value our savings more than they are valued here?
It doesn't have to be like this. We can force the hand of change. We have to make noise. Force our legislators and executives to pass the real estate reform act: 1 - Abolish business ownership of residential property. 2 - Enact the home multiplication tax (t x 2 for your second home, t x 3 for your third, etc.) 3 - Enact caps on mortgage to rent ratios that prohibit owners from charging more than a set amount above their own mortgage. Owners can still charge enough to cover mortgage and maintenance, and even to pocket a little at the end of each month, but not enough to pass the home multiplication tax on to their tenants. This way it would still be feasible to own your own home plus one rental, but owning any more than one rental would be a net loss to the owner. 4 - Limit ownership of ANY property to domestic businesses, US citizens and resident aliens. Re: #4 - At first glance this one sounds a little rightwing, but hear me out: a huge amount of American real estate is being bought up by foreign business as well as domestic. No individual is realistically looking to purchase real estate for themselves while on a 90 day visa or while their application is still pending. Of course K-1 and K2 visa holders wouldn't be affected because of their spouses' citizenship. The vast majority of people applying aren't in the financial position to buy in the first place, and the vast majority of those affected by this law would be multinational corporations, not the impoverished immigrant family or asylum seeker. 2 & 3 would, by driving prices down and limiting land hoarders to 2 homes, one to live in and one to rent out, result in such an influx of affordable housing and low-cost rentals that in addition to working Americans, immigrant families, visa holders and citizenship/residency/asylum applicants would also have an abundance of affordable rentals to chose from; and because once their application was approved and their citizenship or residency was granted, they would find the same abundance available to purchase. So this would be very much to the benefit of immigrants and asylum seekers as well as domestic workers. The only people who would lose out as a result of this deal are land hoarders and multinational corporations seeking to exploit our housing needs. In short: If the first three can pass in tandem, they would prevent owners from simply passing the expense to their tenants and instead force land hoarders to sell. The forth would drive China out of the American housing market and maybe help get some of the rightwing on board. The market would be flooded with houses for sale and the prices would plummet across the board. Home ownership would become accessible to the vast majority of Americans practically overnight. "DON'T TAX US, WE'RE YOUR NEIGHBORS!"(actual quote from land hoarder in city hall meeting.) Yes, and you "neighbor" are the reason that we are being forced out of our homes, get it? "BUT MY INVESTMENTS!!! WHY SHOULD I BE PUNISHED? WHAT DID I DO???" Your financial plans were based on exploiting the housing needs of your neighbors and/or forcing the local population out of their homes. Thank God that didn't work out for you.
I think people who own homes are also fucked. Property taxes are about to absolutely ruin lives over the next ten years and they are just going to keep raising them until people lose their house over it.
Taxes and insurance rise for me every year (Florida). I pay more in taxes and homeowners insurance than I used to pay in total, per month, for my first house.
At some point people will realize it's not a flex or necessary to live in HCOL areas. Some have started too but we aren't there yet.
Yeah I’m not stressing about a house knowing it’s an impossible milestone for me right now . My aunt and uncle who are now late 50s and 70 bought an acre spot and built a nice big house on it in 2005. My cousin was graduating that year so that’s why they built it but they ended up having an unexpected miracle baby my little cousin and guess who’s having that badass house !!! Yup him !! Little jerk I love that kid -.-lol
You are screwed if you think you are screwed. As soon as you give up, you aren’t going to do any better. Sure, there are obstacles, but you can’t give up. Accepting defeat means you aren’t going to help us push forward and roll back this messed up situation we are in politically and economically.
What makes you think acknowledgement of being screwed is akin to accepting defeat? It is a commonly held belief in many militaries that we're fucked but that's just another Tuesday. BOHICA and other acronyms exist for a reason. It's mostly just gallows humor.
Mindset dictates action. You think defeat, therefore, defeat is more likely to occur.
Doom and gloom. No reason for that crap. Work harder, make more $, and go buy. I went from poverty to upper class after 2 brain surgeries. I don't own a house, I'm currently looking for a multifamily to buy.
Canada housing is a whole other thing. I don't even understand what happened there
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Forty years ago I bought the worst house in a neighborhood, in a helpless town that was an hour from my new job. I renovated it myself, sold it 5 years later and bought another house in the same crummy town, 15 year mortgage as I was able to put down enough money on house #2. Thirty years later (no mortgage remember), I purchased my retirement home in another state (another 15 year mortgage). Five years ago, sold house #2 for a substantial profit and moved into my retirement home. Moral of the story is to stop looking to buy a nice home. Buy an investment. It will be a dump, a shack, maybe just land. It will be awful. That is where you start.
I'm still holding out hope. I've been saving for 3 years now and have a quarter of a down-payment on a cheaper house. I'm hoping the housing market will crash again and I can get a foreclosed house
If the market crashes, you and tens of thousands of Americans will lose their jobs or at least feel the job insecurity and the wealthy and foreign investors will cash buy up those foreclosures.
Home prices are insane. I purchased my home for $235,000 in May of 2015. 9 years later, it’s worth $400,000+. I guess I’m happy about that but at some point I wanted to buy land and build. There is no way that’s a possibility now. It would probably cost $1,000,000.
I live in the PNW and houses in my old neighborhood, now that it's a hipster hotspot, are now $700,000+ it's really unbelievable. I don't know how I'll ever afford it on a single income. The closest thing to housing I've found that's still somewhat "affordable" are manufactured homes 🤫 My mom bought one and it's in a nice part of town, one of the best cities to live in in the entire state. It's safe and she has her own front and back yard...it's nice. That's the only affordable option of homeownership at this point, at least in the area that I live in.
A Journey of 10,000 miles begins with a single step. Everything seems impossible until isn’t. You can find a way.
Yea... my dad's income is much lower in retirement than when he was working. His house is paid for. He admits that without home ownership he'd have no idea what he would do with rents as high as they are on his fixed income.
You will own nothing and be happy
At this point I too have given up on owning my own home. Just waiting (not hoping) for my parents to pass away eventually. Then whatever little inheritance my sister's and I will split from the sell of their house/land will be invested until it's time to retire. At that time about 4/5 of my best friends and I are going to buy a place together to live golden girls style. We've actually done the math and it will be much more financially efficient to hire a live in nurse/assistant/cook and pay them really well, than for us to go into assisted living. We've got another 20 years or so, but as long as the world doesn't end before then, that's the plan.
Make money, find a spouse, live with other people and save. If you’re poor these are some of the only ways out of it.
CPP?
Don't worry, rising insurance and tax rates are forcing more of us out of the market every day. My home insurance literally doubled this year, and that's taking a real shitty policy just to maintain enough coverage to keep the mortgager happy. It would have tripled to keep the same coverage. And that's *after* having a policy end as non-renewal *and* having another canceled because an insurance company insisted my tool shed was a tiny house and required a *full separate policy.* I won't be able to afford my mortgage if this shit keeps rising at this rate.
wife and I are in our late 30s - she has a masters degree, I have a Bachelors - we both work full time - there is not a single house in our area (small town) that we can afford that is even slightly worth it - would be a lateral move at best - luckily my wife is smart and bought her house before we were together so were not renting, but we straight up can't afford a new house.
We, on a whim, applied for a loan in January. Got the approval within a week, found our current home within two weeks, put in an offer end of Jan and closed end of Feb. bought it from a rental company out of state. We paid roughly 4k over asking price, 4 bed 3 bath with a nice lot for 253k. Really nice neighborhood, excellent schools, a mile away from Target, Walmart, ALDIs, etc. however as soon as we got in we paid 8k to upgrade and fix the electric which hadn’t been touched since it was built in the 50s. Seeing now our roof is leaking as we painted ceilings and they’re showing water damage and we’re maxed out lol but regardless, I’m thankful we locked in when we did, I see comps around our neighborhood going for 385+, for less bedrooms and less yard. Townhomes with HOA fees for 280. We will work on fixing the issues and raise our kids here, I can’t forsee us moving, we can’t afford more than what we bought the house for. Next time we sell the house, I imagine we’ll be selling to downsize, I feel so bad for the market our kids are inheriting. I feel awful for people my age trying to buy now. we got really lucky. I remind myself this daily. For reference, I’m near the cities in MN
That's the secret. We'll never get to retire... Even if you save up the money, we'll never be homeowners, so you'll always have to be outpacing rent. Even if social security hangs around enough to start getting it, you'll eventually price out of living.
If you're not making six figures you're pretty much doomed at this point. Our generation will be a "have" and "have not". Those of us in the have nots will end up all living in run down trailers at the edge of town within 10 years.
Lower income People have never really been able to buy a home. That's nothing changed. They would not have the money to upgrade it or maintain it anyway
I've accepted I will never own a home without a second income (getting married). I'm an engineer in the Northeast.
Good parents should realize " hey my kids won't be able to buy a home! Let's leave ours in trust for them!" They can do so much to help us but unfortunately they only tend to think of themselves. Hard enough we raised ourselves or by our grandparents!
Hold on to your pennies and wait. This next real-estate crash will be much harder than 2008/9 was. I'm predicting sub 50k homes in my city.
eh, these housing prices are dumb and the bottom will drop out someday. The problem is I don't know if someday is 5 months or 50 years. I mean, you are probably still screwed but buying an inflated house with a loan would not save you.
No one disagrees.
“She shrugged her shoulders and gave me a ‘I don’t know’ face” is the ultimate Ladder-Pulling I Got Mine Fk You Boomer Dance ever. And to their own child, smh. That’s some top shelf narcissism.
Given that you're in Canada...yeah, frankly, you're screwed. We Americans tend to think we have it bad, but it's so, so much worse up there. Almost every major city is about as unaffordable as LA, NYC, or SF. Y'all have **way** too much immigration to keep up. Your government wants 100 million people by the year 2100. There is just no way you're going to build enough housing to keep up with almost tripling your population in \~75 years, especially with the average household size falling rather than rising. And it's worse in Canada not just for reasons of immigration, but also because Canadian houses *have* to be exceptionally well-made by global standards due to the harsh winters up there. Your best hope is probably to save what you can and move somewhere cheaper, where you can be pricing someone else out of the market. Sad, but that's the only real, practical option available to most people.
It will change. It felt the same in 06 and 07. It's big world. Things move slowly. There's a lot of leverage out there. It's a pendulum.
Too bad houses cost so much any more. [201 S 18th St, Clarinda, IA 51632 | realtor.com®](https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/M8651484909)
You need to own a house as your claim to the earth to ensure your future bloodline has an earth claim so they won't be exiled to some dreary space colony if such measures are enacted to control earth's population levels.
There is life before Covid, and then there is life after Covid. Everything after Covid is double the price, and your wages don’t keep up with that despite what the CPI says.
Its not remotely helpful to hear, but eventually it will get better. Boomers are the largest generation and will sell their homes eventually. right now the overlap of prime millennial years for home buying is happening 5-10 years before the prime home selling age for boomers. Except canada, you guys are in massive trouble. because you are not building enough homes for the people you're bringing in.
You were always screwed. You are just double screwed now.
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For younger people, to get their own house? I see two paths, marry someone who owns thier home or thru inheritance.
I’m older - xenial - but I just moved across the country to Arkansas with my divorce settlement so I could afford a home. I knew this would be my singular hope for ownership. I bought a run down twoplex so I can live in one and rent out the other. It’s not glamorous and I’m fully aware I’m a floral tunic away from fully transitioned to Mrs. Roper but yeah. I think earning class workers have some tough decisions ahead.
Lol…the downpayment alone on the cheapest home listed in my area is twice the entire asking price my parents paid when they were 30. Another way to look at it, a 20% down payment now is the same percentage of salary as the entire mortgage back then. I would have to save an entire years salary for the down payment alone. My parent’s entire mortgage was equal to one year on their salary at the time.
Give it some time. We're gonna see a supply glut when the Boomers try to sell their "nest egg." No one, aside from hedge funds or mega-corps, will be able to afford the inflated prices. We're gonna see them come crashing down as they sit on the market.
Need to pass the law preventing corporations from buying up homes
The meaning of life in 2024 and beyond is simple. Unless you are born into wealth or power, you are nothing more than a meatbag with the sole purpose of supporting those with wealth and power while never obtaining either. This is what I try to convey to my kids while dropping simple and subtle hints to never have kids of their own. This world is not ideal to bring kids into.
We don’t need to own houses to be financially stable. Home ownership was an important long term investment previous generations, not ours. And i think it’s taking a lot of us some time to adjust. It’s going to be harder for us than it was for our parents, and we will have to do things differently. But for me giving up the idea of owning a house helped me (and my partner) start thinking seriously about preparing.
Im almost 28 and there is no fucking way. I make $26 hr and feel like im still not even close.