Comment by tosswayaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tosswayaway | Hacker News Reader

Question: Should I be struggling to afford a 1000 sq ft house and maintain it? I want to get a bigger house but it feels like I’m getting priced out of the market right now. Fortunately I already have this small home which I used a loan from my retirement to put the 5% down payment on, paid off the loan and refinanced a couple of times, so I’m not struggling to pay for that, but it’s nowhere near big enough for my partner and I to both work remotely. It’s not in a super trendy area or new, actually near a bunch of seedy motels and pawn shops. I’m taking off work and crawling under my house to fix the furnace so I don’t blow through my savings. I don’t go out to eat often or much more than the occasional fast food or take extravagant vacations, usually just road trips to visit family or national parks. I have spent some money on replacing appliances and remodeling, but nowhere near a down payment on another house. I only bought this place because I was living in someone’s attic and it was getting old. I’ve been dev for 8 years, have always gotten stellar performance reviews, manage people, and get bonuses. Just feels off to me. Everyone else I know doing well has some kind of side hustle like managing properties. I myself was freelancing the past year in my free time trying to make some extra cash. True I’m doing better than many people and I am saving for my retirement, but it seems like a dev salary in this day and age should at least buy you a decent house. Everyone I know got a down payment from their parents. Is this normal? Where’s the money at?

Same place right here.

I've been living WAY WAY below my means. I drive a 15 year old car, I live in a 1br apt (wife and I, 650 sqft). I've also been pushing forward in my career with as much zeal as I can muster. I'm also putting my wife through grad school (though she'll never make much, English degree - I'm just glad I can enable her to chase her passions) I don't have high other bills, currently have an iPhone 7 and don't plan to upgrade, my PC is 8 years old, etc.

I've managed to just this year save up the down payment for houses in my area... but it's kinda dumb, because I really can't afford a house (mortgage/higher utilities/repairs/etc). So I'm in limbo: I have a LOT of cash saved, that should be invested (especially now), but I might buy a house in 5 years so I keep it liquid.

I also want to say that I tied home ownership (or at least living in a house) to having children - I don't want the stress of bothering my neighbors on top of child stress. So I haven't started a family, and I don't see a path to starting one. I think I have been priced out of having a family and it makes me so so sad.

At least I'm a dev, my non-dev friends may as well not even bother getting up in the morning. They will never, ever, ever gain enough capital to be a owner. If their parents are broke, they'll die having only lived in apartments. This also makes me very sad.

I don't see prices going down. I guess I could move, and I am kind of planning a remote/low cost play after COVID is over and I can get an understanding of how stable remote work is. I'd hate to be stuck in the boonies of South Dakota looking for a dev job because things "went back to normal". Holding pattern forever.

> I also want to say that I tied home ownership (or at least living in a house) to having children - I don't want the stress of bothering my neighbors on top of child stress. So I haven't started a family, and I don't see a path to starting one. I think I have been priced out of having a family and it makes me so so sad.

I see this a lot. Generally I see it from people who were raised outside urban areas, with a very white-picket-fence lifestyle. It turns into a great deal of stress in people's lives and relationships, as they often literally cannot imagine having children without a detached single family house and a yard and so on. I've seen some of them take major financial risks to try and work up what feels like enough money, with depression resulting if doesn't work.

The people I know who grew up in urban apartments often have none of these hangups. They regard occasionally hearing your neighbor's children as a fact of life.

That's interesting! I actually grew up in single-parent household, have never lived in a house, and certainly have heard my neighbors children. Not urban, but suburban apartments. I guess I buck the trend (or maybe I'm reaching too high :-P )

I've even thought that, after infancy, apartment living is potentially BETTER for kids. Reasoning that there are more nearby friends and usually a playground or field to play in. I certainly had lots of fun with the neighborhood kids in the pool/large field/playground on the apartment grounds when I was young.

But, kids are noisy during quiet hours (before you can reasonably control them). I remember it being hard on my mom when my brother was young. Always 1/2 a step from eviction for noise complaints. I felt the stress as a child, I cannot imagine how hard it was on her. I don't want to do that...

I feel like human noises within your apartment should not be cause for eviction. If other people can listen to you, then the apartment is substandard and your privacy is at risk. Those walls are supposed to protect you from having neighbors casually spy on you.

Now, it'd be different if you were experimenting with a pulse detonation wave engine. That would be worthy of eviction.

> I've even thought that, after infancy, apartment living is potentially BETTER for kids. Reasoning that there are more nearby friends and usually a playground or field to play in.

IME, nearby and safe playgrounds and fields are more common in suburban developments with single family homes than apartment complexes, either in urban areas or even in the same suburbs.

Only comment is that keeping your money in cash instead of invested for a 5 year horizon isn't wise. Put them in something on the safer side - I'm not saying buy Bitcoin or something - but that's a long time to have your money not be working for you at all. Interest rates at way below inflation.

Please see a good financial professional (not a bank employee). You don't need to struggle through this alone.

Any FP worth their salt should be able to make you significantly more than you pay them. And they will help you set your financial goals and reach them.

My mom is an FP and she would sort you right out. That stress and uncertainty would be gone.

>I want to get a bigger house but it feels like I’m getting priced out of the market right now.

LOL, come to Germany where you're by default priced out of buying any house period unless you get some sizable assistance from the bank of mom and dad.

>Everyone I know got a down payment from their parents. Is this normal?

It's normal if you've won the lottery of birth. If not, then, as someone else here said it, "get richer parents".

If there’s any Daddy Warbucks out there that wants to adopt a 30 year old son, please let me know.

This is depressing. For the last 15 years or so, when housing prices started accelerating rapidly in most of Anglosphere and much of the developed world, Germany was always touted as a country with sane and stable prices (with the exception of Munich, I remember). Then after the housing crash, things began to recover, and I'd heard Germany was still affordable, with the exception now of Berlin and Frankfurt, which were rising quickly.

But now I imagine all areas, even cities without a lot of tech and finance to push up prices, are becoming unaffordable to 80% of the millennial generation looking to buy their first home. Even in once low cost areas in former East Germany

Same thing is happening to once affordable 2nd and even 3rd tier cities in the US. Homes in my very low cost origin city in the Midwest are up almost 50% in just 7 years or so, and half that increase in the last year. And unlike cities where land is tight, there are farm fields in every direction, so unlimited room to grow. But something (lack of supply, money printing, immigration, low interest rates, massive price collusion, who knows?) is putting insane pressure on prices.

I feel the same way. I've been a dev for a few years now, make 150% of the median household income in my area by myself.

Even once I finish my student loan payments I will be in the same position as you. I live in a Medium cost of living area of a LCOL state.

All of my friends are doing okay even with way less personal income than myself, because of their parents money. I happened to come from a single parent home with no resources.

It's pretty damn clear to me that people of our generation can not expect "The American Dream" unless their parents give them a bunch of money or they become a very high income earner themselves.

Answer: Yes, but it depends.

I have basically double the size of your house as living house, a guest house that is about 800sq ft and a big ass barn. I could afford it pretty easily but it needs a bit of renovations.

Also, I live about 45 min drive from the nearest city with a population of about 12k. I basically live in the middle of nowhere but with a big house.

I work remotely so I can live here, which a lot of people today struggle with. The trick is to live where no one else lives. In my country there is a massive urbanization going on and living in our capital where I am from is very expensive. A 3 bedroom apartment would cost more than my farm.

I don't know if you should be struggling, but I guess everyone kinda is. Everywhere I look there is people that seemingly have huge amounts of cash but what you need to know is that basically everyone sucks at money. Most of the western lifestyle is provided thanks to loans.

This talk changed my life for the better when it comes to economics and I recommend it to everyone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Li_sFNc4Q

I sold my new car, bought an old volvo from -97 and I save about 60% of my income. That is helping a lot so I can afford to renovate the house. What you need to do is simply to live for much less than you earn, that way you will for sure end up financially secured.

In the US, in the states where we can make decent money, yes, it is normal. If middle class is defined as being able to afford a modest house/condo and retire at 65, yeah, this country is fucked.

My experience parallels yours for 20-40 house owning friends in the Pacific Northwest. People got help from parents, or got lucky with IPOs (a minority of us for sure), or have trust funds, or bought in when houses were less than $500k.

So much of the market is a combination of real estate investors, private equity and foreign investors. I know a bunch of boomers who basically own several properties, and just keep buying them up. One guy in LA owns several hundred now in his later years.

EDIT: Also obviously massive asset inflation due to QE Infinity, which has more or less fucked everybody who has cash or a low net worth.

Same observation here. Things are bifurcating into 1. a (mostly younger) underclass whose savings will never catch up with prices to the point where they can own real estate / stocks without help from parents, and 2. a (mostly older) capital class who own multiple, sometimes dozens of properties, robust 401(k)s and pensions, and use those assets as leverage to buy more and more assets. The middle class "family without help owning a single home they live comfortably in" is vanishing.

Leave the Bay Area, you'll afford a large house and car just fine.

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