Yeah most people I know in their 20s or 30s that are homeowners either had help or are tech bros living in San Fran salaries working remote from the middle of nowhere. Housing has stopped being a thing regular Americans are meant to have
I did it on my own when I was 27 but only because I live in one of the cheapest rust belt cities in the US (Pittsburgh). I make OK money as an electrical controls technician in a factory. Hard to believe I pulled it off making like $20/hr a few years ago but when covid hit and interest rates were rock bottom that massively helped. 3% rate on a $160k house, 1800 sq ft 4BR home, built in 1890. Currently doing some major remodeling, and now I'm making much better money at a different job anyway
built in 1890
Fuck, that's a classic model. What is it even made out of?
The original wooden joists are all massive and old growth lumber, solid as a rock. My floors are held up by like 2x18's going across, and actually to those measurements not how a 2x4 is a 1.5x3.5 or whatever anymore. They're locked into what I can only call solid beams of wood on top of my foundation. That beam is no joke like a 16x16 or something.
Walls are all lath and plaster. removed to work on later, I was literally carving into some solid wood behind the lath to put an electrical box in the only spot it could work for a lightswitch.
My siding is all asbestos. Honestly I love it and never wanna change it. It's super durable and holds paint forever.
What's really unique to the house is there's hand carved beautiful craftsmanship under the roof awning and porch roof. And it's basically a story underground because it's at the bottom of a mountainside so it's surrounded by these massive story-tall retaining walls. And in one of the heavily wooded greenway parts of the city, so the first story where my partner and I's bedroom is is naturally cool thanks to all the trees and being underground. I can see the river from my front stoop and the house isn't even technically on a street, only way to access it is through a lot my neighbor owns or a trail / city steps through the woods.
I could talk forever about my house but I treasure it and we know we'll never move again
Absolute gemstone. You're incredibly lucky to have that kind of space.
Holy shit, I've been talking about this IRL a lot lately. Every homeowner I know in their 30's but one had mommy and daddy cover their down payment (or first down payment if they've sold and bought again), and that one is like a VP at some tech company. I thought the number would be higher, though, especially for the under 30 crowd. I suppose that a significant portion of the rest benefited from nepotism in other ways that don't technically count for this statistic.
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got inheritance of $800k and saved up $60k (and had bitcoin due to not being good with financial stuff that are worth like some $100k).
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lived in the third house of the parents, got down payment and cars and holidays from parents
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got parents as co signers for loan and down payment
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got a whole building which is rented out from grandparents
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bought a trash house, had and have to renovate it and both partners are working full time and will have reduced the credit to 0 when they are 65, since it is somewhat trashy the energy costs are also high and it is tiny.
Those are the five people I know of who bought houses.
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Article is paywalled so I can’t check for certain, but it looks like this refers specifically to people who got money from their parents to get a down-payment. If your parents paid for your education so that you graduated without debt, or housed you for an extended period while you saved up for a down-payment, or you got a cushy job in the family business, it amounts to the same thing.
From that perspective, 40% makes enough sense, but it also doesn’t really say much about the state of things. What I think we’d want to know is how many people actually took the boomer route of supporting themselves independently from an early age and still being able to buy a house before 30 (or at all, for that matter). That would likely be a vanishingly small number.
Can confirm, that I'm someone currently on the boomer route and it's literally impossible. I could afford a house 5 years ago on my current salary, but the rates and prices are rising so fast that even with pay rate increases that would make boomers blush I'm still broke after rent.
My partner and I finally landed jobs that paid well enough to start looking into buying about six months into the wild housing price spike. Now I'm just praying for the line to go down because there's fuck all I can do.
Same basically. Went from $15/hr to $30 but my rent more than doubled to over $2k
We had a unit in Chinese class about the difference in how Chinese and Americans purchase houses. I guess China was right yet again.
from a purely transactional perspective, the smartest move parents with some scratch could do in this shithole to help their kids is not to pay for their college, but to help them buy the house they move into for college and make them be the super for any roommates or fix it up (parent buys materials, kid provides labor) to cover their end. learn how to fix things/minor repairs, etc.
it's not sustainable in the long term and lately houses have ballooned in formerly affordable college towns even, but it surprises me more parents didn't go this way, and instead do weird shit like pay credit cards off, pay rent/all expenses, buy them some depreciating asset (new car).
after 4-5 years if the kid bails on school, the parent could probably recoup their down payment just from equity in a sale. and if the kid does, it's a good gift to help them get started... a place to stay and figure out their next move, a chunk of change if they want to move and go elsewhere, or strike out on their own and be self-employed etc.
it's a capitalist non-solution but it always surprises me how crappy rich people are at actually seeing the angles. or maybe they think their little lordling shouldn't have to learn how to unclog a toilet. who knows.
Many people in this capitalist system exist under the delusion that hard work is rewarded, instead of the fact that what is rewarded is being a capitalist leech, owning property, and leveraging your skillset in the most unethical ways (i.e. landlordism, petit bougism, being a plastic surgeon or scumbag lawyer etc). Normal people cannot grasp this concept that same way someone can't grasp an eldritch truth in a Lovecraft setting, because once you internalize it you realize we live within one of the shittiest forms of society being run by cocaine fiends and dudes that just want stonk numbers to go up and would step on your neck for it.
Dunno about where other comrades live, but my local newspaper loves running fluff articles about some dude who's bought his fifth house in his 20s.
At work we made a game out of it in the break room trying to guess how many paragraphs down into the article you'd have to go before the article told you about how he got money from his parents.
This sure sounds like a sustainable system that won't have any long term negative effects for society. I sure am glad the Obama administration fixed all the issues with the housing market after 2008! Imagine if they didn't, and we were setting up for an even bigger financial crisis in the future! How awful that would be!
I have such unbridled rage for nepotism. Truly the clearest example of inequity in existence, yet we normalize and encourage it. Getting a leg up on everyone else just because you are part of the lucky sperm club is one of the most downright absurd things about capitalism.
Someone working multiple jobs and still not being able to get by and afford a house while some guy’s parents cover his down payment should be all the evidence needed to tear through the bullshit propaganda. Hellworld’s gonna hellworld though
The fact that not everyone starts with the same amount of money just invalidates the entire "it's the most fair system" bullshit from the get-go
Can confirm. I'd have been stuck renting for at least another 3-4 years without help from parents.
I'm stuck renting for another 20-30 because mine are broke or dead
Same, except my parents can afford to but choose not to for individualism reasons (we don't talk much).
My parents actually offered to help but are so out of touch they thought $10k would be enough for a down payment. I'm just like "you guys sold your house for over $1M, you know that's not enough for anything where we live".
Kinda shitty tbh, I think it's imperative to build wealth generationally and imo that means parents should make it easier to get their kids settled by living in a more condensed area. And should move to help their kids with that
parents should make it easier to get their kids settled by living in a more condensed area
I would love that, but my home city of Houston hates dense development. And my mom is too old and stubborn to leave the enormous suburban McMansion that's falling down around her ears.
She could be living down the street from me in a large, comfortable, well furnished, elderly community. But she won't, because she won't.
we saved up from 2019-2020, then covid stimmy took us the rest of the way. thank god because my parents are fucking broke lol honestly not sure we would've been able to purchase a house in time without said stimmy with the way the market fucking exploded
It has a paywall so I can't read, but does this percentage exclude all non-first time buyers? If so, I'd assume it was even higher.
