Spring 2016 Real Estate Market - Boots on the Ground? (Boston: 2013, buying)

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by Whatsnext75

Ive seen other threads with you going on about how much you make and you even said coming to these forums makes you realize how fortunate you are. Clearly you come here to brag and feel better about yourself at the expense of those less fortunate than you.

I enjoy reading the real estate threads which is why i clicked on this one. Maybe i will stop clicking as much as it always seems to turn into a competition about who makes more and who has done better in life and haha to anyone who can't afford a home in weston or Wellesley.

I know I've challenged a lot of things Parsec has said, but I definitely don't think he's on here bragging or trying to make himself feel better by putting people down. I probably wouldn't have any problem with the advice he gives if he prefaced it with "If your household income is $300k...". Give the guy a break.

[Boston_Burbs]

I don't know parsec at all but from previous posts he seems to be part of the fire (financial independence retire early) cohort that like myself reads mr money mustache and early retirement extreme. 90% of the readers and authors are engineers. I am one and I would venture to guess parsec comes from an engineering background. When I spend a lot of time reading about fire I tend to find the tiny detail exaduration syndrome that turns into crippling debt of my family, and city data posters maddening. Most of my friends are engineers and are doing quite well especially since we all graduated in 2010. To add to the income inequality most of my friends either married other engineers or pharmacists which means they are pulling in a $200k + a year combined in their late 20s.

I lived in an engineering dorm freshman year, moved off campus with engineer friends, and put away $20/hr on co-op. We didn't really have much interaction with other majors so i too find it surprising how little some people with advanced degrees make.

[3cents]

Originally Posted by Boston_Burbs

I don't know parsec at all but from previous posts he seems to be part of the fire (financial independence retire early) cohort that like myself reads mr money mustache and early retirement extreme.

I've seen that word FIRE thrown around many times, and now I finally know what it means. Thank you!

[3cents]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

As advice, it's either not very useful or not very good. Not very useful because what's "reasonable" and what towns are desirable is a pretty open ended questions. People in Hong Kong live in 200 sq. ft apartments (or less), so is that the goal? Is anything more excessive? Can you stretch to a SFH? As for desirable, where do put the cutoff? Wellesley probably is, but what about Needham? Natick? I guess Framinnghham isn't. Is there a list somewhere we can consult?

It's not very good advice because it totally neglects the idea that people value different things differently. Clearly it's not important to you to have a big house, but that doesn't mean no one can. The point of a house isn't to get a little more money in 10 or 20 or 30 years, it's to have a place to live and enjoy your life. Even if it were, I've never seen hard data that convinces me that "desirable" towns increase in value at a faster rate than normal towns. It goes against the other conventional wisdom to "buy low and sell high". It's such a pervasive sentiment thr it might be true, but it is clear that a total stock market fund with reinvested dividends has outperformed housing, so the best bet it to spend as little as possible on housing and just invest the rest.

Come on, I'm trying to avoid writing an entire thesis here. So there's a lot of generalizations and background assumptions. The main point of my post was to say that somehow, a mid $600K SFH in a desirable (here we go again!) town seems to be a sweet spot, as compared to a smaller condo, or a larger more expensive house. And I thought I'll like to share this 'discovery' with others. What is the criteria of sweet? I won't go into that, but one can do some inference from my post.

200 sq feet apartments? I'm not sure where this comes from. But nope, done that during my entire postdoc. I need more space now.

[Whatsnext75]

So being an engineer gives people a pass at bragging about how much they make? Quite honestly i think engineering is becoming a saturated market. It seems like engineers do very well in their 20s and 30s but unless they get into vp type positions it gets harder for them because everyone wants to hire a younger engineer.

[Whatsnext75]

I work with a girl who is 33 and she wants to retire at 50. She works in finance, her title is controller. I dont know what she makes but i know she makes more than her husband. They are incredibly frugal, they rent, and i honestly dont know how they plan to swing it.

[Boston_Burbs]

Originally Posted by Whatsnext75

So being an engineer gives people a pass at bragging about how much they make? Quite honestly i think engineering is becoming a saturated market. It seems like engineers do very well in their 20s and 30s but unless they get into vp type positions it gets harder for them because everyone wants to hire a younger engineer.

I think parsecs advice is quite good, especially about the part of saving your raises. Lifestyle inflation is a killer.

The point was to show if you self select into a certain group it's hard to see how others have it

[Boston_Burbs]

Originally Posted by Whatsnext75

I work with a girl who is 33 and she wants to retire at 50. She works in finance, her title is controller. I dont know what she makes but i know she makes more than her husband. They are incredibly frugal, they rent, and i honestly dont know how they plan to swing it.

Saving 25x your expenses is generally the rule of thumb. It's called the 4 percent rule.

[Whatsnext75]

I think many people do save things like bonuses and raises. Heck the majority of my paycheck goes into our savings account. But people still have a lot of unavoidable bills particularly if you have kids. I feel bad for people who cant afford to buy anything in this area.

[Shizim]

Originally Posted by Whatsnext75

So being an engineer gives people a pass at bragging about how much they make?

I don't see statements of fact as bragging.

Saying " i make x, which is more than average and this is how it influenced my situation" is not bragging. Does it bother you because its more than you make? it might be more than my wife and I (not sure, would have to do some math to figure it out...but don't really care) but it has no bearing on my life.

just take it as another data point, or don't. but you don't have to disparage.