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Wow - 800,000 people is .003 percent of the US population. THE HORROR. My gosh, at least .003 percent of the people in the US have a marked lack of common sense or work ethic, regardless of their IQ or level of education.
By the way, if you're making minimum wage, congrats - you are part of only 4.3 percent of hourly workers.
You're a special kind of special!
You have the decimal point in the wrong place but yeah, 0.3% of the population is statically irrelevant. Most pre-law washouts retooled themselves and are out earning a decent living instead of spending their hours in the internet complaining about it.
If you do the math, you can get a low down payment 3.75% FHA loan pretty much anywhere if you've paid your bills on time for 4 or 5 years and don't have destroyed credit. Median household income is $53,000. That's a married couple where both make $13/hour. The national median home price is $184,600. Assuming 6% between mortgage, PMI, property taxes, and insurance, that's 5% down on a $250,000 home with 28% of gross income going towards housing. You can buy that $184,600 with $40,000 in income.
You're not buying a house with that income in Palo Alto or Newport Beach or Weston, Ma or Chevy Chase MD or Greenwich, CT or Redmond, WA but you have 90% of the country where real estate is affordable at that income level. If you don't have the job skills and you live in one of those areas, you have to move. If you're single, overcome those personality defects and get married because you're not buying into the housing market on one working class income.
You have the decimal point in the wrong place but yeah, 0.3% of the population is statically irrelevant. Most pre-law washouts retooled themselves and are out earning a decent living instead of spending their hours in the internet complaining about it.
If you do the math, you can get a low down payment 3.75% FHA loan pretty much anywhere if you've paid your bills on time for 4 or 5 years and don't have destroyed credit. Median household income is $53,000. That's a married couple where both make $13/hour. The national median home price is $184,600. Assuming 6% between mortgage, PMI, property taxes, and insurance, that's 5% down on a $250,000 home with 28% of gross income going towards housing. You can buy that $184,600 with $40,000 in income.
You're not buying a house with that income in Palo Alto or Newport Beach or Weston, Ma or Chevy Chase MD or Greenwich, CT or Redmond, WA but you have 90% of the country where real estate is affordable at that income level. If you don't have the job skills and you live in one of those areas, you have to move. If you're single, overcome those personality defects and get married because you're not buying into the housing market on one working class income.
LOL my bad on the decimal point but it's still less than 1/3 of one percent of the US population. Good catch.
Wow - 800,000 people is .003 percent of the US population. THE HORROR. My gosh, at least .003 percent of the people in the US have a marked lack of common sense or work ethic, regardless of their IQ or level of education.
By the way, if you're making minimum wage, congrats - you are part of only 4.3 percent of hourly workers.
You're a special kind of special!
Don't forget (decimal point aside) that that figure probably also includes educated people who work in low paying jobs in high COL areas, like social workers, teachers, etc., where they may in some cases be counted below the poverty line.
You have the decimal point in the wrong place but yeah, 0.3% of the population is statically irrelevant. Most pre-law washouts retooled themselves and are out earning a decent living instead of spending their hours in the internet complaining about it.
If you do the math, you can get a low down payment 3.75% FHA loan pretty much anywhere if you've paid your bills on time for 4 or 5 years and don't have destroyed credit. Median household income is $53,000. That's a married couple where both make $13/hour. The national median home price is $184,600. Assuming 6% between mortgage, PMI, property taxes, and insurance, that's 5% down on a $250,000 home with 28% of gross income going towards housing. You can buy that $184,600 with $40,000 in income.
You're not buying a house with that income in Palo Alto or Newport Beach or Weston, Ma or Chevy Chase MD or Greenwich, CT or Redmond, WA but you have 90% of the country where real estate is affordable at that income level. If you don't have the job skills and you live in one of those areas, you have to move. If you're single, overcome those personality defects and get married because you're not buying into the housing market on one working class income.
Well, there ya go. You could have saved yourself the entire preceding paragraphs. You think that "relationship mortgaging" is something to applaud? You fell right for the two income trap scam, hook line and sinker. That is the very proof your entire affordability argument is ballwash. IOW, when you index for a single income, you realize you are house poor. How about just saying that instead of spinning it and saying if everybody had a job in the household they could crowsource to below 50% net income housing costs. That's some Enron accounting there.
This will blow your mind: assuming equal and independent probability of job loss for the parties involved, the household with two jobs has TWICE the probability of one job loss than the single job house has of losing their only job. A simpleton would then say "big deal, the single job house is screwed if they lose their one job". and they'd be wrong. The dual house is screwed because the two income household as you so flippantly pointed out, NEEDS both income to retain waterline. One income alone falls below the redline, they still lose their lifestyle. The single household only needs one income to regain it. The twin can't at all. We call that in aviation the fallacy of the light twin piston engine aircraft. Put in other words, two income household is one shoddy income split between two power plants. They appear more affluent than the single earner, but effectively are not. Only households who live as though they only have one income, and bank/invest/hedge the other, are truly independent. But nobody does that, because that "doesn't get you" into the housing market as you pointed out.
In the Houston sub-forum they're telling people anything below 250K home price you might as well be a welfare recipient for that is the demographic you're gonna be raising your kids and sending them to school with. And Houston isn't the left or right coast mind you. I find it a bit hyperbolic, but the neurotic fashion with which Houston MSA residents accept the runup in housing costs just to sanitize their surroundings even in the clear recognition they're going way past the house poor threshold, is rather endemic of most metros in the Country and more representative of our housing insolvency than the ballwash generality of saying everybody can afford a 180K house anywhere in America as long as your spouse doesn't betray you or loses his/her job.
Lastly, at 28% gross income that doesn't even touch housing associated costs of repairs and upkeep, plus the furnishing tab. You're much closer to 50% *NET income after that, which is the real index of how poor one *feels. So again, thanks for disproving your very point.
Houston is THE fastest growing metro area in the US, so it's not really a good example to use - it's definitely not the American norm.
I live about three hours north of Houston in a very pleasant metro area of about 215K people - an hour and a half east of Dallas. Great schools, low unemployment, a very diverse economy - and here's the really cool part - a low cost of living. My husband and I bought our comfortable home in a very safe, friendly and pretty neighborhood for $193,000 two years ago.
Of course, this house might not be nice enough for some people. I mean, it doesn't have an open floorplan. It doesn't have a media room. It doesn't have five bedrooms. The kitchen, though 100 percent functional, hadn't been updated since 1997 when we bought the house, and there was WALLPAPER IN THERE. OH THE HORROR. And get this - every fixture in the house is brass. Oh, how are we even surviving this travesty?
The local public schools are rated as superior and above average, but if that's not good enough for you, there are tons of charter schools as well as private schools. The crime rate is low.
Homes in metro areas that are exploding in population have always been expensive. So what? There are TONS of smaller metro areas and towns throughout the US. There are tons of mid size cities that don't have the same cost of living as the bigger metro areas. If you can't afford to live in a big metro area, move.
Well, there ya go. You could have saved yourself the entire preceding paragraphs. You think that "relationship mortgaging" is something to applaud? You fell right for the two income trap scam, hook line and sinker. That is the very proof your entire affordability argument is ballwash. IOW, when you index for a single income, you realize you are house poor. How about just saying that instead of spinning it and saying if everybody had a job in the household they could crowsource to below 50% net income housing costs. That's some Enron accounting there.
This will blow your mind: assuming equal and independent probability of job loss for the parties involved, the household with two jobs has TWICE the probability of one job loss than the single job house has of losing their only job. A simpleton would then say "big deal, the single job house is screwed if they lose their one job". and they'd be wrong. The dual house is screwed because the two income household as you so flippantly pointed out, NEEDS both income to retain waterline. One income alone falls below the redline, they still lose their lifestyle. The single household only needs one income to regain it. The twin can't at all. We call that in aviation the fallacy of the light twin piston engine aircraft. Put in other words, two income household is one shoddy income split between two power plants. They appear more affluent than the single earner, but effectively are not. Only households who live as though they only have one income, and bank/invest/hedge the other, are truly independent. But nobody does that, because that "doesn't get you" into the housing market as you pointed out.
In the Houston sub-forum they're telling people anything below 250K home price you might as well be a welfare recipient for that is the demographic you're gonna be raising your kids and sending them to school with. And Houston isn't the left or right coast mind you. I find it a bit hyperbolic, but the neurotic fashion with which Houston MSA residents accept the runup in housing costs just to sanitize their surroundings even in the clear recognition they're going way past the house poor threshold, is rather endemic of most metros in the Country and more representative of our housing insolvency than the ballwash generality of saying everybody can afford a 180K house anywhere in America as long as your spouse doesn't betray you or loses his/her job.
Lastly, at 28% gross income that doesn't even touch housing associated costs of repairs and upkeep, plus the furnishing tab. You're much closer to 50% *NET income after that, which is the real index of how poor one *feels. So again, thanks for disproving your very point.
I'm single income. I have no problem at all affording a home. My post merely made the point that a near-minimum wage couple can afford to buy the median priced home in the United States. Can a burger flipper? No. A burger flipper rents and has room mates.
In my universe, lower income people do their own home upkeep. If you're making $13.00/hour, you're not using a lawn service or calling a general contractor to paint a room. If you're so incompetent in life that you can't handle basic homeowner DIY projects, that's not my problem.
"Furnishing tab" is really funny. Most of us started with cheap used furniture from Salvation Army, auctions, or equivalent. Only the Unique Snowflakes think it's their god given right to drop $20K+ on a credit card at Ikea.
I'm single income. I have no problem at all affording a home. My post merely made the point that a near-minimum wage couple can afford to buy the median priced home in the United States. Can a burger flipper? No. A burger flipper rents and has room mates.
In my universe, lower income people do their own home upkeep. If you're making $13.00/hour, you're not using a lawn service or calling a general contractor to paint a room. If you're so incompetent in life that you can't handle basic homeowner DIY projects, that's not my problem.
"Furnishing tab" is really funny. Most of us started with cheap used furniture from Salvation Army, auctions, or equivalent. Only the Unique Snowflakes think it's their god given right to drop $20K+ on a credit card at Ikea.
I think we're in agreement. I'm a single earner too. Wife is in school right now. Our intent is to become dual income. Not for housing though, for retirement. I can't raise a family and retire to a lifestyle worth working for 30 years for in the first place, on a single income.
I also agree on the entitlement complex you highlight. And like you, I have no sympathy for it, in spite of being labeled "cheap and boring" by my exwife due to my unwillingness to consume beyond my means. Where we part company is in the normalized view of dual income status as a solvent and reliable way of attaining housing security. We just disagree there, see my previous comments about twin piston airplane economics analogy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon
Houston is THE fastest growing metro area in the US, so it's not really a good example to use - it's definitely not the American norm.
I live about three hours north of Houston in a very pleasant metro area of about 215K people - an hour and a half east of Dallas. Great schools, low unemployment, a very diverse economy - and here's the really cool part - a low cost of living. My husband and I bought our comfortable home in a very safe, friendly and pretty neighborhood for $193,000 two years ago.
Of course, this house might not be nice enough for some people. I mean, it doesn't have an open floorplan. It doesn't have a media room. It doesn't have five bedrooms. The kitchen, though 100 percent functional, hadn't been updated since 1997 when we bought the house, and there was WALLPAPER IN THERE. OH THE HORROR. And get this - every fixture in the house is brass. Oh, how are we even surviving this travesty?
The local public schools are rated as superior and above average, but if that's not good enough for you, there are tons of charter schools as well as private schools. The crime rate is low.
Homes in metro areas that are exploding in population have always been expensive. So what? There are TONS of smaller metro areas and towns throughout the US. There are tons of mid size cities that don't have the same cost of living as the bigger metro areas. If you can't afford to live in a big metro area, move.
I don't disagree with you position, but I find that tired assertion a bit flippant. First of all, Houston is not that great of an outlier either. It is representative of the work center concentration into hyper-urban areas with large subsurban enclaves, all injecting themselves into the urban and suburban cores. I could replace Houston with Atlanta, Charlotte, FTW, Austin, San Antonio and the dynamics, normalized for total population, are exactly the same. People are driving a long time to get to work. Households are spending more than 45% of NET income in housing and transportation costs (due to the insane distances) and that's almost universally on a dual income. That's not affordable just because they're barely making the payments at the end of the month, that's the very definition of house poverty.
Look, I'm not a big city snob. I'd be just as happy raising a family in Abilene, San Marcos, College Station et al, but the fact remains the bulk of the population is not in a position to find gainful employment as a big fish on a little pond. These micro locations largely don't offer much in the way of gainful employment for the majority. As to the big metros, the salary figures of Houston MSA do not support the run-up in housing imo, and that's the difference from the smaller micropolitan areas. Those snobs in The Woodlands? That's dual income oil work city. One job hiccup and they're a 70K household supporting a 250-350K note. Good luck with that. The whole thing is propped up on a disingenuous dual income construct that may provide outward appearance of solvency, but it's unapologetic house poverty in disguise. Even if you wanted to de-populate the core into these idyllic 100K-250K micropolitan areas, the dynamic would worsen there, because employers are not distributed that way.
As to the rest of your post, we're in solid agreement. Undershooting housing is a life priority of mine. I can say without hesitation, the housing line item is the single most crucial game changer in my household's life, by orders of magnitude. The differential that choice funds is literally every other discretion in my life, and makes concurrent savings of consequence possible. But that choice has also been the butt of jokes and scorn from my professional peers for a decade now; it was even a contributing factor to my divorce. So it's not a free opinion to hold publicly let me tell you. It comes with costs and most Americans? They simply reject the construct. I don't particularly enjoy being considered a pariah just to highlight myself; I'm just trying to reach retirement to more than a social security lifestyle. I'm lucky my current spouse is on board with this, otherwise I'd be screwed, again. But it's very uphill, to go into the housing market and pretty much not be able to compete because the market assumes one comes in with a "relationship mortgage" as collateral to the financing table.
I think we're in agreement. I'm a single earner too. Wife is in school right now. Our intent is to become dual income. Not for housing though, for retirement. I can't raise a family and retire to a lifestyle worth working for 30 years for in the first place, on a single income.
I also agree on the entitlement complex you highlight. And like you, I have no sympathy for it, in spite of being labeled "cheap and boring" by my exwife due to my unwillingness to consume beyond my means. Where we part company is in the normalized view of dual income status as a solvent and reliable way of attaining housing security. We just disagree there, see my previous comments about twin piston airplane economics analogy.
I took a different approach. I bought way less house than I could afford, quickly zeroed out the small mortgage on it, and now save 40% of my gross income to fund my retirement.
You have the decimal point in the wrong place but yeah, 0.3% of the population is statically irrelevant. Most pre-law washouts retooled themselves and are out earning a decent living instead of spending their hours in the internet complaining about it.
If you do the math, you can get a low down payment 3.75% FHA loan pretty much anywhere if you've paid your bills on time for 4 or 5 years and don't have destroyed credit. Median household income is $53,000. That's a married couple where both make $13/hour. The national median home price is $184,600. Assuming 6% between mortgage, PMI, property taxes, and insurance, that's 5% down on a $250,000 home with 28% of gross income going towards housing. You can buy that $184,600 with $40,000 in income.
You're not buying a house with that income in Palo Alto or Newport Beach or Weston, Ma or Chevy Chase MD or Greenwich, CT or Redmond, WA but you have 90% of the country where real estate is affordable at that income level. If you don't have the job skills and you live in one of those areas, you have to move. If you're single, overcome those personality defects and get married because you're not buying into the housing market on one working class income.
Pre-law washouts who default on their student loans can't afford to go back to school. I do know several people who managed to insert themselves as middlemen extracting money from others without working for it nor paying taxes on the income.
Remember that even with an acceptable minimum down payment and credit score an FHA loan isn't going to be available to an individual (one-income) earning $10/hr where starter homes cost $200K.
I took a different approach. I bought way less house than I could afford, quickly zeroed out the small mortgage on it, and now save 40% of my gross income to fund my retirement.
One of the purposes of zoning is to prevent poor people from buying way less house than they can afford.
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