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I don't think a single burger flipper can afford / qualify to mortgage a single-family detached house anywhere in this country.
I bought a house for 37K last year. So that would be about $300 PITI on a 15 yr loan. Wendy's and McDonalds are about a mile away. So you wouldn't need a car but you would need money for repairs.
No way would it go FHA but a credit union might have loaned the money with 10% down and good credit. If the appraiser wasn't paying too much attention.
I don't think that price is too unusual for a lot of small town America even places large enough to have McDonalds and Wendy's. Someone who shows up for work and is not on drugs will find themselves quite employable.
Was it livable? Will it have any resale value at all, without considerably more in repairs and updating? And is it located where there are any buyers looking?
Many small towns in the midwest and south are filled with $50k houses, some even livable. But nothing that will ever accumulate significant value or easily find buyers, unless you grab them at the leading edge of a localized economic expansion. Once the factory closed or farming went corporate, they were just leftovers.
It was liveable but has and will continue to need repairs. So our theoretical burger flipper would need skilz and hopefully a friend with a truck. Though home stores deliver for a fee and a big plus now is there's a hardware store on the bus line for our hypothetical BF.
I don't plan to resell so never gave that any thought.
My advice is to NOT worry about resale value. If you do you will pay too much for the house. Just make sure you are in a place where you'll be happy for the long run.
Someone who worries about resale should invest in stocks. Spend your time researching stocks instead of doing repairs.
And I come at our vast range of economics-linked problems with economic assumptions and theory that actually address the root causes of those problems instead of devising theoretical band-aids, smoke screens and workarounds for them that preserve the existing order.
If you say so.
I look forward to you articulating a root cause to a problem as well as your articulation of economic assumptions and theory that address those hypothetical root causes.
I look forward to you articulating a root cause to a problem as well as your articulation of economic assumptions and theory that address those hypothetical root causes.
Already have, in many posts. In a word, overconsumption. In three, maximized fostered consumption. Two more: you're welcome.
I can't see saving on a $75k/year salary, even without cable television, a land line, or anything.
Most of our money goes to housing, food, and education savings.
Saving the leftovers would leave us with nothing near $10k/year required to end up with $300k after 30 years.
As to the person claiming that because the "average" is $300k, I think you are confused with the arithmetic mean and median. Most people don't have $300k. That's the total amount divided by the total number of people.
You don’t need to save 10k a year to have 300k in 30 years. First you have to look at compounding and then you should also consider things like employer matching in retirement accounts.
For instance 4K a year invested at a 6.5% return for 30 years is 368k so this could be 3k in employee contributions and 1k employer matching or some combo there of. Well below your assumed 10k. Even 3k a year with the 6.5% return would get you close.
Secondly kids come at a cost and everyone knows that. If having a child or multiple prevents you from doing something else financially well that on you to own, you don’t have to have kids or retire
The above anecdote on your own personal finance situation is completely different than your previous rant post claiming people cannot get wealthy by working for a salary and living frugally, and that thinkers/creaters/makers don't have wealth.
Are you seriously going to stand by the "if you don't have kids" qualifier you added too? Since you cannot build wealth with a job and kids nobody else can?
I'm not sure I understand the criticism.
Are you claiming that I'm making two different points? You're right. I am making two separate points.
And as to your point about kids, yes, I'm standing by that. You have to cut costs somewhere or add income somewhere. You simply can't pay $2k/mo for rent, $500/mo for food, $1k/mo for childcare (or $800/mo for after school care), $1k/mo for taxes, plus $300/mo for utilities, $200/mo for transport (gas or a bus pass), $5k annually for health insurance minimum, and on top of that, about $4k annually in taxes and that's with deductions... What do you have left? That's no Christmas, no clothing, etc. etc. You save a couple thousand a year.
And that's assuming mommy and daddy paid for whatever scholarships didn't pay for so there's no student loan debt.
Where would you save? Cut the imaginary cable bill? I know this budget inside and out because I've lived it.
It's not just that I can't save, obviously millions of Americans are having a hard time saving.
There are ways to do it. Live in a small town and drive a couple hours. Have a grandparent watch the kids if they are available. Do not eat meat. Driving an old car is already built into my financial model above. Don't go to college. Don't pay for health insurance and don't get sick. Etc. I've used many of those tactics but ultimately until you get well above the median income you aren't saving much unless you are giving up major things such as utilities, 3+ hours per day on commute, etc.
Quote:
For instance 4K a year invested at a 6.5% return for 30 years is 368k
Or zero. You never know. Stocks are a gamble. You can hope for interest and growth but you never know. People steal. You can't guarantee anything in the future. Did you not see what happened in 2008 to the people who retired then?
You don’t need to save 10k a year to have 300k in 30 years. First you have to look at compounding and then you should also consider things like employer matching in retirement accounts.
For instance 4K a year invested at a 6.5% return for 30 years is 368k so this could be 3k in employee contributions and 1k employer matching or some combo there of. Well below your assumed 10k. Even 3k a year with the 6.5% return would get you close.
Secondly kids come at a cost and everyone knows that.
First of all, most people aren't retired. Are we talking about maximum net wealth here, or median savings?
Second of all, it's not true that people know the cost of kids. I certainly had no idea how expensive child care was. It wasn't until after I had a kid that I learned that the cost of a babysitter had quintupled since I was a child. Ooops.
You're right that in the age of the Internet, there's no excuse. However, some people have sex and have kids without planning. The point is not "should those children never have been born" (of course they should not have) but "what can those parents do now, given that the child exists"?
Here are some choices:
* Kill themselves, give the child to the state
* Kill the child and themselves
* Try desperately to save on workers salaries, unsuccessfully
* Struggle year after year to raise their incomes and education level, and hope nobody gets sick
Which do you recommend? Simply saying "YOU MADE A MISTAKE, STUPID" is not really a solution. People are going to have babies. So, what then?
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