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...about half were gifted their downpayment so I'm little impressed by their earnestness and angst about owning a home:
"We were able to get the down payment from my partner's parents, and we took out a 15-year loan, because I hate the idea of paying on a house for 30 years and paying so much more interest. We're definitely a lot more tight with money now than we were when we were renting (our mortgage is double what the rent payment was), but we feel happy and secure — albeit pretty stressed out from rapid-fire home repairs over the last year."
From the very first story - you'd think they'd at least have started with a more independent one. The gall of taking a downpayment from parents who were still paying on their OWN homes! So glad they're taking a 15 year mortgage out!
I'm really not sure what these people are so proud of - I would have been disgraced to take money from my parents, especially after I was married and "on my own" for years. No one saves any more for a home apparently.
Very few people live in cities that have good quality four year Universities, or even poor quality four year colleges. That is great that both you and your husband could live at home all (or most years) but that really is not practical for most college age students in the US.
I'm not saying we went to great schools---they were city colleges. We sacrificed in that sense. We commuted to get there. (My trip was over an hour each way, it's not like it was around the corner.) We live in very HCOLAs.
I did go away for a year to state school and I did take out a loan but because it was a state school it was pretty minor. Even if I had gone there for four years that is something I could've paid off by now. I literally had zero dollars from family to put toward an education so yeah, I went to the city college but luckily I majored in something that gets me a job pretty easily, which I think many people do not do.
Yes, 100%, they think they did it all themselves!!
This one in particular made me roll my eyes hard:
“We were able to get the down payment from my partner's parents, and we took out a 15-year loan, because I hate the idea of paying on a house for 30 years and paying so much more interest. We're definitely a lot more tight with money now than we were when we were renting”
Umm, who LOVES the idea of a 30 year mortgage, probably not many but we don’t all have the bank of DAD helping with large downpayments! We have a 30 but we pay it like a 5-10 year mortgage, we didn’t want the chokehold of a 15 year around our necks incase of job loss! We don’t have the luxury of parents to chip in when the times get tough!
The whole article was pretty annoying. Sure, I can see parents gifting basic kitchen appliances or $5k for closing costs, but most of the people written about in the article are a bunch of spoiled babies.
We also relocated to a cheaper area, but too many people can’t fathom that. They would rather struggle and whine until mommy kicks in some $.
Its the entitlement mentality of my generation. They have no idea that doing it "themselves" means no outside help. They are so reliant on mommy and daddy that receiving help from them is viewed as a right as normal as the 1st amendment.
I didn't have the luxury of having help from mommy and daddy. They were too poor to even buy me an old used car much less a down payment on a house. So I did what a lot of the people from generations before the Millennials did. I worked really really hard and made some sacrifices. I saved up about $48K (for down payment and closing) and bought a house. I did not get a single dime from my parents. Did the opposite actually. I let them move in after I bought my place so they can save money. So I was also quite annoyed by this article as well. A lot of the people from the stories have no idea how privileged they are.
Sorry I don’t get the angst that some of you folks seem to have with parents or grandparents helping their children or grandchildren financially if they can afford it. It’s not taking anything away from you or costing you one red cent. Mommy and Daddy, spoiled brats, entitled... sounds more like sour grapes more than some legit argument.
I personally have a co-worker who was inherited $ to pay for the whole home purchase (a slightly different animal)... I watch this person run up lots of debt and complain about it. They don’t realize what their peers have to go through to buy a home or learn any money management skills.
For us, years of living in expensive areas in small apartments and diligently socking the cash away to move somewhere less pricey. Basically this co-worker llacks financial discipline, but we learned a lesson and budget appropriately.
Handing kids $50k+ for down payments isn’t really teaching any responsibility, see my above example. Let’s be real, there are a lot of people who can’t afford to retire because they are too busy helping out junior.
I personally have a co-worker who was inherited $ to pay for the whole home purchase (a slightly different animal)... I watch this person run up lots of debt and complain about it. They don’t realize what their peers have to go through to buy a home or learn any money management skills.
For us, years of living in expensive areas in small apartments and diligently socking the cash away to move somewhere less pricey. Basically this co-worker llacks financial discipline, but we learned a lesson and budget appropriately.
Handing kids $50k+ for down payments isn’t really teaching any responsibility, see my above example. Let’s be real, there are a lot of people who can’t afford to retire because they are too busy helping out junior.
By the time a child reaches the age of being able to have a mortgage they should have already been well schooled in the value of money, savings, hard work and taking care of their responsibilities. If they haven’t I’d say that that is on the parents. I came from an affluent family and was taught those things beginning at an early age.
Sorry I don’t get the angst that some of you folks seem to have with parents or grandparents helping their children or grandchildren financially if they can afford it. It’s not taking anything away from you or costing you one red cent. Mommy and Daddy, spoiled brats, entitled... sounds more like sour grapes more than some legit argument.
Annoyance comes from these stories not being noteworthy in the least.
Imagine applying that toward early retirement. A group of 50 year olds who retired early and then a smaller group is featured on the news for how they were able to retire early:
"I won the lottery at 49."
"My Great Aunt Sylvia died and I was always her favorite niece and so, she made me the beneficiary of massive trusts."
"Dad handed the business over to me and I've hired someone else to do my job, at far less pay than I would have been. I just get sent checks and attend the occasional board meeting as a figurehead."
Good for them... but why the eff are they on the news? "Step 1 - have someone else pay for it." Wow- thanks. Super-helpful advice. You should give seminars.
It's the same with paying off debt. What's more impressive... paying off $8K in a year on a single, $35K income or paying off $50K on a household income of $180K? The former requires real strategy and dedication while the latter just needs to stop bleeding money on vacations, shopping, luxury-car payments, and meals out. I swear, those people who write all of these "make coffee at home/limit dinners out to once a week/rent a beach cottage in Cape Cod for a week instead of going to the Amalfi Coast" were born and bred into the latter group.
If you're going to write articles and "do research" for it, maybe look beyond your Saturday-night Sangria & Sonnets friends-group. #friendspiration Their stories aren't relatable to us common folk. We're on our roofs on Saturday evening... still with our friends but pulling off siding and flashing to figure out where water that's leaking down into the utility room is getting in, fixing it, and finishing off the day with drinks and food and stories on the patio. My roof this week. Next week, putting a second coat of stain on the neighbor's deck... it'll go much faster this time, since we figured out that someone has a good sprayer. The week after that, brake pads. Our friend with the lift will be home and we're just going to line them up and get it all done, before all the summer road trips to amusement parks, campgrounds, long weekends to the beach, visiting family, etc. start.
We bought our first house in 1996. We had massive student loan debt and very little money. Housing had taken a dive and we knew it was our opportunity to get into home ownership. We did the following: 1. Cashed in our whole life insurance policies. 2. Convinced the seller to carry back 5% of the 10% down payment required by the lender. 3. Sold the Disney stock my wife's grandmother bought for my wife when she was 3 years old (it had split multiple times, so she had several shares.). 4. borrowed money from my wife's grandmother, from her parents and from my parents. 5. Used a tax return. 6. Borrowed from our daughters college funds (which had about $300 each).
That was not just the down-payment, We had closing costs we had to pay, moving costs, we bought some curtains and had the giant curtains over the big front window cleaned (which was a huge cost). We had very little furniture, but some was included with the house. When we moved a leg fell off our dinning table somewhere along the way, so, or a year or more we ate sitting on blankets on the dining room floor - or more often, outside. The house was a bit of a wreck. Inch by inch we made it livable and then nice. It took nearly ten years to make it beautiful again.
It amuses me when Mellinnials say "Oh it is so different now. Things are so much harder. We have so much student loan debt, etc etc."
I just snicker. Get back to me when you join a health club so you have access to a working shower or when you have your family sit on blankets on the floor for thanksgiving dinner. Or when you are laying under the house trying to figure out how to fix broken plumbing for the first time and your 3 year old daughter flushes a toilet load right into your face. Still we did not see it as hard, just what you have to do/learn/live with if you wanted a chance to get into the housing market.
I do not think things are really that much harder, I just think mellinnials have re-defined what "hardship" means.
"oh noo. I cannot afford internet!!!!" "Really? Did you know that you can live for six months without electricity if you need to in order to afford a house at first?" Yes, it takes some effort, some inconvenience. It always has.
I think the point of the article is lost on most of those who've read it and responded here...
look at the title......the "get honest" part shows that the point is to say "these young homebuyers mostly did it with help/privileges many of their peers don't have".
So no....it's not "ironic" that the list includes mostly homebuyers who've had help/advantages.......that was the whole point.
A lot of people here have a chip on their shoulder about home ownership and parental gifts. Only 6 of the 14 homeowners profiled received direct financial assistance from their family to buy a home. Another 6 did it on their own, and the last 2 are unique situations.
And besides, this wasn't presented as a "how-to" article. Who cares if they profiled some people who got assistance from parents. It's not a rare thing.
Gifted
Daisy - $40K down payment gift from parents
Dave- $50K inheritance/gift + $10K their own money
Jay - $7K down payment gift from grandpa and aunt
Jennifer - $210K down payment, mix of a gift and a family loan
Allyson - $235K down payment, part gift and part her own savings
Juli - $35K, 15K their own, 10K from both sets of parents
Bought with their own earnings
Amanda - $9K down payment
Ellen - Bought with a $10K 0% loan through a city program for a low-income neighborhood
Becca - Bought for $9K cash, took on $30K mortgage for renovations
Jessica - 0% down VA loan
Emily - $5K down payment via loan
Anne - $40K down payment
Unique
Elizabeth - Purchased house jointly with Dad (for use of her, her sister, and both parents)
Sarah - $10K down payment, funded by donations to her late husband's GoFundMe
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