Until a decade ago, the rule of thumb was never spend more than 20% of your salary on rent. Then it changed to 25%. Now everyone’s saying 33% like there’s some sort of thought behind that number other than “We want more of your money”…
My parents’ mortgage in the 1980’s was about 15% of our household income. Only my dad worked. It was a house large enough for a few kids, a home office, a guest bedroom, and a big basement entertainment room.
I recently had an exhaustive back and forth with a status quo warrior that said actually the poorest workers in the United States were spoiled and rich actually because the GDP was so dazzlingly high compared to other countries.
That was it. That was the entire basis of that smug asshole’s argument. Rent and healthcare costs don’t real. Rejoice, you ungrateful poors. galaxy-brain
I just read a really good article about why Tokyo, one of the biggest cities in the world, is also one of the most affordable for housing and pretty much everything else. Spoiler, they don’t allow boomer nimbyism and they absolutely do allow a shitload of apartment building pretty much everywhere.
I recently looked up LA and SF and then other American cities in general for the first time on Google Earth. How much you could be allergic to apartments to let that happen? It’s just really incredibly weird all these houses spaced out like nothing. I’d be really utterly surprised if US cities didn’t have a rent problem with such a city design.
California is weird with its zoning laws, and those cities didn’t start out large, nor have they existed as large cities for very long. My guess is that as time passes, those cities will start to look more like NYC, Boston, etc., which have more apartments/condos.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. It’s easy to get out of this cycle. Most states will have First Time Homebuyers programs, and even if you’ve had a home before, not having a home for 3+ years can cause you to re-qualify again.
Live in a shithole for a while if you have to. OWNING a home is like paying yourself. It’s so much cheaper than renting, yes you have to fix things when they break, but you should want to learn those skills anyhow. Toilets, water pumps, hot water heaters, all that shit is pretty easy to fix yourself. Every penny you put into a house is like a savings account that doesn’t actually count against you. You get done with that loan, and the worth of that house is yours. You’re not paying $2k/month to someone else, with nothing to show for it. You’re literally paying $2k a month to YOURSELF. Want to move? Sell the house. Anything you’ve put into it, you’ll get back and then some.
Just whatever you do, get a FIXED rate mortgage. Or go for owner-financed. There’s lots of options and renters just make excuse after excuse after excuse why they won’t buy a house.
Would you be willing to share how you make that work? I can’t imagine living on my own for that much, let alone raising 3 kids. What does a weekly meal plan look like? Do you drive? What are rent and property values like in your area?
Edit: Just ran some numbers, and I can see how that could be possible, but it’s dangerously lean. We shouldn’t need to live like that. I commend you for making it work, but would like to say that you’re definitely worth more than $20k/yr (especially with all those home improvement skills, but regardless)
I can’t work like most people, I got cancer when I was 26 and it blew out my immune system (COVID-era was fun let me tell you!). I can’t make more money than what I make, as I need a schedule that’s flexible because I’m tired constantly. I utilize food banks whenever I can, I drive 25 minutes to work when I do, I have multiple paid off cars (because I buy them from auctions and repair them myself). The house was paid off 4-5 years ago, it was an almost-condemned write-off. It’s still not even finished, we’ve still got concrete under the carpet (again, auctions) and no proper padding. I can survive on almost nothing now because I managed to scrape together around $100k in 5 years by taking advantage of every last bit of help I could get.
It’s hard, but I guarantee people here are making way more than I do, with way healthier bodies.
I even had 2 years of non-stop code violation complaints from the neighborhood karens because I couldn’t keep up with the yard in my condition.
Additionally, I’ve always been in poverty - I can’t get a job worth a shit because I have no college, I could never afford it. What I DO have though, is friends who are real estate agents. They led me to real estate auctions and landed me this property.
B) you need to qualify for a mortgage, even with first time homebuyer programs
C) you severely underestimate what the mortgage is
D) people aren’t always expecting to live in the same area for more than 5-7 years, at which point you’ve spent tons of money on closing and PMI that you absolutely aren’t coming out ahead on
A) I’ve been in poverty my whole life.
B) By-owner financing is a thing, I mentioned it already. If you qualify for renting, you qualify for the first time homebuyers programs. You’re making excuses and you clearly don’t know how these programs work.
C) Again, nope.
D) Covered that already. Closing costs are miniscule compared to the amount of equity you build, and first time home buyers programs cover closing costs, enough with the copium.
I bought my house without a front door, no working a/c, water pipes cut off inside the walls, no toilet. Learn how to do shit for yourself. I learned all the shit to fix my house from YouTube videos.
Where I live houses are like $450k minimum for something that doesn’t need major work. Even with a n FHA loan, the mortgage would be untenable. I’ve given up owning a home here.
Buy a house that needs major work. Do the damn work. That was the only way I could afford mine, and if I can do it, so can you. And stop living in the city, live out in the rural areas.
I bought my cars at auction for like $2.5kish. They have them all the time between 60k-160k miles on them. Look at your local car auction, you don’t have to pay a $600/mo loan on a car as well.
No it’s not. Typical car holds $35ish worth of gas, and that lasts 4-5 days of travel to/from work. And I lose an hour a day for a 30-ish minute drive. Woo…
Edit: Okay, so I can understand European pricing being stupid here. I can agree with you when it comes to gas over there. But the population density is twice as dense over there as it is in America, so obviously arguments aren’t based on European gas prices. I left my comments but leave it able to be read. I’m not one to shy away from being wrong. In your instance, with gas like it is over there, I concede.
Genuinely... you seem very out of touch. Your entire premise is incredibly ableist. You presume that anybody can do the things you're listing, but many of us are living with disabilities, and not everyone has had the opportunities you have had to have enough money to pay for a house, or to buy a car. A $2.5k car is ultimately, MUCH More expensive than buying a more expensive car, because you are getting one that's barely functional for that price. Once all my bills are out of the way, I take home $100 for all unnecessary expenses anyways, so it would take me years to save up for one of those pieces of junk.
You take for granted that you have the confidence and motivation to do things like, say, even apply to one of these homebuyers programs - but other people have to put in more effort just to get out of bed in the morning.
Check your goddamn privilege.
If you checked my other replies, you’d know I had cancer at 26, and that I’m living with disabilities too. But hey, anything to shirk responsibility for yourself. And no, auction cars aren’t “barely functional” either. Most of them last me 100k+ miles. Usually they’re at auction because they were a drug dealers car, and police ripped out the interior, but otherwise run fine.
It’s fairly clear that not only are you inexperienced with the world, but you also don’t CARE to gain the experience by applying yourself. Even when people give you solutions, you reply with excuses.
I understand. It took me getting literal CANCER to get me off my ass and applying myself. It wasn’t until I understood my own mortality that I was scared into action.
I don’t live in the city. I have friends and a job here. It doesn’t seem like a solution to the problem to tell everyone to move to Ohio or something. And I know what it is to renovate a house. If it is a big enough job, you have to live (pay rent) elsewhere while you do the work. Otherwise, you still have huge material costs on top of your mortgage.
Sometimes you do have to, sometimes you don’t. If it’s a major enough renovation, it may actually be illegal to inhabit. I have lived in houses with no plumbing before. My wife and I are in our 40’s and that just isn’t going to work.
It sounds like you might know more than me, so def educate me if you think I’m wrong.
However I don’t think point D was addressed at all. First time homebuyers might cover closing costs when purchasing the home, but what about selling it? Afaik closing costs as a seller can be expected to be between 6 and 10%.
Also, when paying a 2k mortgage, you’re not paying yourself 2k depending on interest rate. These days you’re realistically paying yourself 400 while paying the bank 1.6k. Nothing to sneeze at, but just a more accurate portrayal.
Honestly, I’ve not seen housing dip except for in 2008 - and I’ve felt like it should have crashed long ago, but with the AirBnB market and all these investors now using housing to rake in massive amounts of cash, people just keep buying and buying. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t buy myself at this point - even just 5 years ago it was a much more tenable situation than it is now.
You’re right for calling me out on D; In this market you’d have to live in a house for 5+ years easy before you could get out of it. But you’d be getting a LOT out of it unless they regulate AirBnB (and that ain’t happening).
Additionally, yes - again, very right on the interest rate. I had a by-owner situation, where I proposed a balloon after, 6 years. Then I pumped literally every dime I owned into my payments. By the time the balloon was due, the house was paid. The owner said they’d never seen someone pull it off, and they hadn’t intended to really sell the property but rather assumed I would get 1/2 way through the payments and not be able to pay the balloon. They’ve done this with the property a couple times where they allowed people to do a rent-to-own type situation, and in the end nobody paid it off, so they got to keep the money and the house.
You severely underestimate the number of people who lack ambition, life skills, discipline, and financial responsibility. It may seem easy to you but to people without these things, it’s like climbing a mountain.
Who has time to develop all that when you’re burned out, pushed to your limit at your job that barely covers your primary expenses?
I know, not the whole picture, but neither is what you’re saying. The first thing you list is ambition? I hope that’s not in order of importance because I don’t think most people lack ambition, I think they get stretched too thin and feel its hopeless no matter what.
Financial responsibility, life skills, these are important issues and more should be done to improve quality of them for the population. But discipline and ambition require a world where those get rewarded, and for some lucky people they do, but for many that’s just not the case.
Where I live, a mortgage payment is twice what rent is. My family won’t move, and I’m not spending 75% of my paycheck on a mortgage. Family won’t move to LCOL. Also mortgage payments have gone up like 35% since the rate hikes, and housing costs are at all time highs.
Just because things worked out for you doesn’t mean they work out for others. You’re not taking crazy pills, you’re lacking empathy and seem very out of touch with reality.
Every penny you put into a house is like a savings account that doesn’t actually count against you. You get done with that loan, and the worth of that house is yours.
How should I reconcile this with the statement “you should see housing as necessities rather than investments”?
Living paycheck to paycheck is a valid reason how one can’t even save up to consider even buying a house. Soon with the rising prices it will even be living on borrowed time.
renters just make excuse after excuse after excuse why they won’t buy a house.
“wahhh I’m living paycheck to paycheck and may not be able to pay rent this month, let alone set aside a down-payment and closing costs for a house when houses are at an all time high price”
Poor people, amirite? Don’t they know that the solution to all their problems is to just get more money?
Weird that they can afford $2k in rent somehow, but can’t afford a $1200/mo mortgage…right? If they wanted more money, they would stop renting and pissing all of that money away, don’t you think?
Super weird that they can’t scrape together a down-payment in a time where 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and housing prices are at an all time high.
Also, with interest rates being as they are, mortgages are likely more expensive than rent. Im in the process of closing on a house, and I know our monthly cost is way the hell up from before.
Seriously though dude, you need to take a step back and realize you’re a bit out of touch. All your comments have big “millenials wouldn’t have money problems if they just stopped buying so much avacado toast” energy
Yet…again… First time home buyers programs take care of that. Also the reason I said that people need to get fixed rate mortgages if they’re going that route. You’re an idiot if you get an adjustable APR.
Oh yeah, sure, I’ll buy a shitty house an hour away from where I work, in a small village with not even a grocery store! Good idea! And then I’ll be stuck there for the rest of my life because you can’t sell houses in these places, because they are shitty!
Buying a house or apartment is a several decades investment. If you’re settled in your life, sure, do that, but not everyone is in this case, and not everyone in this case can afford it.
BTW, so you know banks will not give you money these days? Half the requests are refused by banks in France these days because they’re waiting for the yields to increase again.
I make ~$1,500-$1,600 every two weeks (varies based on OT). My rent for a small one bedroom is $1,200 (utilities included). Other apartments in my town are easily $1,700+ for a barebones similar place, no utilities included.
As much as I pay for how small my place is, I still have it good compared to others in town. Other apartments I’ve seen have a miniscule kitchen, the only thing keeping them from being kitchenettes are the full sized appliances. I have a decently sized one for the size of my apartment.
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