The good news thread

[bucky]

It doesn’t need to be generational debt just make at least 1 payment extra a year on the principle and you will cut out years of payments and interest costs. The first years of a mortgage are primarily interest.
Good for you to be financially able to purchase a home at your age.

 

[Westtown Willy]

2600 sqft, additional 50x28 garage on 0.8 of an acre. Unfortunately no cheerleaders yet

that sounds like a great piece of property, congratulations man, you're doing something we're assured every day is impossible for younger generations, that's a beautiful thing!

Never listen to their bullshit

 

[chili_pepper]

like a fish needs a bicycle

Well...

 

[speeding_infraction]

It doesn’t need to be generational debt just make at least 1 payment extra a year on the principle and you will cut out years of payments and interest costs. The first years of a mortgage are primarily interest.
Good for you to be financially able to purchase a home at your age.

I plan to pay as much as I can possibly afford on it after my other necessary expenses. What ever is left over can be put towards hobbies.

that sounds like a great piece of property, congratulations man, you're doing something we're assured every day is impossible for younger generations, that's a beautiful thing!

Never listen to their bullshit

View attachment 701844

Exactly. All you have to do is a) have a good relationship with your parents, b) tough it out for a couple years with them, and c) save an unreasonable amt of money (for me it was 85%) and do any side gigs you can. Obviously how fast you can get a house depends on cost of living and what house someone is looking for, but it can be done.

 

[Cheesy]

Ah, Sir, either your math is off or mine is.

2600 sq ft of house but only 1400 sq ft of garage????

Dang kids these days....




Congrats on what hopefully turns out to be a fine purchase!!!

Only problem with 1400 sq ft of garage space is the ability to fill it with 1400 sq ft worth of crap. I have successfully managed to do it with 900 sq ft.

 

[Westtown Willy]

I plan to pay as much as I can possibly afford on it after my other necessary expenses. What ever is left over can be put towards hobbies.


Exactly. All you have to do is a) have a good relationship with your parents, b) tough it out for a couple years with them, and c) save an unreasonable amt of money (for me it was 85%) and do any side gigs you can. Obviously how fast you can get a house depends on cost of living and what house someone is looking for, but it can be done.

Yup. Both of my kids bought houses post-covid while in their earlier 20s, had they listened to social media & bought into that bullshit rather than listening to their old man they might today be living in apartments complaining about 'end-stage' capitalism with all the others that have convinced themselves that full blown socialism is the answer to all their problems & prayers.

In fact my paralegal & her husband (mid-20s) just entered into a purchase agreement for their first house too, she just told me yesterday.

Yes it's harder today than it was for a couple prior generations, but guess what, it's also easier today than it was for generations before that. Harder doesn't mean impossible, harder doesn't mean the world owes you anything, everyone needs to manage expectations based upon conditions that exist at the time they're living in rather than living this life of endless comparison to 'the boomers', that's no more useful than whining about that chick that fucked you over 12 years ago & expecting it to get you laid today.

 

[bucky]

It’s never been easy to buy a house. It takes a dedicated financial plan to make sure you have a great credit score and saving as much as you can to build a nice down payment. When we bought our house in 83 my Wife, girlfriend at the time, and I saved every penny for a year to be able to put 20% down and avoid PMI. Her check was bigger and every cent went into savings. We lived like paupers off my check for the year.
The bigger problem today is the added cost of taxes, insurance, utilities and the other associated costs of home ownership.

 

[B1Toad]

My first 2 houses were assumable, non-qualifying loans, the first one in 1985 was a VA and the second one in 1989 was FHA. Just made a down payment to the seller and in the case of the first one a second mortgage to the seller till he was paid off. It all worked out great but those were different times.

 

[Westtown Willy]

It’s never been easy to buy a house. It takes a dedicated financial plan to make sure you have a great credit score and saving as much as you can to build a nice down payment. When we bought our house in 83 my Wife, girlfriend at the time, and I saved every penny for a year to be able to put 20% down and avoid PMI. Her check was bigger and every cent went into savings. We lived like paupers off my check for the year.
The bigger problem today is the added cost of taxes, insurance, utilities and the other associated costs of home ownership.

I agree it's always been difficult, but don't tell that to many younger people that just 'know' it was easy peasy for anyone to buy a house working part time at a fast food restaurant 'back then'.

All the costs you mentioned are indeed higher now, but also the average size of houses is larger, the expectations of buyers are larger, the lifestyles are larger...

It's really difficult to compare conditions that existed 'when boomers bought their houses' to today, it's apples & oranges in many respects. All things considered I do believe it takes more effort today, but by no means is it out of reach as so many claim it is. I can't stress enough that it's a waste of time to even make comparisons, many act as though whatever the best conditions that ever existed in the economy are somehow a guaranteed floor that all future generations are entitled to, that paradigm doesn't exist anywhere in nature much less in economics...

 

[Zorba]

Well...

View attachment 701845

Saved!

 

[MtPockets]

I agree it's always been difficult, but don't tell that to many younger people that just 'know' it was easy peasy for anyone to buy a house working part time at a fast food restaurant 'back then'.

All the costs you mentioned are indeed higher now, but also the average size of houses is larger, the expectations of buyers are larger, the lifestyles are larger...

It's really difficult to compare conditions that existed 'when boomers bought their houses' to today, it's apples & oranges in many respects. All things considered I do believe it takes more effort today, but by no means is it out of reach as so many claim it is. I can't stress enough that it's a waste of time to even make comparisons, many act as though whatever the best conditions that ever existed in the economy are somehow a guaranteed floor that all future generations are entitled to, that paradigm doesn't exist anywhere in nature much less in economics...

One thing nobody seems to talk about is how the interest on a home loan was so much higher back in the 70s and 80s.
I don't know what they peaked at, but when I was learning to drive truck my mentor and I got into a conversation about home loans.
Seems like he said his was like 9.9% and I wanted to call him a liar. I am not sure what my new mortgage was at the time, but it must have been much higher than that.

You're right, everyone wants to paint a doom and gloom picture for todays younger folks but its not rocket science.

 

[speeding_infraction]

One thing nobody seems to talk about is how the interest on a home loan was so much higher back in the 70s and 80s.
I don't know what they peaked at, but when I was learning to drive truck my mentor and I got into a conversation about home loans.
Seems like he said his was like 9.9% and I wanted to call him a liar. I am not sure what my new mortgage was at the time, but it must have been much higher than that.

You're right, everyone wants to paint a doom and gloom picture for todays younger folks but its not rocket science.

Mine is 6.6%. not too bad, and I can always refi if it goes down enough

 

[Westtown Willy]

One thing nobody seems to talk about is how the interest on a home loan was so much higher back in the 70s and 80s.
I don't know what they peaked at, but when I was learning to drive truck my mentor and I got into a conversation about home loans.
Seems like he said his was like 9.9% and I wanted to call him a liar. I am not sure what my new mortgage was at the time, but it must have been much higher than that.

You're right, everyone wants to paint a doom and gloom picture for todays younger folks but its not rocket science.

I thought it was in the 70's with rates in the lower teens but according to our AI masters:

"The highest mortgage rates in U.S. history peaked in October 1981, hitting an all-time weekly record of 18.63% for a 30-year fixed loan according to Freddie Mac data. For that entire year of 1981, the annual average reached a staggering 16.64%."

That's like buying a house on a credit card.

My first mortgage was in 94 at 8% & I remember my old man telling what an incredibly low rate that was...

Rates are of course just one factor, but it's an extremely important one.

 

[Zorba]

One thing nobody seems to talk about is how the interest on a home loan was so much higher back in the 70s and 80s.
I don't know what they peaked at, but when I was learning to drive truck my mentor and I got into a conversation about home loans.
Seems like he said his was like 9.9% and I wanted to call him a liar. I am not sure what my new mortgage was at the time, but it must have been much higher than that.

You're right, everyone wants to paint a doom and gloom picture for todays younger folks but its not rocket science.

We bought our first home in 1985, it had an assumable loan on it at 13%. Needless to say, we didn't assume it, I think the loan we got was around 7 or 8 percent. Besides, the existing loan was from BofA - the next to last bank I'd do business with anyway.

 

[InOmaha]

My in-laws interest on their house was 13%. But he built the house himself as a contractor so he saved there. He built most of the houses on the block.

Our first one was 7.25%. We got lucky when we moved up here and it was much lower.

But property taxes absolutely suck here so paying those ate any savings on rates. We may be getting to the point of a tax revolt over property taxes.

 

[Zorba]

We may be getting to the point of a tax revolt over property taxes.

It can't come soon enough. That's the ONE thing California got right - and it certainly couldn't happen there now.

 

[cliffish]

my first mortgage in 1997 was 8.625% with 2 points paid. 5 years we refied, pulled $60K out to buy a house in PA, went to a 15 year at 4.25%. Payment went down $300/month, put 1 K a month over to principal and had it payed off in 8 years.

 

[Squatch]

I thought it was in the 70's with rates in the lower teens but according to our AI masters:

"The highest mortgage rates in U.S. history peaked in October 1981, hitting an all-time weekly record of 18.63% for a 30-year fixed loan according to Freddie Mac data. For that entire year of 1981, the annual average reached a staggering 16.64%."

That's like buying a house on a credit card.

My first mortgage was in 94 at 8% & I remember my old man telling what an incredibly low rate that was...

Rates are of course just one factor, but it's an extremely important one.

I distinctly remember Jim, a friend and coworker, buying his first house in 1981 and complaining that his interest rate was at 18%. As an 18-year-old kid who was deep into cars and girls, this meant absolutely nothing to me. As someone with a few more years behind him now, I can say that I still share that story with folks when we get to talking about real estate and such things.

 

[Squatch]

my first mortgage in 1997 was 8.625% with 2 points paid. 5 years we refied, pulled $60K out to buy a house in PA, went to a 15 year at 4.25%. Payment went down $300/month, put 1 K a month over to principal and had it payed off in 8 years.

Mine was just a bit above 7% in 1996. Like you, I refinanced at some point (forgotten what year) and went to a 15-year mortgage, which brought rate down to just under 5%. Still took me forever to pay it off, however. Buying out the ex-wife's share will do that to a fella...

 

[speeding_infraction]

You guys are all doing a great job about making me feel better about my interest rate