Submitted by LopsidedWafer3269 t3_10w9fdn in massachusetts
Take Scituate, random example. Not exactly Newton or Cambridge, but the median home sale is currently 1.2 mil! The median household income? 129k.
How does that make any sense? People are out there buying houses at 10x their salary? With these interest rates? Assuming they can put 20% down ($240k) thats still nearly $9k a month, which is $108k per year. That’s more cash than a 129k gross salary nets.
Make it make sense.
Boomers have done everything they can to screw over younger generations
This. While I don't think they did it on purpose, they are the richest generation ever created and will probably stay that way for many generations. Us Millennials and Gen Zers are going to spend the next 25 years catering to there needs while there money floods the market and keeps inflation high. Just my opinion
Unless another virus comes in that prefers the elderly. Given the majority of boomers lean right and the GOP is anti public health, it could be a demographic game changer.
And then they will yell at us to tell us to stop drinking coffee and save our money. Like dude , I could barely save any money with two people living In an 1800 dollar apartment with a 130k per year household income. How the hell do you expect me to buy a house? You know what? I will buy some land and build my own house so I never have to work some shitty ass corporate job until I’m 65 , if I even make it to 65. I’d rather live in my house in the country and write about how annoying you are about money
If you couldn’t save money on that salary with that rent payment then your budgeting skills are total garbage.
No me and my ex weren’t really of the saving philosophy but would rather enjoy the days we know we are going to be living, young, and healthy. So we traveled a lot. I’ve been to just about every state and 8 countries. We smoked and drank a lot along with a lot of other party favors, and we liked an expensive dinner every now and then.
Living like that off of two 60k a year salaries in Boston and you really aren’t ever going to save money. You could live like a hermit, eat ramen and maybe save 1k , I’ve lived like this since and it was not that hard for me, but definitely would be hard for my ex. Never ever move into a house that is heated with oil too. So fucking expensive
You left out most of Gen X. A higher percentage of them are Trumpers than the boomers.
What?!? Source?
Well, that's disappointing to see. Thanks.
Including helping their kids out with down payments.
Can't wait till they all die out.
Funny you should say that. Most of the buyers paying these crazy prices are gen-x or millennial. Where are they getting the money? From their dead boomer parents. That’s why the income level is way below the property values.
Not many Gen-x I know have boomer parents. More millennials.
The baby boomers were born from 1946-1964. Gen Xers we’re born from 1965-1980. So boomers born in the late 40’s and early 50’s definitely had a lot of kids born from the mid-to-late 60’s through 1980.
[deleted]
Expensive houses at basent rates? When? Where? I must have missed those.
[deleted]
Ah gotcha.
Gen X here! Me and my wife bought our first house in the 90s interest rate was just over 16% and 5 times income we made it work.
The last time I was in the housing market I had the same question. I was looking in a fairly affluent bedroom community to Boston which also has an excellent school system -- so prices were high even then.
The answer from my realtor: most of the houses at the top of the market are bought with cash.
This is the reality of the situation... it's not "income" that is driving this, it's "wealth". And if you don't come from it, you lose.
We split our time between a couple of States throughout the year. In our Connecticut neighborhood the average house is currently about $900k. I know at least 5 of my neighbors had family money, or parents who helped them purchase the house. There is no way the legal secretary 3 houses away could possibly afford a house in this neighborhood on a typical salary for that job. We purchased 15 years ago for about half that amount.
In our Berkshire neighborhood, the houses are probably about $450K. We also purchased that for less than half of that amount about 8 years ago. We are the only people who have bought in that neighborhood in the past 15 years, so most of those people bought for far less than that, and several of the houses there were built on subdivided land from their parents, so there are many multi generation families in the neighborhood as well.
There is a lot of family money floating around, especially in New England.
Bet I know where the nicer people are
Which is why wealth needs to be heavily taxed.
Agreed 100%. Wealth tax and inheritance tax should be what we all fight for, but we all get manipulated into fighting over everything else.
What we need is for the state to take over zoning from local municipalities.
Well, paying cash is a little bit complicated. First, a lot of people pay cash because they are using the sale of another house. Person A buys a house for 500k, then the market took off, he sells it for 800k to buy another house for 800k. That is a cash purchase. Second, banks are doing cash equivalent loans. This means the buyer is pre approved for the loan, no risk of the loan falling through. This is debt, but cash to the buyer. And then finally yeah, you have people who have cash on hand to buy housing.
Sounds like a contingency purchase, which I’m not sure is the same consideration as a cash offer. Closing on cash is done within 30 days. If you need to muck around with the sale of your home, to buy another “in cash”, you’re not closing in 30 days due to the buyer of your home, in all likelihood.
Banks do cash equivalent loans even when rates are higher? Also how often is this scenario happening? Because the new home they are buying for $800k was also likely $500k before the market took off. It’s unlikely they are getting a better house unless they are moving to a new city where the housing market didn’t take off.
Here is the deal. You can put in an offer saying cash. Have it accepted without having the cash and then by the closing of the sale get a mortgage to pay, it is still technically a cash sale. The people selling expensive houses don’t want a contingency of getting the loan. They won’t accept the offer, if you can get the loan and don’t have the cash you just say cash get offer accepted then go get the loan.
Some buyers will ask for proof that you have the assets on a cash deal.
I bought a house with cash after I sold my current house and they asked for proof I have or at least would have the cash
The guy who commented that saw a viral tiktok video that said you could do that. I asked my realtor if we could do that and he told me "absolutely not".
Even if you could it would be pretty risky. If for whatever reason you didn't end up getting the mortgage you'd lose your deposit at a very minimum. Worst case you would end up being sued.
It is fraud to do so. Representing facts that are not true.
The seller can sue you for damages, and misrepresentation and for halting a sale that you could not fulfil on.
That's when I flash my fake Rolex
No. If you really wanted to get the house with a mortgage but not stress the sellers out, you could waive your mortgage contingency. Nobody is going to put their house under agreement for a cash sale without proof of funds.
The people making $129k household income did not buy their house in 2023. They likely bought in 10, 20, 30 years ago. If you look at most of these towns, there's barely any housing stock even on the market. Owners aren't yet willing to take the hit the mortgage interest rate increases gave to their property values, even if the house is worth ten times what they paid in the 80s or whatever. Even owners who want to downsize and stay in the area aren't because the smaller homes and condos people would normally downsize to are in extremely short supply.
Basically, if you didn't already get into the market a while ago, you're screwed for the foreseeable future here. $129k isn't 3br house money in Greater Boston anymore unless you win an affordable housing lottery. It's 2br apartment in a triple decker income now. The issue is fixable, but much of the power to change things is in the hands of people with a vested interest in not doing that.
​
>The report by a national nonprofit called Up For Growth found Massachusetts needed to build 100,000 additional homes per year to keep up demand in recent years. It also found the shortfall doubled between 2012 and 2019.
We've built less and less homes every decade since the 80's, even as we kept adding more and more jobs.
The only thing we can build in a lot of greater Boston at this point is multi family. There simply isn’t any open land left inside 95, and not much left inside 495. It may be time to look at converting some low performing commercial space into large condo developments.
From what I’ve been reading, there are still plenty of towns who have been fighting development and trying to preserve vacant lots and golf courses that have long since close down. So there’s still are places to build especially in the 495 towns but they keep fighting it tooth and nail. They even keep electing town officials who promise to fight back against further development if elected.
NIMBYism is a disease
Which is why single family zoning needs to be eliminated in greater Boston.
Devens has so much land and so many unused buildings. I have zero insight into what it would cost, but turning those buildings into affordable housing seems worth investigating.
The home shortage is nationwide and has been for a very long time. I'd go so far as to say the early 2000s.
Yes it’s nationwide, but it’s much worse in the greater Boston area than most major metros save SF and NYC.
It’s awful. We lived on the Outer Cape. Rent was insane IF you could find a place. Year round was even worse. At the time the cheapest single family in town was a year down for 350k on barely enough land for the building and a parking spot. Came up to SW NH and got a home for half that that want a tear down and had .2 acres.
Oh, the cape is in a terrible bind. The entire economy is geared toward tourism, but the residents refuse to allow anything to get built where all those restaurant/hotel/retail workers can actually afford to live. This article from the Globe recently about Barnstable residents trying to stop an old closing golf course from being turned into apartments makes it clear how bad the NIMBYism is there.
What they need are dorm-style accommodations, on the bus line so people can get to town to work. They've had opportunities to do that out where we were in Provincetown. Nope. The Air Force Base would be perfect except for the (so I'm told) pollution/toxic nature of the area. The old school atop the hill would have been great. Heck the development between Cumberland & Stop & shop could have been dorm style but they chose apartments. Not the best use of square footage IMO. But hey build that shiny new police department! The problem in Ptown is too many very wealthy 2nd (and 3rd) homeowners and VRBOs. There's not much left for the townies. We left after looking to buy back in '13 because we started to sense that our landlord wanted to cash out.
Everyone is clutching their pearls while they bitch about restaurants & bars being understaffed OR they're bitching because the kids from eastern block countries are "taking 'murican jobs" (not true). Meanwhile seasonal workers live in what's available, often really run down with questionable sanitation/hygiene facilities and sketchy as hell. I'm thinking of that "motel" in Truro that I believe was shut down a while back. The dark dirty secret of tourist towns. But hey, gotta have that Cosmo right?
What’s the fix?
The biggest issue is zoning laws created decades ago to keep the suburbs segregated by limiting multi-family housing. Zoning being under local control means those who already own property in all these towns to have all the power to approve or prevent new housing, particularly multi-family housing. And the expense of building here means developers are mostly building huge, luxury houses because they can't make a profit off building starter homes on the limited real estate available. We've taken some baby steps with the law requiring suburbs to zone for multi-family housing near commuter rail stops, but the NIMBY pushback has been fierce. (Weston in particular has been going apeshit.). What we need is for the state to take more control of zoning away from localities. What Gov. Newsom has been doing in CA to tackle the same problem recently is probably a good example to look to.
Things like rent control and affordable housing lotteries are red herrings. The only thing that's going to fix the problem is increasing the supply...by a lot.
Zombie apocalypse. Nothing else will have a big enough impact.
The NIMBY people want this housing built out by Worcester and those people are no different.
Tell me about it! People getting priced out of Boston have spiked the housing costs in central Mass beyond what the average income here can support. Meanwhile our government continues to only take token actions to address these issues. Relying on the private sector to work itself out is never going to work.
Worcester as a city is struggling to pay rent day by day. I don’t know how people do it
and yet more and more "market level" luxury condos are popping up..
​
we r being pushed out by med/tech ppl from other states who can't quite afford boston but they can sure as hell spend $3k a month to live in...worcester.
Yup. City has an average income of like $28k individual and under $60k family at the last cencus. Average rent is now creeping up towards $2k.
You’re being pushed out by the communities that don’t allow affordable housing to be built because it’ll unattractive “undesirables”. Building companies don’t want to keep building high income housing, profit margins are about the same with the added negative that luxury housing is extremely feeble in economic crisis situations. The problem is that hardly any community in the state wants to allow builders to build affordable housing. The demand is so high for affordable housing here, builders have been licking their chops for years to get in on it. Beyond that, the market is way over saturated for luxury housing at the moment.
Tech people moving to Worcester is a symptom of the bigger issue, not the cause of the issue.
you typed all that and u could have just said capitalism / for profit housing.......
i never said tech ppl CAUSED anything. but that's one large group of ppl moving here that aren't from here. don't misconstrue.
There are more people leaving this state than moving here. No influx of any group is pushing you out. It’s for profit housing/NIMBYism that failed to meet the demand of the the large group of millennials entering the housing market. There’s absolutely 0 reason to point the finger at tech people when migration to this state is negative. They aren’t raising or lowering your housing prices. With or without the tech industry, housing would be an issue. The “large group” you are referring to are Millennials, the largest generation group in the US, coming of age.
Millennials are the second largest generation ever, and adding them to a housing market which was already precarious for Gen X has absolutely fucked the housing market in states that don’t have much unincorporated land left. Massachusetts has no unincorporated land remaining.
I never BLAMED tech people. You r clearly looking for a reason to b offended.
and as far as ur stats go - I never said anything about the state im talking about Worcester. we r being inundated but im sure ur stats prove otherwise... what r your sources? what sources are tracking people renting in worcester? would love to know.....
People making median salary are not the ones buying houses, simple.
I think normal people are struggling to pay rent and the rich are the ones paying over a million for a 3 bedroom home
Yup
More people have a lot of money than you may think.
As long as it's cheaper than renting, it won't stop
Granted I haven't done the math in a few years, but in most cases I found that a mortgage was only cheaper than rent if I took a 40 year loan, which seems insane to me. There's a good chance I won't even live that long.
All the more reason to take that loan then.
Is there a benefit to paying a mortgage company for a house you'll probably die before you own vs. a landlord for an apartment you'll never own?
Depending on the housing market and time period--equity. Your estate or heirs can sell the house and keep the difference between the sale price and the mortgage (assuming there is any) versus with an apartment you don't own any of that value.
Good point, thanks. I don't plan on any heirs but I am watching my family dealing with the fallout of my grandparents' estate. Seems like a massive burden to leave them all with even if it is equity they can use. It's still unclear to me whether it's worth it to me personally.
In theory, you could build equity the first 10-20 years, once you hit 62 you could get a reverse mortgage (or other financing/home equity loan earlier than that) to tap into the equity to pay for living expenses (sort of an elaborate savings account/retirement plan). Also when calculating whether it's cheaper to buy vs. rent don't forget to factor in taxes - all the interest you pay on the mortgage is tax deductible. If you sell the house after 2 years, the capital gains from any increase in value are also not taxable. Mortgage payment will also stay constant, while rent generally increases (property taxes and insurance will likely go up though).
Plus you have the advantage of not giving all your money to subsidize landlords who are exploiting a basic human need - housing. If you have a decent landlord who keeps up with maintenance and doesn't ask for significant rent increases, it may be better to stay in your current situation.
[deleted]
Rent these days is about 16-1800/mo without utilities if you're lucky. Mortgages can be had around 1,400.
Rents on the south shore are 2-3.5k per month. I don’t know where rents are that low.
If you bought last year, a $350-400k house is $1400-1600/month for principal and interest. The Merrimack valley area has plenty houses like that, just need work. Taxes and insurance add $400/month.
With today's interest rates, closer to 2k before taxes and insurance.
The minimum price for a 2 bed 2 bath I've seen is $2000/month, closer to $2600 if your building got bought or you're in a nicer area and don't want a shit hole.
$500 less a month to live somewhere, about $500 a month retained in equity. More bedrooms, usable land you own, a permanent end to yearly housing insecurity and shitty landlords that salivate at your money.
I see exactly 3 places on Zillow going for less thank $500k, but that's more than I've seen elsewhere. Thanks, I'll keep an eye on this.
I see 25 total in the 495 belt: Chelmsford, Dracut, Lowell, Tewksbury, Andover, North Andover, Methuen, Lawrence, Haverhill, Groveland, West Newbury, Merrimac, Amesbury. Set to max 500k, houses only. If you include condos there's a lot more.
If you can live farther north and can snag a house in Merrimac/West Newbury/Amesbury, you have easy access to all MA/NH beaches without paying crazy prices, and can be close to some development while still staying more rural. I also really like Haverhill, great food.
Agree, Merrimack valley area you can still snag something more affordable and I love the area.
You can find a solid 1BR in metro West for those prices if you know where to look. Obviously, it'll be higher if there's a family involved.
1400 for a mortgage? What? Yeah if you wanna live out in Athol or the middle of Fitchburg.
[deleted]
There's plenty of houses you can score at that price point in reasonable locations, especially if you know where to look. In Athol you can go cheaper.
Redfin shows basically nothing. Where are you looking?
Admittedly, last time I looked was 6 months ago. I looked on all kinds of websites, and also in the flesh.
My mortgage is $1k and only going to get cheaper.
Well with the interest rate hikes they may be listed at 1.2M but may not be selling, or selling fast, if at all. Look at the days listed. A Large number of homes near me are listed about 200k higher than the estimated value. All of them are sitting there 30+ days. The 1.2M house you mentioned has been listed for sale since December and only dropped the price 4k. Even properties at 500-700k are sitting for greater than 30 days.
Inspections are back on the menu!
According to MLS, 33 homes (3 bedroom homes) have sold in Scituate in the last 6 months.
Average list price: $824,060 Average sold price: $840,245
Median list price: $775,000 Median sold price: $765,000
Of these 33 sales, 8 were over $1m and 4 of those were over $1.2M. Of those 8, only 2 sold for less than list price.
So, at least some $1.2m houses are selling in this town.
Lastly, there are only 7 houses on the market, the most expensive is $1m (which is really the waterfront lot value).
Bought my house in Framingham 5 years ago, I’m happy to see a lot of renovations happening. I want another home tho closer to Boston, so expensive :(
Not familiar with that town but in Framingham any house that's doable disappear within few days. The only houses that stay on the market are total craps not worth the money.
I keep looking at Framingham. I've noticed those dumps. 1379 Concord St just had a 25k drop. Now it's valued at 425. down from 500 in November. I'm guessing it will sell on or around 375. The appetite for housing seems to fall off once you hit $350/sqft or higher in this area.
Well it's under 1000sq ft dump. That's basically apartment. Someone could buy it to build a bigger home. You can get much better apartment in that size.
Come to Worcester! It’s a growing city and the houses are affordable! I made the switch 4 years ago and while it is no Somerville/Cambridge, I am able to afford to actually do things now!
Somerville didn’t used to be a Somerville! Communities can change and improve.
The idea that Somerville would ever be used in a sentence like the one above would have been incomprehensible to me when we moved here.
Right?? It was still cool back in the 80s when I moved there but it was down on its luck and people were poor and working class and housing was in really bad shape, but cheap.
It’s up and coming!
older generations doing cash-out refis on their $1.2M properties and/or significant stock appreciation and giving that to their kids.
People diss Boomers, but really it's only bad if your boomer parents didn't take advantage of all the short-term grift their generation practiced.
> People diss Boomers, but really it's only bad if your boomer parents didn't take advantage of all the short-term grift their generation practiced.
boy if my parents knew what reddit was and could read this they'd be pissed!
95% of the home owners have owned their house for years, and a paying a mortgage on a value of one third to one half of those numbers.
People are bringing a million dollars from their previous house sale or from their parents to the purchase of the next house. I am telling you people, buy a small house in Attleboro, spend an hour on the commute, but you a house and all the benefits with it like the tax right offs.
An hour commute from Attleboro is laughable. Also: median home price there is still 1/2 million.
Might as well move to Pawtucket at that point
I heard recently they’re fighting to try to preserve a closed down golf course instead of building new housing on it. Another NIMBY town.
MA hasn’t build enough housing to keep up with increasing population and population density - it’s supply and demand. Across the Commonwealth, there seems to be an acknowledgment that there isn’t enough affordable housing, but many communities have barred themselves from becoming denser (which is also where more of the jobs are). People will always need a place to live, so demand has increased while supply has stagnated to the point of extinction for anyone who doesn’t own a house already.
Jean Jaques Rousseau said that whether one generation supplied the next generation with sufficient housing stock would be the project that made or broke future democracies. The Greatest Generation built and funded housing, schools and lots of other projects for babyboomers. Since reaching maturity, babyboomers have slashed tax revenues, ran up the deficit and mortgaged the biosphere several times over. I personally believe this was at least in part a response to the Civil Rights movement successfully forcing Americans to invest in infrastructure more equitably.
It doesn’t make sense and it’s why Massachusetts lost a seat in the House.
New U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday shows Massachusetts losing more than 7,700 residents from July 2021 to July 2022. That's nearly 14,000 people in the past two years. Massachusetts hit a new milestone of 7 million residents in 2020, only to see numbers decline since then.
And it sadly won’t stop unless there’s a massive overhaul of zoning laws which I highly doubt because of money and influence
Downvote central here I go:
I'm out on that....urban sprawl should not be left unchecked....people who like cities great but not everything should be a city......developers are predatory...period...we've done enough damage to our world to just keep paving everything over and saying isn't is lovely...
Urban sprawl is a logical fallacy people tell themselves in order to deny Black people lines of credit to purchase homes. Humans have lived in cities since antiquity - Nubia, Egypt, Sumeri, Indus River, Cararabe, Olmec. Living in a city has a lower ecological impact for a number of reasons but primarily because people live closer together. The less space between your house and mine, the more space for nature to do her thing. Climate change and ecological balance affect everyone because they are a part of the human condition. In order to survive climate change, more people are moving to cities globally. Any policy that doesn’t rationally embrace those trends, is going to swim against a global storm.
Cities account for over 70% of global CO2 emissions, most of which come from industrial and motorized transport systems that use huge quantities of fossil fuels and rely on far-flung infrastructure constructed with carbon-intensive materials.
Yeah, because more humans live in cities than rural areas definitionally, so of course the environmental consequences for human life are greater. The one depends on the other.
Any serious policy to help humans generally or Americans specifically live a carbon-neutral, ecologically sustainable way of life needs to account for how people live right now. That’s the starting point to an effective policy.
If your plan is for Americans who lives in cities to become nomadic herbivores who ride draft animals, that’s a serious change from our current way of life. Would we have grazing rights? What about right of ways for our noble steeds?
The reality is that many rural areas are desertifying and other rural areas have barred themselves from developing further, so the options on the table are die or move to a city. People are pretty resourceful and open-minded when the alternative is “or death.” Eddie Izzard said it better.
I agree that urban sprawl and all of its secondary effects such as light and air pollution, should be constrained. At the same time, urban apartments can never be cheap enough to make it worth living there and a public transit only environment would make it hard to escape cities.
You realize that per capita, cities are far less polluting than suburban sprawl?
Nothing stopping you from forming an LLC with the purpose of developing dense housing. Get some investors, some lawyers and start building
Eat the rich! It’s coming.
Only vegan rich or any sort of rich?
Grilled with BBQ sauce.
Not in MA, where the rich might actually outnumber the poor
Blows me away to see the median house price went up by $100k+, up to $360k+, in dinky 'ol Leominster where the median household income was $63k in 2020. I know there's a commuter rail here to Boston so it's at least a bit more attractive, but that's probably a 1.5+ hour commute each way.
I just accepted a job offer in Mansfield where I’ll be grossing just north of 6 figures. I want to be excited about the job opportunity but tbh I’m terrified about my housing prospects. I have no illusions about buying a house any time soon. Does anyone have any advice? I’m originally from CT and currently living in Chicopee (so I’m not familiar with the area) planning to move east within the next month to six week time frame.
35 minutes away from Mansfield you will find New Bedford/Fall River.
Similar to Chicopee in size/income where you can buy a 3 family for $400k, live in one of the units for free and be 1/2 mile from the warm water of Buzzards Bay.
You'll thank me in 20 years when you have $1M in equity.
I need to check out real estate down there
Yeah but only if public school quality isnt a factor for you
Try Providence area.
Raynham and Taunton are cheap for the area. Stay away from Easton and Sharon. But like most the state/country, it's all fucked. If you're six figures though you'll find something.
Mansfield has access to both 95 and 495, you can look along either of those for housing options. 495 is generally lighter traffic with the exception of southbound cape bound traffic on Fridays in the summer. The intersection of 495 and 95 can be a shitshow so try to avoid it if possible.
If people are upgrading their house, they are selling one house and making a chunk of change that they can use as the down payment.
Thats the boat im (trying to) be in. My house gained $200k in 5 years. Problem is, the house I want gained $400k over that time.
Just as food for thought.... we are not a state of population growth because of the price to live here....
New U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday shows Massachusetts losing more than 7,700 residents from July 2021 to July 2022. That's nearly 14,000 people in the past two years. Massachusetts hit a new milestone of 7 million residents in 2020, only to see numbers decline since then.
All these prices are artificially inflated. There’s some properties selling for 10x their value.
People who feel the need to own right now, are forced to pay these insane prices.
If it sells then the price it sells at is its value at that moment. Its just not what you think its worth.
I’m saying the asking prices aren’t the actual valued price, compared to realtor estimates and tax assessments.
2 incomes at 129k (or more). But I agree that prices have become unsustainable.
Scituate also has many summer homes and retirees, this can throw off the numbers, similar to the Cape
I don’t think people understand that their first house isn’t going to be across the street from their job in downtown.
I bought an undesirable house in Framingham 4 years ago next to a train station.
I think the issue with everyone is, if you want to live in a dream house, you have to eat shit for 7 years. Either climbing a corporate ladder to 300k a year, or buy some shit house no wants and work on it until it is somewhat desirable.
Anyone posting here how they’re pissed off about whatever; either 1) save your money, don’t go on lavish vacations, get used to camping and pray that everyone who got divorced and separated moves in with a SO, and buy a house - that’s your 2-5 year plan 2) stop taking mental health days and take your job seriously - become a manager/supervisor and get pissed at the current workforce not showing up to work. Eat shit and keep switching jobs until you make 100k a year. Get a partner that shares your same values and eat shit together. Buy a two-family and build together.
I kind of did #2. I took a job I hated for 80k when I was single and saved every penny I had. No fancy anything. All my clothes from Joseph A Bank and Walmart. Bought a 2 family in a shit neighborhood and met my wife shortly after. She was supportive of me constantly working on the house every weekend, and she started investing her money into the house with me.
After we were married and she was pregnant we refied- put money down on a more spacious, more updated 2 family. After this we will purchase a single family of our dreams.
You can hate me for it or you can play the game yourself. It’s not easy, it’s lonely, and you need to align yourself with people that support you. Everyone else can go f off and you are left with awesome friends and a bit of wealth.
If your idea of getting by starts with an 80k job, you're so far out of touch. Most people will never have, nor have the opportunity to hit 80k in their life. It's frustrating to see people complain without knowing their struggle or how they're grinding themselves to get to the next stage regardless, but most people are. They're just complaining as an outlet. Even if they're not, this privileged bootstrap shit is laughable.
Dude. If you practically just show up to work consistently for 2 years straight you’ll be at 60k without a degree. The problem is no one wants to work like that. I made 80k and worked 70 hours a week.
Try it out.
You can complain - which is the easiest way to accomplish nothing - or you can work your face off, save and be ready for the next time there is a shake out. If you put away 30k you can pull it off. Stop buying vaporizers and vaporizer accessories.
Wow, out of touch. I have a house and a career (and no vapes), my head just isn't so far up my ass as to be blind to the realities of the market.
>The problem is no one wants to work like that.
Seems unlikely you're special.
>You can complain
Says an expert in the craft.
>You can hate me for it
Your "haters" exist largely in your head.
>Stop buying vaporizers and vaporizer accessories.
Probably for the best if you kept your arguments with them there, at least they might have a chance of knowing WTF you're rambling on about.
There’s a major labor shortage. Anyone will be rewarded if they’re decently reliable.
Skilled labor. CDL holders. They give out free training for Christ sake. Everyone can bitch on Reddit when you can literally get out and work.
Solid advice. Nobody is going to hand anyone anything. You gotta grind and work for it. While all our friends were living up to their means and beyond (and still are) in the McMansions, buying new everything and taking vacations we were socking more than 30% of our salary away and living well below our means in a modest home we owned outright. About a year ago we closed on a 4BR/3bath home on 2 acres. We both retired and are now living the dream.
This. Is. Exactly. It. Sucks that it’s not as easy for me as those before me, but what’s new there? Whining for a handout doesn’t change anything. Gotta play the game anyways
You gotta remember a ton of people divorced and separated during height of covid… that put a huge demand on the housing market… it will resolve the inventory shortage once people start moving in with significant others again. High interest will drop the price too.
Don’t be scared of high interest. The principal and interest are inversely proportional to have a payment that will f you just enough. The payment is what you must pay attention to.
Personally, I’d rather buy with high interest and low principal as there is hope to change the interest rate or also throw any extra cash you have at the principal and make small dents in it.
It’s a giant commitment no matter which way you look at. And it’s enough to shake enough people to want to keep renting.
Where did you find a house by the train station? I thought those were all carved up for crappy apartments we can’t afford.
> I thought those were all carved up for crappy apartments we can’t afford.
If you want housing prices to stop increasing, or even decline, you have to support building much more housing, and realistically that means building much more multi-family housing as that's the most efficient way to increase the number of housing units.
You can't complain about building the "wrong type of housing" and also complain about high housing costs at the same time. Especially if what you want is a single-family home, as SFHs are the least efficient way to build more housing to satisfy demand. It's fine to want a SFH, but if you want SFHs to not be really expensive, you need to be willing to support the building of much more housing, even if it's apartments.
This sounds right in theory but is certainly not true in practice in Framingham. they keep building and rent keeps rising. I have been living in these carved up apartments for over a decade. We were evicted from our fist one so landlord could essentially carve our apartment into two. All our attic storage space became another room and bathroom. More apartments with less storage is bad. In our current place, we have no thermostat control. The upstairs neighbors keep it too hot and do nothing to curb the mouse problem.
The issue is that the state has a housing shortage of ~108,000 units. The amount we are building isn't enough to put a meaningful dent in that, so rent keeps rising. If we actually built enough to erase that deficit, rent would indeed stabilize as the supply of housing would accurately reflect the demand.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't build what we are already building simply because it's not enough. If we stopped building what we are currently building, the deficit would get even worse and the rate of rent increase would be even worse than it already is.
Here you go, two family near the train station.
[deleted]
Yeah it's not worth living in those areas.
Best advice from person in the looking him self don’t buy in this state found the same bs everything way to much and needs way to much work.
Depends where you look though. Massachusetts has lots of bargains even more bargains in southern New Hampshire well, Southeast New Hampshire. I know I'm looking for a house.. and the Father West you go incredible deals as well
SW New Hampshire is where it's at. You'd be stunned at what you can buy.
Oh I know, and over the borderton Massachusetts and over the river to Vermont. Unfortunately I want to stay closer to the larger Boston circle and hence have to pay all the money. But boy there are some really really pretty houses. I love Greenville and new Ipswich but just a little far from my point of getaway. Southeastern Connecticut and the contingent part of Rhode Island also incredible deals. Even better than the area that we are talking about
Being rich much be nice
Count the salary after taxes too please. I make 80k, but after taxes it might only be 50k or so..
A segment on NPR claimed that the average ratio of income to home value is about 5x around the country these last 5 years (Not median, average.)
So keep that in mind to help understand who's buying these houses. I think secret is that most of those homes have out here have two incomes around the 129 range you're quoting. Then the numbers make sense with the 5x figure (10x / 2) and the finances. But that's definitely not most people.
Some real anecdotal data, some of my old science grad school friends are now in that salary range, and when two of those people pair up, they're suddenly in that 5x range. But they're, of course, not the majority of people who want to buy homes. And Boston is still pretty fucking crazy expensive in that sense.
Work from home let people get further away from Boston than they would have originally. The fed found that WFH contributed 60% of the pandemic housing price increases. It essentially unlocked a huge amount of boston money all at once, and boston hasn't built anywhere near enough for the last 40 years (and won't anytime soon with its ridiculous zoning and ADU rules).
Is that really the median household income? The rich of the rich most really be pulling up the average because I’m pretty sure the average income for a household in both Cambridge and Newton is over 200K
Sure some people are paying those prices but I think the statistics are skewed by investment companies buying houses to rent out.
Tell me about it been looking for a studio on south shore and there isn’t anything for less than like 2.5 grand a month
There is hope. The last recession circa 2007+, housing prices took a dive and I was able to pick up a fix-it for a song. Try to time the next recession and buy at the bottom. I believe we are walking in a recession any minute.
entry level business type jobs pay over $100k nowadays, there are houses still available in MA for $500k. I remember out of college (doing the same type of work) paid $51k in 2008. Those houses were $250k. It’s still 5 years salary. Inflation then was 0-1%, now its 7-9% (but really much more). If you can buy a house now, it seems like a really good investment…
Wealthy people buying these homes don’t make their money through income. I truly wish people understood this more.
That’s not entirely true. Our city is highly educated and ripe with high paying jobs. The Boston suburbs are packed full of doctors, lawyers, professors, finance and business people who can afford a $1-2M house with a salary. The $5m+ houses…sure, now you’re looking at new buyers who are less likely to be receiving a regular paycheck.
ladybug1259 t1_j7lt215 wrote
The people who are buying houses at that price have to make more than the average. It's all the older generations who bought relatively affordable houses 20 or 30 years ago whose house values have shot up that keep the average income there.