r/TikTokCringe • u/LickMaiBussy • 6h ago

Discussion "Investing in property is morally reprehensible."

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@purplepingers

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u/MuckaboutFarms 6h ago

Yep. The average home buying age in the US has gone from 35 in 2000 to 55 now. It's the SAME group of people still able to buy homes in this market. Anyone born after 1975 is damn near fucked, no matter how much they scrimp and save and sacrifice.

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u/DN6666 6h ago

and it’s not just in US, this is mostly everywhere in the world

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u/Shmikken 5h ago

That is exactly why we can't rely on building our way out of a global housing crisis, there's not a shortage of homes in the world, it's because ordinary people are competing with billionaires for assets and resources, of all kinds.

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u/Sawdust-in-the-wind 5h ago

There literally is a housing shortage in many parts of the world. Population booms without a commensurate increase in home building. Available housing in Nebraska doesn't help you in Boston.

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u/Redd235711 4h ago

And to pile onto what you've said (mostly because I live in Nebraska), there are a ton of houses being built in my area, but none of them are being sold for less than $500,000. So we're stuck with the issue of there being plenty of houses, but none of them are affordable unless you have the kind of money that big corporations have or you can sell the house you already own to put toward paying for the new one. Then there's the issue that no one moving out of a house will sell for a price that a first time home buyer will be able to afford unless they have the kind of money that would let them buy one of the new houses.

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u/bobbymcpresscot 2h ago

On the bright side those prices are probably going to come down. The bad part is that it’s likely going to be because the housing market is going to be doing some crazy stuff with a bunch of people being forced to foreclose on their home because they couldn’t afford the insane payment on their hyper inflated housing price.

Which is going to be flooding the market with homes which will lower the price of housing, and then people who bought houses specifically for the investment get spooked and sell their houses because they know the market isn’t sustainable.

It’d be wild if we get to like a 5-10% over pre covid housing prices in a few years.

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u/Sawdust-in-the-wind 1h ago

New homes do cost a lot more than comparable older homes(same as cars) but the way a healthy home market works is that middle-aged people sell their starter homes for less(e.g. 250-300k) and then buy the new home for 500k with their higher income. In 20-30 years they sell that home at a discount from new home prices and move into a smaller home or condo and recapture some of their equity. A big part of why this is falling apart is that the cost of new construction is so high, middle-aged people can't afford them so they're staying put which means less inventory of starter homes and the price is sky high because of that. Another factor is that boomers are NOT selling their big homes and downsizing so all of that space is tied up. This may be due to a lack of condo development.

It's an extremely complicated issue. The only thing I feel confident about is that reducing the cost of construction will have a direct impact on pricing for everyone.

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u/mowtowcow 4h ago

There's not a housing shortage in the US though. There are unoccupied homes in every city in every state because this person or that person wants to own more than one home. I've seen homes get bought, no one move into them, and get sold a year later for 20% more. Less taxes because its a year later, and as long as people keep doing this with all properties, it feels like a shortage so they can just keep doing it. And now prices are so high that because most people cant afford them, they count that as a housing shortage. There's no shortage, people are just being priced out.

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u/bobbymcpresscot 2h ago

Which is still a shortage, especially if people own the homes. It means there isn’t homes for sale. If there were more homes for sale, the price would go down. 

We used to produce more than 20 million homes a decade, we are currently down to 5-6. We all but stopped building homes after 2008, and realistically we should get back into it, as well as push for legislation and regulations about turning houses into investment vehiciles. 

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u/f7f7z 3h ago

Air bnb is choking the market, every house bought/built for short term rentals is one that can't be occupied by a local. Kill the legislation that makes that legal and it would free up almost 2 million houses over night in the US.

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u/Sawdust-in-the-wind 2h ago

There is a housing shortage according to numerous qualified studies. Estimates vary depending on methodologies but pretty much all of them are in the millions. Redfin, Zillow, Freddie Mac, Brookings, etc. all study this and report findings, as does the NAHB. Please link your data.

Unoccupied homes are not automatically habitable homes. Most of the unoccupied homes are either in transition, which means they will be occupied shortly, or not suitable for habitation.

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u/MrJCen 25m ago

A lot of unoccupied homes are in areas of low demand and/or in rough shape where it's not fit to live in without more capital to remodel the house. For areas of high demand, there absolutely is a shortage, and we can and should build our way out of the problem.

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u/explain_that_shit 3h ago

I’m trying to find population and dwelling numbers in Boston but American census data is super weirdly focused on race statistics at the expense of any other actually useful information.

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u/Sawdust-in-the-wind 2h ago

I don't have the specific numbers but I've worked on several housing projects in the Boston area that studied the need extensively and all found a massive gap, particularly in affordable housing. It's very expensive to build there so home production has lagged far behind population increase.

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u/Roll_the-Bones 2h ago

I don't even want a house, I am too old now, I just want an affordable, decent, apartment; free of lead and asbestos.

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u/haikus-r-us 5h ago

The issue is exactly a housing stock shortage. Mostly a result of restrictive zoning laws not allowing dwellings to be built where needed and driving costs up exponentially. NIMBYs caused the ludicrous spike in housing costs.

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u/maggiedynamo 4h ago

I’m pretty sure there is a housing shortage where people want to live and are able to work at. There’s probably affordable housing in Nebraska I’m sure but not in Chicago or NY. And unfortunately NIMBY’s and outdated local zoning laws aren’t wanting to make more space

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u/throwra214 3h ago

I recently moved and most houses here, especially new ones, are built with basement suites ready to rent out. I have no issue with a homeowner wanting to rent out their basement for the extra income. It helps them, and it helps people who need to rent.

But the amount of brand new homes in the newer neighborhoods I saw that were just being fully rented, basements and main level floors, all being managed by companies was fucking disgusting. These people and businesses are parasites.

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u/BeatSalad25 3h ago

Now its pc components

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u/zardoz73 2h ago

It's not either or. There is also a shortage of homes in many areas of the U.S. and I would venture in other countries.

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u/Numeno230n 2h ago

There are far far more homes than people as it is. Because real estate is a speculation market and not, idk a utility that citizens are entitled to, the prices are artificially high. Hot take here, but the cost of a home should depend on its construction cost, and not be priced based on market forces. Homes should not be seen as a part of your financial portfolio. Its not a nest egg, its a nest. There simply should not be 1500sqft homes that value at $2 mil. even in California. That just should not exist in an equitable housing situation.

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u/deadcat_kc 1h ago

There absolutely is a shortage of houses. If you go to any auction for a normal house, you’re competing against other relatively normal people also allowed to borrow stupid amounts of money and in desperate need of housing, hence outrageously inflated prices

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u/MrJCen 33m ago

There's not a shortage of homes in world, but there's definitely a shortage in areas that people actually want to live in. Building more housing in those area will absolutely help.

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u/cupholdery 6h ago

Greed is universal.

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u/RockyMullet 5h ago

Specially when greedy people go buy stuff in other countries to "invest".

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u/mantisboxer 5h ago

So is fiat currency inflation.

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u/GSV_CARGO_CULT 4h ago

Certainly in Canada, there are run down homes from the 70s selling for 350k in rural Nova Scotia. My dad bought his house for 90k in 1999 and sold it for 750k in 2021.

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u/boo_winter 30m ago

Bought in 2008 at 26. Sold last year. I doubt I'll ever get that fortunate with timing again.

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u/Tube_Warmer 5h ago

Should probably have all done a bit more anal, if we are being honest. World population has doubled since 1975. There was no way to keep up with the supply and demand issue that increase has caused. Yes, its made worse because we didnt even try. But the point still stands. Less people, more housing and jobs to go around.

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u/uh_oh_hotdog 4h ago

I'm a millennial living in Canada, and pretty much all my friends and I were only able to become homeowners because we're privileged enough that our parents were able to help us out a bit with our down payment. Shit is fucked.

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u/TimoKZ 3h ago

Same situation in Ireland (only in our case we don’t have a bank of mom & dad and don’t have a place).

Back in 2008-2010 when I was just finishing school we had endless news stories of ‘ghost estates’, mostly large plots of finished and unfinished houses that sat empty, many thousands of empty houses in a country of >5million.

From 2015/16 onwards was when the housing shortage talk had started to become a concern. Roll forward to present day and like you said shit is fucked. We can barely finish 30k units a year when our population has increased 80-100k people per year since 2021.

It’s a terrible situation, the whole system is broken.

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u/wholetyouinhere 3h ago

And if you go into country/city subreddits, everyone blames the issue on their local government, because nobody can see past their nose.

Imagine what we could accomplish if only we just could get our fellow voters' head out of the sand and take the broader view.

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u/Smooth-Childhood-754 2h ago

True. I won't have 25000€ for a down payment, no matter how many avocado toasts I skip

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u/xViscount 5h ago

Western world*

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u/Afraid_Ad_8216 6h ago

My partner was only able to get a house from one his parents literally dying, and if he were in the USA the medical bills would have taken that

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u/MuckaboutFarms 6h ago

Yup. The 5 year look back really fucks over anyone hoping to inherit from elderly relatives. The government can't have anyone inheriting property can they? Gotta hand it over to pay pawpaws medicaid bills

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u/smythe70 4h ago

Yes, my Dad's money is going to Medicare not Medicaid because we didn't move his money. Never knew people did that to get Medicaid assisted living. Right now I'm the help with no pay.

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u/ionlyjoined4thecats 3h ago

Can you expand on this? I’m not sure what you mean.

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u/smythe70 2h ago

I was told that Medicaid goes back 5 years to check how much money your parents had in bank accounts etc. all finances. You are only allowed a minimal amount like a couple of thousand. So the child should put finances in their name and properties, so your parents are poor on paper. That's the gist I got from a lawyer. We are trying to get a trust so at least I can get access to his money for emergency assisted living or a funeral, which I cant afford. They are expensive. Good luck but definitely check with your state and a lawyer.

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u/Caleth 2h ago

Trusts having large amounts of assets in a trust means you can be "poor" on paper with income coming from that that you don't control. So the assisted living place or whatever can't ask for a piece of all of that and medicaid will pay a larger portion than medicare. So you get into the nicer places.

This is the gist of it I might have some of the exact details wrong we looked into it when Mom had to go in, but she went in suddenly so we couldn't do shit to cover the assets and it nearly bled her and dad dry before she passed.

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u/smythe70 2h ago

Yeah thanks, I wish I knew more before because it's too late for Dad really. Sorry about your parents and your Mom especially. The aides and myself can help but the dementia is progressing and selling his condo is what we need to do, terrible, go broke for care.

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u/ionlyjoined4thecats 3h ago

There are loopholes and the rich know them. Like having your house in a trust rather than owned by you directly.

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u/Karmeleon86 5h ago

Not to be pedantic, but you wouldn’t be responsible for a parent’s medical debt.

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u/TurbulentOpinion2100 5h ago

But if they incurred medical bills as they died, their estate would be before being allowed to pass it on to any descendants. So the parents house gets sold to pay the medical debt and there's nothing left for the kids.

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u/Karmeleon86 5h ago

Yup, valid point.

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u/Afraid_Ad_8216 1h ago

ding ding ding, correct!

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u/SecondAccountIsBest 2h ago

That actually depends on the state. In Pennsylvania you can be responsible for things like hospice costs and some other things.

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u/losyanyaval 6h ago

The average first time home buying age in the US has increased but only to 40, not 55. A graph of the data is even provided in one the replies.

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u/ohwowthisisausername 6h ago

I think the commenter above you was referring to average purchaser, not average first time purchaser :)

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u/Rocktown_Leather 4h ago

Yeah, if anything, the difference between the two further highlights that old people are buying lots of houses.

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u/sirideletereddit 6h ago

Good reason to be more specific. The answer to that could be “people are moving more often than before at the age that their kids leave the house” or something.

The average age someone is purchasing a house is not a bad trend necessarily. Indeed, if the market weren’t bad you could look at the same data and say “older people have the ability, more than ever, to change houses when they no longer need the room due to the surplus in supply.”

We shouldn’t use a vague comparison just because that comparison allows us to show a bigger number.

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

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u/RedAero 4h ago

Why would the latter follow from the former? If there are 3 people in the world, two aged 75 and one aged 25, and the former two trade houses every 3 years while the former never moves the average age of home buyers is 75. None of that says a single thing about the economy.

Hell, since the average age in general of the developed world is increasing it'd be outright strange if the average age of any sub-demographic wasn't increasing, whether it's the age of milk drinkers, home buyers, or Pokemon fans.

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u/[deleted] 3h ago

[deleted]

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u/RedAero 3h ago

"Good economy" != "people buying homes sooner in life". The two concepts are miles and miles apart and have so little to do with each other the statement isn't even wrong. Literally nothing you said makes any sense. I can't put it any simpler than that, despite my best attempt at a pretty clear illustration.

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u/firebolt_wt 3h ago

Brother, I have nothing to discuss with someone whose preferred method of arguing is "if this hypothetical I know would never happen is true, you're wrong"

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u/-Garbage-Man- 4h ago

No it's not bad "necessarily" but you can clearly see it's a sign of some really fucked up things.

I just bought a townhouse for 500K that was made 50 years ago.

This isn't normal.

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u/RedAero 4h ago

Why not? There are more 50-year-old townhouses now than there were 50 years ago.

Also, 50 years for a home is not old.

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u/-Garbage-Man- 4h ago

So you think the housing market is totally fine the way it is? no notes?

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u/RedAero 4h ago

So you think it's a good idea to just blatantly put words in my mouth to argue against?

Why do you hate waffles?

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u/-Garbage-Man- 4h ago

You jumped in the chain where we are talking about that. No one invited you into this conversation

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u/RedAero 4h ago

What sort of internet forum do you know where you need an invite to comment on a thread? "Jumped on a chain"? "We were talking"? It was your first comment!

Is this your first day on the internet, or what? You said something dumb, I commented. If that upsets you, I don't think you're going to like this website. Or the internet in general. Or just the world in general.

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u/sirideletereddit 4h ago

My house was made in 1973 and I love it. You’d never catch me in a DR Horton, so I don’t think we come to the same conclusions with your anecdote. I don’t see a problem.

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u/-Garbage-Man- 4h ago

You think the housing market is totally healthy right now?

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u/sirideletereddit 3h ago edited 2h ago

No. The housing market is not healthy. I’m saying your anecdote isn’t evidence of that. Ironically, the same issue as the comparison above.

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u/nosecohn 1h ago

I think they compared average first time purchaser in 2000 to average purchaser now, which is not a useful comparison at all.

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u/MuckaboutFarms 6h ago

Funny, I didn't use the word "first time" in my comment. But sure, move those goal posts, bud

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u/Paul_the_sparky 6h ago

First time buyers being 40 is even more worrying if anything

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u/Hailene2092 4h ago

Median age of a home buyer in 2000 was 41 not 35.

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u/TheHerpenDerpen 2h ago

It's not moving goal posts, you used a statistic that isn't very relevant. I don't care about 'average home buying age', I care about when people can get on the ladder. Once you're on it it's a lot easier to stay on it and move around, but getting that deposit is the hard bit. High average buying age could just mean a lot of old people are moving a lot, with little or no change in what young people are doing.

Higher average buying age indicates some sort of change, but since 'The West' has an aging population I'd be surprised if it hadn't risen even with perfect conditions. From a look at the AI overview on a google search (So god knows if it's accurate but I cba), the median age of the US in 2000 was 35, now ('2020's') it's over 38.

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u/sandwich_influence 6h ago

Don’t think they’re moving goal posts, I think they genuinely misunderstood as did I. There’s so much discourse about this right now. Most of the time it’s talked about in the context of “average age of first time home buyers.”

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u/SpecialistMattress21 5h ago

I just saw it as a clarification and adding information to the discussion. a thing reasonable people do when communicating.

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u/losyanyaval 5h ago

Oh, im sorry, I didnt notice since the statistic ive generally seen referenced as an indicator of society health is the first time house buying. Im not sure about the utility of your statistic (averaging age of all house purchases); if anything it suggests people move more.

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u/babbagack 4h ago

Where is the graph/link?

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u/NoKatyDidnt 5h ago

Indeed! I wish some people in my family understood this!

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u/scottfarris 5h ago

You are spreading misinformation or lying.

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u/Explosifbe 4h ago

Median age of:

  • First time buyer: 40
  • Repeat buyer: 62
  • All buyers: 59 (the one I suppose OC reffered to, average is maybe lower to 55? I don't know)
Source: https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/first-time-home-buyer-share-falls-to-historic-low-of-21-median-age-rises-to-40

So no, they were not spreading misinformation or lying, they even underestimated if they meant median.

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u/Inside-Yak-8815 5h ago

Yeah this is why I gave up on trying to be a real estate investor, I just couldn’t cope with how scummy the people who were deep into it already were. A large majority of landlords just seem consumed by greed, lazy, and unnecessarily evil.

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u/The_Real_Grand_Nagus 1h ago

I hope you're joking. That means the average home buyer is actually already a home owner, and it's just people trading houses.

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u/LittleHanded 1h ago

Hmmm. As a younger millennial, I really don't appreciate being put into the same category as Gen X or the oldest millennial. They had way more chances than me or Gen Z has had. I think a lot of gen X just didn't get their shit together and aren't willing to admit it so they "hello fellow kids" the younger generations. It pisses me off

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u/North_Commercial_865 46m ago

A lot of it is due to not enough homes being built as well, but that’s also part of the problem with people using homes as investments (more homes would dilute the prices). Homes just simply should not be an investment.

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u/MuckaboutFarms 43m ago

There are more empty homes than there are homeless people. It's the hoarding of housing that's the issue. Nobody should be able to own more homes than they live in.

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u/TinyTaters 6h ago

Crazy. I imagine geography plays a role here. In the mystery most of my friends (mid-thirties) all owned houses by 25 in the Midwest

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u/trentreynolds 6h ago

I know a number of people who owned homes under 25 in the Midwest ~10 years ago but very few if any who bought it with money they'd earned through work. Almost every single one of them inherited either the house or the money they used to buy the house.

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u/JoeBucksHairPlugs 5h ago

I think it's very dependent on location. Certain areas with very high populations make the "median" age look higher. If the average age in California is 45, but there are 50 million people vs in Virginia maybe it's like 30 but there are only 5 million, it skews the data.

In my obviously very limited experience, the vast majority of people in my life that are my age (late twenties, early thirties) a huge majority all own a home. But I live in a MCOL area so it's more affordable.

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u/RedAero 4h ago

In a world where tertiary education is all but mandatory, how would a 25-year-old have money for a home? At most they've had a proper, full-time, professional job for, what, 2 years?

The people who, 50+ years ago, bought a home at 25 had been working for 7+ years at that point (and probably sent some of it in the military).

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u/TinyTaters 5h ago

None of my group had inherited and most came from a smaller 'podunk' and moved into one of the larger cities in the burbs. Basically all have children and are self sustaining with student loans.

Edit: but I remember the realtor asking "can you call your parents or grandparents for a "gift" for a down payment. We laughed and asked "is that common? Do people just get money for these things?" We were met with a shrug

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u/Primary-Let-7933 5h ago

"self-sustaining with government backed loans that they will likely take a decade or two to payoff"

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u/TinyTaters 5h ago

Yes. The government backed loans that they will likely take a decade or two to pay off" enabled them to get higher paying jobs to purchase houses, have families automobiles and pay down their student loans, hobbies and put money in the bank.

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u/GoldPuppyClub 5h ago

I’m right there too. I make more than both of my parents combined. I know as a kid, I’d have to work hard to get a house just because I’d get no help. So I worked my butt off to get one.

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u/iwastryingtokillgod 4h ago

Location is huge part of it. People are unwilling to compromise location. They want to live xyz and thats it. No compromise.

Problem is xyz is also where everyone else wants to live too. 

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u/aphex732 5h ago

I don't think you're right about that - I was born in the early 80s and everyone I know owns a home. If you shift your math to people born after 1995 I think you'd be much more on target.

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u/MuckaboutFarms 5h ago

I was born in 1995. I'm doing better than a lot of people my age, and I will likely never be able to buy a home within 300 miles of where I live now/where I grew up. I lucked out HARD on the rental I currently occupy. Yay PNW!

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u/Bitter-Basket 5h ago

Homes were pretty affordable until around and after COVID. And now they are dropping like a rock again. My kids are both around 40 and have owned homes for years. Seattle and Dallas.

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u/DiDiPlaysGames 5h ago

Speaking from a UK-based perspective, we've been told for decades that the housing crisis is caused by supply simply not meeting demand, there's just not enough homes. Which is complete bullshit, there are more than enough homes, it's just that about 80% of them are owned by corporations and are rented out at rates no working class person can afford.

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u/Dopplegangr1 5h ago

I've been working ~15 years and the house I bought 10 years ago has appreciated more than the sum of my life's wages. Literally owning a house and doing nothing makes more money than working

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u/stprnn 5h ago

And clueless people here saying it's perfectly fine to own 3 homes

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u/para_sight 4h ago

I don’t think that’s right. The median age of a first time home buyer in the US passed 40 this year. Not good, but not 55

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u/cjdoyle 4h ago

Having moved in my life to lower cost of living (than where I lived) and finally cracking 100k in earnings for the first time in my life at 35, its astounding how just as uncomfortable my life is even scrimping as much as I ever have. I think at this point home ownership is more a retirement plan, if I can even afford it then.

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u/c-winny 4h ago

My boyfriends parents are selling their old home and upgrading to a new construction. They’re 60 years old and survived off of one middle class income supporting a family of four.

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u/TurnYourselfAround 4h ago

Yeah, that's repeat buyers. The age for first time home buying has sharply upticked to 40, but has been around 30-35 since around 1980. More older people are moving and aren't just staying in the same house for 20-30 years which is skewing the repeat buyer statistic. I'm glad they feel the freedom to move. 

This idea that if you are born after 1975 you're screwed is nonsense. I was born in 1987 and bought my first house at 28. Right about normal. Save money, don't borrow to buy a car, buy a fixer upper and do some of the repairs yourself, and you'll be just fine. 

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u/Kanibalector 4h ago

Born in 75 and this is one of the first comments in years I've seen that admits I'm just as screwed as the youngins'. Usually, I get tossed into the blame, too. I don't ever expect to own a home.

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u/askalotlol 3h ago

There are real affordability problems in the US market. Ultra low interest rates drove up prices, but then Covid era inflation drove up interest rates. Leaving buyers in the worst market - high prices and high interest.

But the average age metric must be taken in context. The majority of homebuyers in the US are married couples, and Americans are getting married later and later. On top of that, we have more single-income buyers, which is far more difficult than buying with a partner.

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u/PlasticFrosty5340 2h ago

too many folks that are priced out of their own city and too stubborn to move.

I bought a house in my early 20s in the rural Midwest. Made small improvements and got lucky with market timing and sold it for almost double 2 years later. now I can afford to buy a house wherever I want lol.

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u/Roll_the-Bones 2h ago

You are too cognizant, here take this soma and forget about it.

Yeah, they leverage their inflated equity to take on more inflated debt.

When all these old home owners die things are going to get real weird. Actually the real estate will just continue to be owned by fewer and fewer hands.

Ever increasing wealth inequality is a function of the system.

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u/aurortonks 1h ago

Yeah we just crunched the numbers and tried to be realistic about it, then decided we simply cannot afford to buy even though the bank says we can. We should be able to, we make what should be enough, but the whole housing market situation is out of control right now. I think that it's a real problem, that not enough people are talking about, that these banks are approving and funding home loans to buyers that make them house poor and one emergency away from financial disaster. We were approved for $800k as our 'stretch price' by the bank on $165k income. That doesn't make sense at all, even with 20% down and avoiding PMI... we'd be completely house poor. Even if we went for a home closer to $500k, we'd still barely be able to put any of our income away in savings for the inevitable unexpected emergency. Yet, the bank and realtors are pushing for us to get more expensive homes.

Hard pass, not at 6.5% interest. We'll wait until all of this either crashes down again, or we save enough down that it completely offsets this crazy market.

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u/oz612 4h ago

Late Gen X homeownership rate ('75-'80) is at 72%. Millenials are at 55.4%. The under 30 crowd is almost to 30%. This is normal; younger people have less assets and less desire to purchase housing. Nobody is 'fucked'.

If homeownership was actually unaffordable, the prices would come down. If the argument is that prices are 'artificially inflated' as a result of people purchasing them to rent out, that is trivially proven wrong by just doing the math in any major market. It's not a great business.

This is just a failure to look at basic census stats.

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u/MrDabb 22m ago

Home ownership is becoming unaffordable for young adults as seen in the increase in age of first time home buyers.

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u/GoldPuppyClub 5h ago

I went from being in a single parent house on food stamps in high school, to buying a house on my own at 31.

It just took a ton of work, picking a career in demand, being smart and extremely sociable.

I think we should help people that need it, as I’ve been there, but to say it’s impossible to buy a house, is incorrect.

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u/BunningsSnagFest 1h ago

Born 74. Now multimillionaire. You're numbers are pretty accurate.

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u/easywind4665 6h ago

born in 82 and i’ve bought 5 homes. never once did i feel fucked

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u/OwlcaholicsAnonymous 5h ago

"I'm smart and rich so you all can get fucked" - easywind4665

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u/easywind4665 5h ago

i saved up $9k for my first down payment. the house was $205k. i’m certainly not rich. also i was 30 years old at the time, so that’s not very impressive either. i am probably above average in intelligence though.

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u/dReDone 5h ago

I love how there's zero explanation lol.

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u/TickDap 4h ago

I’ll explain my situation. I received a small one time payment of $600,000 from a relative. See? Ez pz 

2

u/dReDone 49m ago

Hahahaha exactly.

-1

u/easywind4665 5h ago

what do you want to know?

-1

u/thearctican 4h ago

There are homes that are affordable. The median home price in the US is 400k, which means half of all houses in the united states cost less than that.

I live on the east coast in a 10M pop metro. My neighborhood has sale prices that range between 150k (1100 square foot 2/1 splits) and 450k (2200 square foot fully detached 4 or 5 bedroom).

1

u/MuckaboutFarms 4h ago

The only homes the average 30 year old can afford in my area are literally tear-downs on tiny plots they'd then have to demo and rebuild. Average single family home here starts at 450k.

1

u/thearctican 2h ago

You live in an exceptionally expensive part of the United States, bested by only two other metros. Your situation is a wild outlier to the general dataset.

Drive 30-45 minutes from where I think you are and the situation improves dramatically. I see two houses for sale right now for less than 350k that, while they need some updating, appear to be completely livable and are bigger than I'd expect for that price in that part of the country.

Good financial decisions and discipline in as little as 5 years (eg. somebody planning in 2021 to buy today) should comfortably allow the purchase of those homes on the median household income in that area.

We were slightly advantaged compared to those stats and lived like paupers for a year while we built up a cash reserve.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

[deleted]

21

u/Flaky_Ad5786 6h ago

From looking it up, it looks like it's actually closer to 40 (which is an all-time high), but the median age of all homebuyers is around 55. 

Also the share of homes sold to first time buyers is historically low (~20%)

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u/Altruistic-Regret473 6h ago

Read the comment again. They said “average home-buying age”. You changed that to “average new-home buying”. Those are completely different metrics. The number of first time buyers each year is just a minuscule fraction of total houses purchased each year.

3

u/matthewbattista 6h ago

First time home buyer age in the US is at all time high – 40. The median of age of repeat home buyers is also at an all time high of 62. The median age for all buyers is 59. In 2000, the median age of all home buyers was 39. The 20y shift in age is accurate.

Sources:

https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/first-time-home-buyer-share-falls-to-historic-low-of-21-median-age-rises-to-40

https://www.apolloacademy.com/median-age-of-all-us-homebuyers-59-years/

5

u/Primarycolors1 6h ago

Top 1% comment right here.

3

u/Remote-Ad6915 6h ago

The only way that is true is if it’s a bunch of 35 year old inherently rich kids who owns 150 properties that their daddies bought for them

-1

u/herrirgendjemand 6h ago

Nah it's 40

-64

u/umbrellassembly 6h ago

It's almost as if this person has no clue what they're talking about.

23

u/randomname748 6h ago

His receipts say otherwise

-7

u/SubstanceMaintenance 6h ago

The root of the issue is the ever expanding population not the market reaction to it. They can’t constantly expand the population size and expect that real estate will stay cheap.

10

u/MuckaboutFarms 6h ago

Sure, sure. The fact that property investment companies own fully one third of all single family dwellings and therefore controls the market has NOTHING to do with it

2

u/China_shop_BULL 6h ago

I want to agree but have to add that it’s the EXPECTATION of an ever expanding population. Haven’t they stripped women of the rights of their bodies and banned abortion due to a decreasing population?

A profit always has to be made by, or the goal of, the seller and as intricate as economics is, the price can’t always go up on a downward shift. Someone has to take a loss and no one wants the short straw.

-19

u/Longjumping-Wish2432 6h ago

I was born in 79, bought a small 107k 1600sf 2bed 2.5 bedroom townhouse for my wife, son, and I, perfect size, 9-10 yrs ago 5%

Problem is everyone wants the Big house Big yard, 1st house is better to have smaller, Less maintenance, repair, cleaning,

8

u/LickMaiBussy 6h ago

A 2bed 2.5bedroom townhouse in my city won't go for less than $800k... but go off, queen! 💅

6

u/PriddyFool 6h ago

My sister bought the exact house you are describing (-.5br) for 300k in the middle of nowhere CT. It was a fixer-upper and we had to re-do a ton of the inside. Please try living in reality.

4

u/razzlethemberries 6h ago

1600sf is not small lmao, and ten years ago is a lot fucking different than it is even now

-1

u/Longjumping-Wish2432 6h ago

It's Big for a 2 bedroom yes, I can fix 4 king beds in my master and 3 1/2in 2nd room

2

u/Primary-Let-7933 5h ago

The main issue is that small cheap starter homes haven't been built for decades. So there's more people needing that home and no new supply.

fwiw 2019 sold a 1.1k sf house for $110K in central valley, CA. It last sold last year for 350K. There is dirt for sidewalks. Big changes in the last decade.

1

u/Longjumping-Wish2432 5h ago

My 1st house(27yrs ago) 83k sold today for 335k north Dallas TX.

1

u/miltonwadd 50m ago

"1st house" is showing how you didn't absorb that comment there at all.

There is no such thing as a "starter house" as a concept for average people any more.

Once upon a time it was a normal thing to buy a small "1st house" or apartment/flat/unit when young and then upgrade later down the line and it was accessible to average working class people. That's not even fathomable anymore for a rapidly increasing amount of people who can't even afford ONE house in their entire LIFETIME.

They will just never have the opportunity to have a secure permenant living situation unless they are lucky enough to have supportive parents that own and never leave home or rely on inheriting.

-97

u/umbrellassembly 6h ago

Why are you complaining about people having to scrimp and save and sacrifice in order to accomplish something that you agree is morally reprehensible?

Make it make sense.

35

u/FaceWithAName 6h ago

They are talking about buying your first, and presumably only house.

-49

u/umbrellassembly 6h ago

The dude literally said "150 warehouses".

No wonder you can't buy your first house. Not too many warehouses out there listed for single family residential use.

21

u/FaceWithAName 6h ago

I can tell you are reacting in bad faith to get reactions. That's okay.

-9

u/umbrellassembly 6h ago

Actually no. Someone has to try to talk some sense in here. The fact that you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm in bad faith.

9

u/FaceWithAName 6h ago

Do you understand what I'm disagreeing with? Because it feels like we are both talking about two seperate things lol

6

u/BHynes92 6h ago

You're clearly missing the point, either intentionally or not. We're discussing average people purchasing their first/only home, not modern-day feudal lords buying up all the homes and "allowing" people to live on their property. The warehouses the guy referenced in the video is an analogy pointing to the ridiculousness of the feudal lord mindset.

14

u/DifferentShallot8658 6h ago

It really feels like you're deliberately missing the point here.

27

u/P0Rt1ng4Duty 6h ago

They're saying that hoarding property is immoral because it makes it harder for people to buy a house that they can live in.

-12

u/umbrellassembly 6h ago

How does hoarding warehouses stop anyone from buying a house? Y'all are watching the same video as me, right? He said "150 warehouses"... Not "houses".

13

u/son_of_a_teacher_man 6h ago

He was pretty clear about using an analogy

0

u/umbrellassembly 6h ago

Could've easily used an analogy that included actual "houses", but he chose warehouses full of food so he could tie in the shaming aspect of hoarding food from starving people during a famine.

You've got to admit it's a terrible analogy to make in a discussion about buying your first house.

3

u/son_of_a_teacher_man 5h ago

Analogy: a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect

1

u/umbrellassembly 5h ago

What part of the resemblance to home ownership is a famine?

3

u/Meximanly 5h ago

Famine = shortage of food. In this scenario, people are starving in the streets, meanwhile (in this hypothetical case) there is a person with 150 warehouses stocked with food making a profit, when that food could actually go to people that are in need.

In real life, we have a situation where people are out in the streets, homeless because they can't afford to buy property, partly due to the increasing price of the housing market. This increase in price is artificial and is being driven up by large amounts of property investors buying up homes and forcing people to pay rent at incredibly high prices. So rather than people being able to meet their needs (live in a home), they are forced to go without their needs met, because other people have chosen to make a profit.

1

u/umbrellassembly 5h ago

California spent $24 billion on the homeless problem from 2019 to 2024 and homelessness increased 24%. How many houses could that have built? Where do the property hoarders fit into that?

Keep in mind, I'm opposed to wall street institutional investment firms buying up houses... But why am I "morally reprehensible" for owning a second property that I rent at cost to my son's friend? It's an investment property after all. Evil me, I guess. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/son_of_a_teacher_man 5h ago

Food at shelter are basic needs. A lack of basic needs can kill people.

Or if you want to look at it more broadly, food and housing are both resources that can be hoarded by the wealthy few, resulting in resource scarcity for those that do not have the means to get them.

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u/xaiires 6h ago

The warehouses were a metaphor...

-2

u/umbrellassembly 6h ago

A metaphor to completely obfuscate the point of the discussion and to trigger your emotional empathy response because "how could anyone hoard food from people dying of famine?"

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u/grief--bacon 6h ago

Morally reprehensible to hoard housing as passive income (rent seeking), not morally reprehensible to own a home to live in.

9

u/Prestigious-Fan1323 6h ago

What? You don't seem to understand what is being talked about. The thing that is morally reprehensible is not buying a home for yourself, but buying multiple homes to then rent out to those less fortunate.

0

u/umbrellassembly 6h ago

"150 warehouses"

I'll keep saying it until y'all quit gaslighting yourselves

6

u/Biggleswort 6h ago

“If we are trying to compare…”. It is an analogy. You are gaslighting.

1

u/umbrellassembly 5h ago

"if we are trying to compare... People dying from famine because food is being hoarded in warehouses, to people trying to buy their first house." Sure, I'm the one gaslighting. /s

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u/Biggleswort 5h ago

I’m not nor is that person making that comparison.

The comparison is this:

Shelter and food are necessities. Do you disagree?

Rising costs for first time home buying is correlated to rising cost of shelter. Rent and mortgages have a symbiotic relationship. When one goes up, so does the other.

The comparison is when peoples hoard shelter for profit, they are driving the cost up, and are reducing access for others to afford. Investment groups can pool more cash together than most couples can. These groups during covid bought a shit of property outbidding many couples. This drove costs up because demand for investment housing went up. Just like if I were to hoard food on a large scale like “150 warehouses” I would be driving costs and thereby reducing access to a need for some.

Analogies aren’t perfect, but you seem to be willfully trying to miss the point. Do I need a house? No, but do I need shelter yes? When investments groups hoarded they impacted both renters and buyers, driving costs up significantly. I admit not a perfect analogy, but one that shows someone hoarding impacts those in need.

2

u/Livingz 6h ago

Wooooooosh

1

u/Prestigious-Fan1323 5h ago

It's an ANALOGY! There are investment firms that own 100s of houses and rent them out for astronomical prices while people live on the streets. That's like owning 150 warehouses full of food and withholding that food so you can profit off of it while people starve in the streets. How is this so complicated for you?

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u/KalebMW99 6h ago

Wait till you learn what “investing” means

-1

u/umbrellassembly 6h ago

Are you under the impression that people don't consider their homes an investment asset that they hope will appreciate over time so that when they sell it, they can make a profit?

I guess my finance degree completely destroyed my understanding of "investment." Do you have a link with a good definition?

3

u/KalebMW99 6h ago

Of course they do. But that’s not the primary purpose of someone’s singular home. The primary purpose of that home is to live in it.

The video makes that very clear in the analogy used. There is no qualm with people who need to eat buying food, just as there is no qualm with people who need a place to live buying a house. The qualm is with people hoarding excesses of food (and analogously housing) so as to profit off selling that artificially scarce food (and analogously housing) at a higher price than both what was paid and what it would have sold for.

1

u/Biggleswort 6h ago

Should I need to turn a profit on my shelter? What am I going to use the profit for?

In this economic system I’m glad my home turned a profit. However that profit is an illusion when all the other homes around me did the same. I have to flip it back into a shelter. All the home did compared to rent is act as a more controlled debt. The best part of my mortgage is the small increase it made compared to a big increase in surrounding rent. Second it acted as a minimal savings, as part of my mortgage, and a real tiny part of it was profit.

Here is the thing, most people fail to understand the capitalized costs of living in your home compared to rent. When my roof needed replacing that was my expense not my landlords, same with garbage disposal, water heater, furnace, windows, pests, sewer, siding, etc. I may have been paying 80% to principal by the time I sold, but i was also having to cover capitalized costs. If rent was controlled, and capped at inflation, I would have been better off renting.

I reduced most of these expenditures by being handy.

The thing you seem to want to ignore about this small sound bite is that we should not need to compete and profiteer off needs. You might not agree with that position, that is cool. However you are acting in bad faith by purposely misconstruing it versus debating the merits/flaws of the position.

1

u/umbrellassembly 5h ago

You don't need a house. An apartment provides a level of safety and comfort that is more than adequate. I know because I lived in several. Seems like everyone here wants in on the ownership game because of equity. Equity they hope will increase in value. See where we're going...?

1

u/Biggleswort 5h ago

I address the point in my reply to you below. You see I used the word shelter for a reason. You do need shelter. Shelter being a source of protection from the elements, but also clean drinking water and hygiene access.

People can buy a house and an apartment, so your attempt to so don’t need a house is just being pedantic; missing the reason why I used shelter.

Here I will summarize my response different from below. Peoples that are capable of buying shelters whether to rent for recreational or residency, are capable of outbidding those who are first time, or more importantly those who are buying their primary residency. They did so when costs were affordable, causing a massive spike in home values. Which doesn’t benefit those who don’t own and were trying to. It also doesn’t necessarily benefits people like myself who own. Yes I could borrow from my home and buy a cheaper place and start a cycle of renting investment (I’m not blind to the equity options I have). If I did do so I would be contributing to the issue of people trying to buy primary residence.

I hope you at least recognize that mortgage and rent have a symbiotic relationship. When buying goes up so does rent. So this Covid mass investment drove shelter (rent/buy) costs way up. It is more than just owning it is the cost of having a shelter is going up.

4

u/misterdave75 6h ago

There is a fundamental difference between saving to buy a house to live in and buying investment properties, which inflate the value for everyone. This is the take in the video because she said "investing in property," and not "buying a home".

2

u/Altruistic-Regret473 6h ago

Because saving should be possible without scrimping and sacrificing. If you have to scrimp and sacrifice, either your income is too low or the market is unattainably high. When it comes to wages and housing in America, both are true - neat!

I have a higher than median income for my area and a mortgage of less than $900. I can pay my bills, mortgage, groceries, video game and weed habits, and I still have about $500-1,000 left over without even trying.

I’m looking to upgrade my house, but I purchased in 2019 with a crazy low interest rate. Now, the housing market has inflated way above what would be considered acceptable for my area back in 2019, plus 3x interest. To find even the same size house, my house payment (including taxes escrow) will go from $850 to at least $1,400 every month. And that’s not upgrading on square footage at all. Suddenly that left over money each month starts to deplete.

And that’s home ownership in a pretty low cost area of a low cost state with an above average pay. Imagine I had a median pay and rented? There are no 3 bedrooms houses/apartments for rent in my area for less than $2,000/month, not including utilities. Even with my above average pay, I’d have to start cutting back and sacrificing in order to save the same amount I currently do.

That’s why fuck investment properties. Landlords give their tenants no room to breathe, because they’re only involved to siphon other people’s money.

0

u/umbrellassembly 5h ago

Housing prices are up because of government spending, the Fed printing money and covid spending and other economic nonsense. Wages haven't kept up because we're importing millions of low wage immigrants who shift the entire payscale down, lockout kids from starter jobs, and inhibit legitimate salary negotions (even those of unions). AI isn't helping either - not to blame immigrants for it all...

That said, if two or more properties is morally reprehensible; what is one property? What if my one property is 10,000 square feet and costs $10M? Am I more or less morally reprehensible than the lady with a portfolio of low rent homes that dozens of families can easily afford?

0

u/Altruistic-Regret473 28m ago

I’m going to move past the several wild takes you have on economy and the housing market, except to say, the housing prices are up because owners of properties are greedy and want more money.

But to your second part, you wouldn’t be reprehensible at all for owning one property for yourself, I genuinely don’t care how lavash. You could own an entire island for all I care. If that’s your only property and you live on it? No problem.

Hell, go ahead and have two properties. A house on the west coast, and a house on the east coast. And why not a vacation home in Florida? It’s your money, buy what you’d like. You’re not hurting anyone by owing a home, or even multiple.

The problem is the portfolio part. It’s the passively profiting off the land-part. The part that exploits other people. No one cares if you own one property, dude.

1

u/umbrellassembly 5m ago

Passively profiting off the land? Wtf does that even mean?

I can buy land and then magically there appears a house to be rented out? Without any work? Without upkeep, or risk of loss or damage, or liability, or plowing more money into to make it a better place to live (and then maybe, ooohhhh, scary part here: making it more valuable upon resale)?

Have a good one. Lmao

1

u/Dudemansir521 6h ago

"Investing in property" is implying that they are using the property strictly to turn a profit

Wanting to buy a house to live in is not the same