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me🏠irl
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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me_irl
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Trying to help my mother in law. Low income, no savings, some debt we've tried to help to pay off. Starter homes are over $200k now. 6-7 years ago these are the same houses that were $110-140k. She can't afford the down payment, hell the bank won't pre-approve her to even put a bid in. Crazy. And yeah, as others have said, the price won't go down because any discount will be immediately snatched up, more often by a large investment firm, thus locking the price and not allowing the market to cool.
To provide some context, she wants a very basic home. A small yard primarily to start a garden, maybe 800-1000 sq ft on the high end, and not much more. The only places she and we can find that are in her range are in rough neighborhoods we wouldn't want her living. And also her work, which is 100% remote, constantly threatens return to office requirements which forces her in a 40 mile vicinity.
As melinneals, we got lucky. Purchased at literally the very beginning of covid (3.20) and have seen our home value skyrocket (+50% from purchase price). Rental homes in the neighborhood regularly charge 90% over our mortgage + property tax + home insurance rate. A house down the street (we got to know them as we both had young puppies) was abandoned because they raised the price +20% in the time the family lived there. It was a mother, both adult children and their spouses, and grandchild, 7 in total, in a 4 bedroom. They left one day and last I saw was an $8k bill taped to the door for 3 months of unpaid rent, they had moved out 4 months prior.
Yeah, I managed to buy at the bottom of the interest rates, but before prices truly skyrocketed.
Because of some other life circumstances, I ended up having to move a few months back and finances just weren't there to hold onto it.
Having to rent again has been the most mental health destroying financial back step I think I could have ever taken. I pocketed a nice chunk of change, but it'd only be enough for a ~5% down payment in the current town.
Hoping to get back to owning some day, but not hopeful that that day will be soon.
...and...
100% remote? Seek out former industrial cities that have been devastated by American manufacturing coupled decline with population decline.
This one is one hour outside Pittsburgh and 1.5 hours outside of Cleveland. So you're still close two a couple sizable international airports, theaters, museums with great food scenes. Both cities host large Universities so you're close to a fairly highly educated population.
If only you had read a bit more to see that her work keeps threatening return to office.
I saw it. Lots of orgs are threatening. Very few have actually acted on it. I wanted that poster to have the info about options.
You're not wrong. I appreciate the info. That's exactly what she's looking for. Thank you for looking. We're always on the lookout.
And if she's already working from home she probably has skills she can apply to other remote jobs. I say start applying now.
If thisbis his mother in law i am gonna assume she is in her 50's to 60's. It's hard to get an office job at that age since she likely isn't too far away from retirement age
I think this is one of few things where employees are successfully putting their collective foot down. I've seen several companies announce return to office and then walk it back just a few days later after an enormous portion of the workforce threatens to leave.
What do you mean by "hanging young puppies"? I'm very concerned
Lol. All the puppies are healthy! Fixed the typo.
Glad I'm not the only one who caught that, that's a strange hobby for sure.
Your house didn’t increase 50% in four years, that’s the kind of unrealistic investment expectation that makes the housing market unaffordable. That’s not going to get fixed no matter how many houses are built. People ask unreasonable amounts of money for their shitbox (not saying your house is a shitbox) even if it’s on a bad piece of land. I am not sure what’s the solution for this other than teaching people critical thinking skills for objectively evaluating things.
But an “easy” one for a separate but related problem: corporate investors need to be legislated out of owning single family houses.
Except many housing markets have been doing exactly that for the past decades. Also with the period of hyper inflation we went through easily means the house has gained about 30% value purely through being a durable good that holds it's value with inflation. Another 20% due to the crazy '21-'22 housing market plus general "most houses gain value" housing market is not hard to believe
Hmm, 50% in 4 years? I haven’t seen the data so it’s hard for me to say either say. Maybe you’re right.
Edit: or if you’re going to make claims, then the onus of providing data and facts is on you, I think. OTOH, with crazy trends like NFTs and speculative stocks, I don’t know what to believe.