Does being 25 make me gen y?

All that money may as well go to something useful.

Cute headline. Not.

I paid rent to my parents for a few years and then bought my own house when I could. That feeling when you skip the slumlords altogether? It's pretty good. Although I'm pondering a condo now, but I'm a bit nervous about noise as I have sensitive ears and I'm a light sleeper.

Maybe if mom and dad hadn't fueled the real estate bubble and driven up the cost of homes before tanking the economy and refusing to downsize even though all their kids have left home because they wouldn't make a profit on the deal (and so pushing the price of family homes even higher!) then their kids wouldn't need so much help getting on the real estate ladder.

Just saying.

Can we just call them "the snowflake generation" now?

shiat, who wouldn't want a free house?

Haters gonna hate.

YourOwnMedicine: Maybe if mom and dad hadn't fueled the real estate bubble and driven up the cost of homes before tanking the economy and refusing to downsize even though all their kids have left home because they wouldn't make a profit on the deal (and so pushing the price of family homes even higher!) then their kids wouldn't need so much help getting on the real estate ladder.

Just saying.

.
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Wahhh! Wahhh!

Living in a college town, this happens a lot. Not as much as it did before the bubble, but it still happens. Parents would buy a townhouse or house in the student ghetto, then sell it for what they bought it for (if not more) and got 4 years of free rent.

YourOwnMedicine: Maybe if mom and dad hadn't fueled the real estate bubble and driven up the cost of homes before tanking the economy and refusing to downsize even though all their kids have left home because they wouldn't make a profit on the deal (and so pushing the price of family homes even higher!) then their kids wouldn't need so much help getting on the real estate ladder.

Just saying.

While true, that covers about half of it. The other half of it is that everyone I know (25-30) is also paying college loans disproportionate to their plausible income working at Gamestop or the Apple Store, because frankly, they should not have been encouraged to pursue secondary education.

The exception is a Baltimore County teacher (so that's rewarding) with higher loans who is also putting her husband through a second degree + masters so that he doesn't work at Starbucks (he's going from graphic design to astronomy - the deep-space-imaging-theoretical-math kind). They'll do fine in the long run, but they're also willing to move to where they need to for the kind of lab access his career would require, and most people don't have that luxury or brain power for the math involved.

If I hadn't been willing to pick up a foreclosure that needed rehab work in a "mixed" part of town (as every cross-eyed yokel I've come across was excited to warn me about) it would be another decade before I could buy a house where the "white" people live, and it'd be too small to support my hobbies. I don't realistically see most of my peers getting above a condo. I honestly think we need to shift our expectations to family households instead of generational households like most of the rest of the world.

/DRTA

The price of buying a home is falling, rental prices are not. Simple really.

Renting is for suckers.


Around here, there is almost no bulk rental properties (apt buildings) because the govt taxes the hell out of landlords. Some houses have a single rental unit in the basement (that is tax free as long as the owner lives on premises).

This means young adults buy condos very early in life, and build equity. They need it, considering a single-family home costs close to a million USD for entry level.


I never understood why rentals are so overdeveloped in the US.

blindy the pirate: Living in a college town, this happens a lot. Not as much as it did before the bubble, but it still happens. Parents would buy a townhouse or house in the student ghetto, then sell it for what they bought it for (if not more) and got 4 years of free rent.

And that's the only way this makes sense. Except for buying in a bubble. I was repeatedly offered mortgages while in college and I was tempted, but I lucked out and didn't have one when I graduated in 2007 as the bubble burst.

SDRR: shiat, who wouldn't want a free house?

Haters gonna hate.

It is a buyer's market in many places.

casual disregard: Cute headline. Not.

I paid rent to my parents for a few years and then bought my own house when I could. That feeling when you skip the slumlords altogether? It's pretty good. Although I'm pondering a condo now, but I'm a bit nervous about noise as I have sensitive ears and I'm a light sleeper.

The noise factor is horrendous. I finally had it out with my neighbors about a year ago. I told them I didn't want to know whenever they got home. Slamming doors, barking dogs, etc....

I once thought I was watching TV at a reasonable volume. In fact I had been watching TV for about 6 hours when a cop showed up at my door at 4 AM. He said it's "a little loud". WTF?

Sorry - no citation issued. In fact I was pissed off enough that I didn't turn it down at all. Apparently "A little loud" means you could hear it 3 feet outside my door.

I've lived in apartments where there was better sound proofing. It should be part of the building codes IMO

if your paying $550-$600 a week in rent, you are most likely living in a luxury castle apartment.

Looking for a new place to live 3 years ago, I was planning on renting. So I go around looking for apartments and after a couple years living in various houses with roommates, discover the renting prices have skyrocketed. For a decent place, it was 700-800 a month. I start researching houses and find my mortgage payments would be 700-800 a month... And the government was giving me 8,000 to buy. So I bought a house. Only downside is it's more difficult to move if I want to.

If I demanded anything like this my parents would look at each other and throw me out of the house with one month's worth of rent for a shiatty apartment and say "Have Fun!"

KiplingKat872: Can we just call them "the snowflake generation" now?

And we're done.

casual disregard: Cute headline. Not.

I paid rent to my parents for a few years and then bought my own house when I could. That feeling when you skip the slumlords altogether? It's pretty good. Although I'm pondering a condo now, but I'm a bit nervous about noise as I have sensitive ears and I'm a light sleeper.

condos- all the disadvantages of an apt., not of the advantages of a house.

/Have a nice basic starter house
//It's great to be able to do a little music practice at midnight, if I feel like it. And my birds can be as loud as they want, too!

Jon iz teh kewl: if your paying $550-$600 a week in rent, you are most likely living in a luxury castle apartment.

[imageseu.homeaway.com image 400x300]

Well, not a castle, but yeah.

Also, there are those of us in the Millennial/X bracket who aren't interested in detached single-family houses. When my washer barfed all over the floor as I was leaving for work a couple weeks ago, I didn't have to stay and figure out who could clean it all up and repair it. I called the front office and they had my carpet up, blowers going, and a new washer moved in by 11am. I pay rent so that someone else will handle the bullshiat I'm not interested in dealing with.

/quiet loft in Boston, with private patio and garage parking, around the corner from the T.
//worth. it.

Obama's going to pay my mortgage and fill my gas tank....

jmadisonbiii: Obama's going to pay my mortgage and fill my gas tank....

[encrypted-tbn1.google.com image 259x194]

She's the one who said that extremely stupid thing? I'd love to see a "where is she now" followup.

Good on em.

I left home and school at 15, and quite frankly over the years have had a prick of a time.

And the fun part when this happens is when the payment adjusts, the mortgage company sends out a new coupon book, and the mailing address on the account is the property.. The kid tosses the mail, the parents keep blindly paying the old amount, then when the account gets three months behind, the parents call in and blame the mortgage company..

/Works in the mortgage industry, its like sausage..

36 years ago, my parents gave my husband and me $1000 for a downpayment on an FHA loan for a house. After I asked them for a loan.

8 years before that, they paid for our very small wedding and short honeymoon, only because Mom wanted me married in a Church. (Husband and I were planning on a Justice of the Peace)

Two years before that, they bought me a car, as a loan, which I paid back.

And that is all we ever got from them. And more than I ever expected. Because in my family, one was expected to make it or break it. No apron strings attached.

flypusher713: casual disregard: Cute headline. Not.

I paid rent to my parents for a few years and then bought my own house when I could. That feeling when you skip the slumlords altogether? It's pretty good. Although I'm pondering a condo now, but I'm a bit nervous about noise as I have sensitive ears and I'm a light sleeper.

condos- all the disadvantages of an apt., not of the advantages of a house.

/Have a nice basic starter house
//It's great to be able to do a little music practice at midnight, if I feel like it. And my birds can be as loud as they want, too!

Yeah, that's what makes me nervous. Many condo associations may as well be slumlords, and their properties may as well be shanties with paper-thin walls. I hate lawn work, though, and I don't have a garage. So if I could find a nice house with a garage and no trees and a simple lawn to mow, I'd be on it. If I could find a condo that is genuinely sound-proofed and without exorbitant fees and a garage, I'd be on it. We'll see.

So am I strange I went in with the parents and bought two tracts totaling 220 acres?. Each tract had a house, shop, barn etc. I like being next door to the parents( well a half mile) but they aren't getting younger, and I like owning all this land. 245k was the price for both tracts 8 years ago.
/suck it apartment dwellers

Dear kids - It does not make sense for mom and dad to pay either your rent, or your mortgage.

At best, it makes sense to pay them rent to stay in your old room and keep draining resources from the family for a few years until you "find yourself" or whatever the hell kids do instead of getting a damned job these days.

/ If you don't contribute to society, go live beneath an overpass, 'kay?
// Rather than counting as a "valuable education", your "humanities" degree explains why you can't get a job.
/// No, getting an even higher worthless degree won't help you.

> They need it, considering a single-family home costs close to a million USD for entry level

...if, and only if, you absolutely have to live very close to a small handful of major metropolitan centers.

casual disregard: flypusher713: casual disregard: Cute headline. Not.

I paid rent to my parents for a few years and then bought my own house when I could. That feeling when you skip the slumlords altogether? It's pretty good. Although I'm pondering a condo now, but I'm a bit nervous about noise as I have sensitive ears and I'm a light sleeper.

condos- all the disadvantages of an apt., not of the advantages of a house.

/Have a nice basic starter house
//It's great to be able to do a little music practice at midnight, if I feel like it. And my birds can be as loud as they want, too!

Yeah, that's what makes me nervous. Many condo associations may as well be slumlords, and their properties may as well be shanties with paper-thin walls. I hate lawn work, though, and I don't have a garage. So if I could find a nice house with a garage and no trees and a simple lawn to mow, I'd be on it. If I could find a condo that is genuinely sound-proofed and without exorbitant fees and a garage, I'd be on it. We'll see.

Yeah, the yard work can be a downside. I do the bare minimum required to make the house look occupied. The back yard is fenced, so it doesn't have to be moved as frequently.

I rented a condo before I bought my house. The landlord/management were decent, the property looked nice, but the thin walls were definitely an issue. Also the ventilation. I was about to leave for work one morning when I started smelling acetone in the bathroom. It turned out someone downstairs was having some remodeling done (no idea what) and the fumes were coming upstairs (and nobody gave the upstairs people a heads up on this). I'm glad I was running late that day, or I would have come home to dead birds.

pla: Dear kids - It does not make sense for mom and dad to pay either your rent, or your mortgage.

At best, it makes sense to pay them rent to stay in your old room and keep draining resources from the family for a few years until you "find yourself" or whatever the hell kids do instead of getting a damned job these days.

/ If you don't contribute to society, go live beneath an overpass, 'kay?
// Rather than counting as a "valuable education", your "humanities" degree explains why you can't get a job.
/// No, getting an even higher worthless degree won't help you.

... and then in real life, rich kids parents buy them cars, a college education, equity in their first house, and give them a cash "loan" to finance their businesses... which fast tracks them into being rich, when they maybe pay some money back to their parents as a token gesture, and everyone is happy as they sneer down at you for not being a self made success like them.

^The real way rich people are made

alwaysjaded: KiplingKat872: Can we just call them "the snowflake generation" now?

Fair enough. What do we call the generation that raised them to be snowflakes? It wasn't the kids in those PTA meetings demanding everyone get a trophy.

Boomers. They who threw stuff at their kids and insisted society be shaped to raise their children for them because they were too busy.

I moved put of the house at 18, got a job, and while I may have brought my laundry over every weekend and hit them up for gas money sometimes, I did not ask my parents to pay my rent. My sister went straight into college and the deal they cut her was that as long as she lived on campus they would cover her housing costs. Fortuntally, she threatened to transfer after a year and the University offered her a free ride.

Alonjar: pla: Dear kids - It does not make sense for mom and dad to pay either your rent, or your mortgage.

At best, it makes sense to pay them rent to stay in your old room and keep draining resources from the family for a few years until you "find yourself" or whatever the hell kids do instead of getting a damned job these days.

/ If you don't contribute to society, go live beneath an overpass, 'kay?
// Rather than counting as a "valuable education", your "humanities" degree explains why you can't get a job.
/// No, getting an even higher worthless degree won't help you.

... and then in real life, rich kids parents buy them cars, a college education, equity in their first house, and give them a cash "loan" to finance their businesses... which fast tracks them into being rich, when they maybe pay some money back to their parents as a token gesture, and everyone is happy as they sneer down at you for not being a self made success like them.

^The real way rich people are made

hey, that's just the free market helping ensure that the market remains anything but free

To get everyone into perspective, it's talking about Australia and thus the 450k price point for a house is against an average of 50k pa wage - and to balance that we pay more for everything (it's equivelant to 25k pa USD when you consider buying power).

In the cities, you're not getting anything within limits for less than 300k. I'm talking Studio/1 (maybe 2 if you're lucky) bedroom flats/condos/apartments here, certainly not anything resembling a house. Anything less that that is 20 miles out of town or falling apart (as in, you buy the place for the land because the place will fall down around you). It's not uncommon for people to be taking out mortgages 6-8 times their grosse annual wage. I have no idea how people can sign these contracts gauranteeing they wont be screwed by the next global-financial-crisis and can continue making payments.

It's pretty messed up.

reillan:
^The real way rich people are made

hey, that's just the free market helping ensure that the market remains anything but free

I've never minded the fact that some people get that 100 yard head start in the race of life, but it sure does annoy that hell out of me what they act like they were bootstrappy all by themselves.

/I'm guessing I got a 10 yard start, since Mom & Dad paid a big chunk of my undergrad college costs, which saved me from student loans
//Thanks Mom & Dad!

stratagos: YourOwnMedicine: Maybe if mom and dad hadn't fueled the real estate bubble and driven up the cost of homes before tanking the economy and refusing to downsize even though all their kids have left home because they wouldn't make a profit on the deal (and so pushing the price of family homes even higher!) then their kids wouldn't need so much help getting on the real estate ladder.

Just saying.

Yes, how *dare* people not sell at a loss to make things easier for other people! Monsters one and all!

They overpaid in aniticipation of infinite appreciation. They can rot in those houses.

Rodeodoc: filter: This means young adults buy condos very early in life, and build equity. They need it, considering a single-family home costs close to a million USD for entry level.

I had to check your profile to see where you lived. Norway... sweet. If you lived in the US I was going to ask if you where under a rock for the last 5 years. The days of buying early and building equity are long gone in the US. And here in Florida (I'm in the Tampa area) you can get a basic 3 br/2 bath for under $100,000. A million would put you in a mansion on waterfront.

And to the headline: It needs the Unlikely tag.

There's a pretty cool house just down the street from me that's selling for $80,000. I could easily buy it right now, except for the fact that I'm not sure how long my current job will last, and I may have to move far away if I get laid off from it. ( only other jobs in my area appear to be low-paying retail & seasonal agriculture )