You don't even need to have super rich parents. My mother helped me get my first home with 15K that she saved throughout the years. (I paid her back).
That was just enough for my down payment. Without that I couldn't have gotten the house.
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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I think the issue is what if you have no parents or parents with no money (or negative moneys). You could do everything right, go to school, get a professional job, and still not be able to buy a place.
The housing market is definitely fucked worldwide. Many don't have parents with money and can only rent or not even move out of their parents house.
Some of us got lucky with minimal down payment from their parents 5-10 years ago. Its just ridiculous how the market changed in such a small time. Like the houses are still the same, the population did not grow exponentially. Wtf is going on?
I thought I got hosed 10 years ago but when I look at prices now it is night and day. The demand has pushed people into smaller towns and into the rural areas so now I get to see a modular home that sold for $75,000 10 years ago be listed for $300,000 and sell.
The cost of new houses is not helping and talking with some small scale builders (they can only build 1 or 2 at a time) the cost to build is high enough to give many pause.
This is what happens when real estate becomes your nations biggest industry.
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There’s an element of “be fiscally responsible and you too can save up” but more often than not, the answer is “make more money”.
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Yes, that is the status quo now in Canada, you need to make $150,000 a year, minimum, to afford a mortgage to buy a low-quality apartment or home.
So your house was somewhere in the 75k to 150k range? Average home prices where I live and work are 800k. That would mean a down-payment of 80k to 160k. You would absolutely "need to have super rich parents" to get that kind of help. I'm happy for you that you were able to secure a home of your own with the help of family. That just isn't a simple reality for most most people who don't have super wealthy parents where I am from.
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Borrowed 3k from my bad didn't have to pay back. There is nothing wrong with getting help from family to buy a home. Fuck this article. The housing issue is caused by large corporations who are buying up all the houses along with interest rates keeping average person from buying a home.
There is nothing wrong with getting help from family to buy a home.
It is indicative of a problem that nearly half of home buyers have to. And indicative that we are possibly heading in a direction where only those with familial wealth will own housing. This is objectively a problematic direction.
Also, yes, if it's some absurd amount like $200k borrowed, nepotism is the right word. A couple grand may not be a lot to you, but there are places where it is as well. I know for a fact plenty of people from my hometown would struggle to loan their child even a couple thousand to buy a home. But the child is stuck paying rent that's more than a mortgage, keeping them from savings up for said down payment. The fact we can't save money is a problem, and parents giving their children money to buy a house just masks the issue except for those without that money.
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Not enough now, here in the UK at least
Single 35yo. Earning alright. Mortgage on a 160k flat required a £90k deposit. Was a fucking nightmare, but at least I got it locked in at 4%
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God, if only people could just like pool their resources together to build homes or something...
We could even call it something like "social housing," and have it be a publically regulated service instead of treating housing as some sort of game of investment for the wealthy? No no, totally impossible...
Even going back to the way things were in the 70's where workers got a fairer share of the products of their labour that wasn't leeched away by non-productive shareholders would make a huge difference. There's a reason you could buy a house on a single income when you had 5 kids back then.
Hell we had deals where if you build the house yourself, they will give you the plot of land absolutely for free. But that was 30 years ago. I am absolutely sure people these days couldn't do it - either not manually skilled enough, but have the money, or manually skilled, but their job doesn't pay well enough to afford spending time building a house.
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You also pretty much described what S&Ls were.
Honestly wish they could make a comeback, but we'd need to ban them from becoming national organizations. Their biggest benefits were that they helped people get houses, provided proper financial advice, and kept money local.
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And again, the corporate media is blaming anyone but real estate companies and market speculators.
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I hate this term ... giving your kids money to help them start out on their own isn't nepotism, it's parenting.
Nepotism is when you violate a responsibility you have to a third party (e.g., your employer) to act impartially in their interests, in order to benefit your family.
Is the idea that parents should donate their money equally to everyone's kids? This makes no sense.
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That's not nepotism. Nepotism would be some land baron giving land to his kids, or a city official changing zoning to allow their family member to build something otherwise restricted.
Don't worry, I was trying to buy a house with my parents this past year. Even if they sold their current house to help, we couldn't afford what we'd need (3 bed 2 bath) since they don't have a ton of savings and only one of them is working still.
So even with help, some of us are still too poor.
What a clickbait title. How is giving your kids money "nepotism" ?
Technically any advantage gained from family/friends is Nepotism. It's not purely bad ethically until you're talking about leadership and/or critical positions (like safety supervisor at a factory).
The fact that Nepotism is required to enter the middle class is not a healthy indicator for our society though.
That's really not technically true. The term "nepotism" originated from Catholic bishops and popes granting their unqualified nephews lucrative positions in the church ... it's always been seen as unethical, and has only been used to describe behavior perceived as unethical.
The dictionary definition of nepotism is "favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship."
This is a troubling signal of income inequality and social immobility, sure -- but it isn't nepotism.
Shit. I was in my 40s and it took a generous gift from my parents to buy my first house
My father did the same. He said "This is your inheritance. I'd rather see you enjoy it while I'm alive."
Well I’m pretty mad that I’ll never be able to afford a house, despite having a good solid job. My parents aren’t rich, so they can’t help me. And while I’m not mad at them for not being able to help, I am mad that all other things being equal that puts me at a disadvantage.
Here’s a hypothetical scenario: Let’s say I make $60K a year, am single, with significant student debt. Let’s also say because of the pandemic payment pause, maybe I was able to save, like $5K, and I want to buy a house. Not gonna happen. Now take all the same things but add in well-off parents who could help with a down payment. That hypothetical person gets a house. They have a definite advantage. To me, that’s not just unfair, it perpetuates a system of wealth transfer that only helps part of the population. Everyone should have the same opportunity to own a home, if they want to.
Don't forget the tightening of lending rules going on. Even if you have the down payment, most will not qualify for the mortgage unless they have some one co-sign (bank thinks you can't pay $1000 mortgage, so you have to pay $2000 rent).
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Almost reads like the author is fucking mad other people have rich parents who have the brains to help the very humans they created and brought into this life.
I for one support the revival of neo-feudalism and the divine right of kings, seeing as that is how the housing market is trending towards.
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Yeah the market sucks, but being salty about parents financially supporting their kids ain't it
I'm not upset at parents helping their kids, I'm upset that we have a system that relies on you being born in fortunate circumstances to have a decent life.
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Problem is that this is antithetical to much of the grandstanding that we do about the beauty and efficiency and yadda yadda of free markets. The narrative is, of course, that anyone can succeed wholly on their own merit in a free market economy if they just try hard enough, and if you're not succeeding, then you're obviously just not trying. Yet, here we've got data that throws an asterisk into the mix and says that if you want to buy a house, you're probably going to need to have all three of:
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parents
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who have money
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and are willing to share it with you.
None of which any individual is in any kind of control of. You can't tryhard your way into having wealthy parents that are happy to buy things for you, so now we're forced to re-examine the system and whether you really can succeed just by trying hard. The answer is more nuanced, but it boils down to luck. Yes, it is possible, given the right circumstances, that hard work can lead to success. In the overwhelming majority of cases, however, hard work means squat compared to luck. Other things are much more critical to success in our economic system, including owning assets, having powerful connections, and having the right skillset combined with the right opportunities, and most of those things boil down to luck.
I'm mortgaging a house, but I'm not delusional enough to believe that luck didn't play a role. We got very, very lucky to have the right opportunities at the right time, as well as to have one parent with the money and willingness to share it to help us get into our starter home. Failing one of those, which would have been simple enough to have failed, we'd still be renting and living in a much worse financial situation, both in terms of monthly bills and net worth. We worked for it, yes, but pulling on your bootstraps isn't enough, and it's time to stop pretending that it is. It hasn't been enough for a long time, and I can't fathom that it ever was the case.
hard work means squat compared to luck
More often than not the only rewards for hard work is more work and ruined health.
other people have rich parents who have the brains
*bank accounts
I dont know why you're conflating throwing money at your children with intelligence. If anything, it'd be empathy over brainpower.
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The country is ran by geriatric nepo babies... If you are not one of their crotch fruit, good luck, peasant! You are going to be experiencing a lot of that "free market" in your ass.
My wife and I had enough for a down-payment but my parents leaning me $10k at a lower rate was helpful, vitally getting rid of the PMI quicker.
Nothing is going to fundamentally change so long as housing supply drastically falls short of the demand. There's no way to escape the core issue that we don't have enough housing units in the places people want to live, and so the units that are available are going to go to the wealthiest people seeking them.
There are home buyers under 30? Shit I can barely afford to eat.
Lol, I had to do the same in 2008. Nothing's changed. Except it's only gotten more expensive
Lmfaooooo Bruhhhh I'm under 30 and I'm living with my parent rather than getting help moving out.
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