During COVID, a lot of techies who could suddenly work from home ended up flooding smaller rural towns, and shot up the price of housing like 2-3x. It's a bit late now, between the increased prices and the increased interest rates, and many devs can't afford to buy anymore... especially after the layoffs.
Like everything else in America, homeownership is increasingly a privilege reserved for the rich, and everyone else just rents if they're lucky or lives outta their car/van if they can't.
Best case, you work for a FAANG on a 6 or 7 figure salary and buy a house somewhere cheap. But that's pretty rare.
> 6 or 7 figure salary and buy a house somewhere cheap
Huh? If you have a 7 figure salary in a single year you’ll have a down payment for a nice house in a lot of places, and in a few, one for a house in Palo Alto.
If you don’t blow your salary you could easily save to buy a house outright in cheaper areas in a few years
It’s now cheaper to rent in the top 50 metros in the U.S. than it is to buy. Inventory is low right now and people who have a home at a 3% rate are not going to sell unless they have to. That said, don’t wait for rates to drop if you really want to buy.
It's harder right now since interest rates went back up. But when they were low a few years ago, a 30-year mortgage didn't have such a huge monthly payment.
Anyway some of the most expensive cities are building more housing, and prices are coming down on average. Remember, you can put in a bid below the asking price.
I'm a bit confused by this question because it seems like the only people in my area who can afford to buy houses are software engineers, or at least work in tech.
My guess is that they’re senior engineers. If you’re just beginning now even rent is twice what it was when I started, but starting salaries are not. Houses are easily more than twice what I paid as well, so now you have less money left over to save for a much larger down payment to then get a house with a much larger monthly payment, much higher property taxes, and that’s even before interest rate pain.
Not joking in anyway, but if the property taxes on my home were based on the market value not the CA prop13 BS my property taxes now would be more than my mortgage payments. IE even on my current income I could probably not afford my current house, let alone my income from 10 years ago.
How the F is someone starting out today - even in tech, let alone anything else - going to afford a home?
I bought a house after about 4 years in the industry. It's going to be less likely to happen in certain markets, especially if you live in high tax states like CA.
The cheapest house in our neighborhood recently went for 100k more than I bought my house for, despite my house being larger and not needing the foundation and roof replaced.
Most of the non-remote devs I know who bought places in recent years had to move to the outskirts of a big city if they didn’t want a tiny 1br apartment
We couldn't for the longest time but there was a dip in the market around 2012 (which was just about the bottom of the dip) and a house came up for sale by a couple brothers that inherited it and were looking to cash out I guess. We put in an offer for 2% over asking which was accepted. It was all rather serendipitous really.
The answer 100% depends on if you can work remotely
If so, I honestly think the answer is to leave overpriced metros that won’t build housing and move somewhere building a lot of housing and priced better.
1031 is not for owner occupancy. Of course there are ways around it eventually but it takes a few years to season things and you have to be careful to play by the rules.
I'm not sure I understand the whole no money down thing. If you put less money down, then that means that the monthly payment is higher? That's really what's making homes unaffordable. If you can't put 10-20% down or whatever is recommended, then maybe the house just isn't affordable.
The down payment is actually a big issue for many. You can be making enough that you could afford the higher payment, but waiting 5 years to build a down payment could see huge price surges, thus extending how long you need to save.
Do you have to be a veteran to get a loan from the VA? If so, what about people like me who weren't in the military? Especially people like me who were never eligible to even join the military because of a childhood illness?
I was told it was an all volunteer force, and not in the sense of unpaid volunteer work either. I just think that socialized home ownership and healthcare are good enough that we should provide them to all citizens, not just those who were in the military.
VA loan is for military and veterans only. It’s a perk for military service, of which there aren’t many. As a vet I’ve used it twice, though I support the program being wider to cover other national service like Peace Corps etc.
Subsidized loans, healthcare, and education - the three most expensive aspects of trying to live in America today. Hardly seems like the perks are lacking.
Here[0] is the 59 page document of medical issues that are disqualifying. I'm 6.18.d.11. I suppose it's 7 year old me's fault for getting a rare disorder.
VA loans aren’t magic. People who get out of the service are often at ends due to issues specific to transitioning out of the military. The serve at the pleasure.
It’s absolutely not to good to be true, it’s one of the best benefits available to veterans. I actually got paid to close with my VA loan (basically a negative down payment). This was a few years ago so the market was different, but it wasn’t uncommon to request e.g. some percent of the purchase price as seller concessions. If the total down payment is 0, anything over closing costs can get paid out to you.
Like everything else in America, homeownership is increasingly a privilege reserved for the rich, and everyone else just rents if they're lucky or lives outta their car/van if they can't.
Best case, you work for a FAANG on a 6 or 7 figure salary and buy a house somewhere cheap. But that's pretty rare.