$2,800,000 for a 1,500sq. ‘ home in Silicon Valley !!

In 1995, shortly before getting married, I bought our first home... it was a 1978 model single wide mobile home on a 3/4 acre lot... it was a dump, but my mortgage was $125 per month... we lived there for 4 years.

In 1998-99, we built our current home, a 2100 square foot brick house on a full basement, on family land. Me and my dad did most of the work ourselves... we hired out the basement excavation, the HVAC, and the brickwork. Dad was planning on doing the roofing, also, but with a 10/12 pitch, I didn't want him up there any more than absolutely necessary, so we hired a roofing company.

All expenses considered, I spent almost exactly $100,000 to build it...

A couple of years later, I added a 30x30 attached garage for around $9000, IIRC...

We moved in October '99... we paid the mortgage off in 2016...

My 23 year old daughter keeps talking about getting her own place, but when she starts checking prices, she decides she'll live with us forever...

I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it will be for her to start her own life/ family with the high cost of everything now...

I feel like the entire world has went nuts...

-Bear
 
7milesup said:
That is pretty harsh and quite narrow-minded. There are a lot of people that are stuck in a circumstance, for whatever reason, that results in a tough living situation. With the price of rent and new homes skyrocketing, there is now a growing number of working people that are getting displaced, with some of them living in their cars.
As far as your last two sentences, it seems to ring of entitlement.
Click to expand...
You seem to have missed a major term in my response. CHOOSE. Life if full of choices, some harder than the others, but you always have choices for the most part. In this case we are talking about obviously smart people working for major corporations, not some inner city family. We can conflate any issue, my response is in relation to those obviously smart enough people that have a choice.
 
682bear said:
My 23 year old daughter keeps talking about getting her own place, but when she starts checking prices, she decides she'll live with us forever...

I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it will be for her to start her own life/ family with the high cost of everything now...

I feel like the entire world has went nuts...
Click to expand...
Two of my three kids were able to buy houses in the last year, but they certainly did not get any deals. The one kid and her husband looked at 40 houses (yes, you read that correctly) before they found one they could afford or wasn't sold before they drove in the driveway to look at it.
My middle daughter works in Washington DC. She absolutely loves her job, but the chance of her owning her own home is nearly zero. It is really sad in my opinion. Student loan debt is another issue that is crushing this country.
 
Craig1514 said:
Arkansas here, I moved to the area 4 years ago, 100k buys a house and some land. But, it is Arkansas…..
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Are wages really low?
A working man's home in Northern CA, where I live is around $350-$400,000.
The closer you get to the bay area prices sky rocket.
Even in Sacramento property has really gone up.
 
682bear said:
I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it will be for her to start her own life/ family with the high cost of everything now...

I feel like the entire world has went nuts...
Click to expand...
It's really sad. My youngest would like to buy a home. We can help out but it's still going to be tough.
A $250,000 house is one thing but that same old home is over $350,000 a couple years later.
Then you need to replace the electrical, plumbing, roof, HVAC.......
 
Then there's the feeding frenzy to deal with. I'm buying a place right now, and the realtors have been telling me how they get blind offers on properties without them even showing the house. I've twice tried to make an offer on a house put on the market that morning only to find there was 4 or more offers already made for more than the asking price. We got "lucky" and found a beautiful old house that's bigger than we need, but only on .5 acre. I'm convinced that the only reason we had a chance is because it needs a lot of work, but it's gorgeous so we don't care. 150yo Italianate Victorian.
 
matthewsx said:
Second, financing through non-standard lenders that offered 100 year mortgages. Your kids would be obligated to pay the mortgage long after you were dead, and their kids too.

Neither option was available to me
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How unfair is that!
...it should NOT be available to anyone.
Sure, leave an inheritance if you can and choose to, but NO ONE should be allowed to leave a debt!

682bear said:
My 23 year old daughter keeps talking about getting her own place, but when she starts checking prices, she decides she'll live with us forever...

I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it will be for her to start her own life/ family with the high cost of everything now...

I feel like the entire world has went nuts...

-Bear
Click to expand...
Bear, you have summed up my (and my sons) current situation here too.
Two sons, both have graduated university, both now have good jobs and are living with us!

I know they do not want to still be here, and they they deserve to "spread their wings".
No hard feelings; I will really miss them when they do leave, I am in no rush for them to leave and want them to be able to save up a down payment, but I also really don't want them to buy a $500K house that's really only worth $300K, at best.

It's tough to offer any advice to them when they live in such a different world than I did at their age.......

Brian
 
brino said:
How unfair is that!
...it should NOT be available to anyone.
Sure, leave an inheritance if you can and choose to, but NO ONE should be allowed to leave a debt!


Bear, you have summed up my (and my sons) current situation here too.
Two sons, both have graduated university, both now have good jobs and are living with us!

I know they do not want to still be here, and they they deserve to "spread their wings".
No hard feelings; I will really miss them when they do leave, I am in no rush for them to leave and want them to be able to save up a down payment, but I also really don't want them to buy a $500K house that's really only worth $300K, at best.

It's tough to offer any advice to them when they live in such a different world than I did at their age.......

Brian
Click to expand...
My wife and I bought a timeshare 25 years ago. It’s in Mexico with five star accommodations in Cabo, Loreto, Puerto Vallarta and some other place.
The annual maintenance fees started out at $300 a year, now they are over 1,200 a year.
We have five years to go.
We have used it and have great memories but when we went to our annual update meeting, they wanted us to extend the contract fifty years.
We looked at each other and laughed. I said to the guy, who is so stupid as to pass on an ever increasing liability to their trust so the family has to pay an unknown future liability.
I told him he needs to get another angle because this one makes no sense.
We walked.
 
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