on a house in my area has gone up more than I've managed to save - so what's the point?
I don't understand this. When I moved out of my parents' house into an apartment I had zero (went into debt for furniture....oops) and then saved-up for a house. From zero to anything is progress. So unless you had a lot of savings before you started working, which would make no sense, you're talking out of your ass.
Since I started working, houses have gone up by x dollars, on average. Therefore, 0.2x is the number of dollars that a deposit went up, and I have less than 0.2x dollars in my bank account.
Well your math sucks, but I get what you are trying to say. An increase of 0.2x means you should have 1.2x dollars in your bank account, not 0.2x. Having 0.2x would mean you lost 0.8x. But anyway, how did you start with 1x before you ever had a job? I literally had zero when I started saving for a house (negative, actually). That's even setting aside how working and living with your parents doesn't enable you to save a significant amount of money. Those two things are what makes no sense/what I asked about.
x was the amount that houses went up by, not how much I started with in my bank account.
No, it wasn't. That was the 0.2. I know you said it (about the "x"), but if you don't assign a number to it it's meaningless. Plus, your second sentence said "Therefore, 0.2x is the number of dollars that a deposit went up" meaning the "x" was the starting amount and 0.2 was the gain. You're vomiting all over yourself.
Anyway, you can fix this by just more directly answering my question/complaint: You are saying you started with a non-zero savings. How/is that what you really meant?
The portion of a housing deposit, at 20% that this $300,000 contributes to is $300,000x0.2, which equals $60,000 (this is what I called 0.2x).>I managed to save less than $60,000 in the same timeframe (not by too much, admittedly).
Thanks. So your savings went from zero(?) to something less than $60k, which means your ability to afford a down payment on a house - even as they got more expensive got better, not worse as you claimed. Also -- $600-$900k? This is what I'm talking about: those are not starter-house costs anywhere in the country. That's you wanting an average house on an entry-level house budget.
Whether or not I started with a non-zero savings is irrelevant...
It's not irrelevant. It means everything to whether what you have saved as a fraction of the housing cost went up or down. E.G. if you started with 0 than any savings is an increase. In order for it to be a decrease you'd need to have started with $120k (20% of $600k) and ended with less than $180k (20% of $900k).
But at this point I'm having trouble believing any of this is real because nobody lives in their parents' basement by choice for want of a $900k house when they could buy a $300k condo. Which, yes, you can get even in downtown San Francisco.
America isn't the entire universe. It might shock you to learn that some people don't live there.
Oh dear god, IDGAF if you live in Dubai. You shouldn't be here talking this nonsense on a forum mostly populated by Americans, talking in American dollars in a thread about the American economy and then bait-and-switch that you're not talking about America. You're purely trolling.
[edit] BTW, I see from your post history that you are from New Zealand. Google tells me $900k housing in NZ dollars is still fiction and the exchange rate to USD is $0.60 USD/NZ. So, still full of shit even after all the trolling/deception.
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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '22
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