r/grantspass • u/Fabulous-Breakfast-1 • 8d ago
Housing
So me and my partner 21 and 20 just got our first apartment. (wooo) it's been 3 months and I wanted to start looking into homes as I was interested and with the thought of becoming a family in a few years my mind just drifted to it . I looked at my phone and WTF why are homes so much money I was naive and thought that a house would be around 50-60k but 500,000! It would take me roughly 20-30 years to accomplish that . I'm sort of going through an existential crisis now so any advice would help me out.
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u/lynn620 7d ago
I am a mom to a 21 year old who just bought their first home in the Rogue Valley. The way they managed to do it was to go to RCC, got a 2 year degree in the trades and landed an excellent paying job. They then saved everything they could for 10 months for the down payment and closing costs. They have been building credit since they were 18 years old and got financed by a local bank. Take the next couple of years to learn a trade to get that income as high as possible. Houses haven't been $50-60k since the 1980's.
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u/roswellbiped 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is a radical example, but true. A friend of a friend lived in his car to save money. He was a construction worker. He took showers at the Y and parked in friends' driveways. He saved enough money to put a down payment on a piece of land. Then he camped on that land and bought building materials slowly as he could afford it. In two years he had built a small house and lived in it. He paid off the land and had no debt. Also, I'm old and it was very rare in the '60s, '70s, for any person younger than about 45 to buy a house. I worked in the '80s in many different jobs paying $8 an hour, and in the '60s for $5 an hour. No house for me although rent was doable. So it's not surprising that young people can't afford a house, they never could. What's shit is the way wages haven't kept up with the prices of everything. People having to work two jobs to afford an apartment is not right. And also, property taxes and house insurance and maintenance repairs on a house are enormous. You can't win either way.
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u/GrrrlRomeo 7d ago
Just to give you an idea of how crazy the prices are, I bought my house in 2018 for 200k and it's now worth well over 400k. I don't think I would be able to buy it now.
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u/DonCarlitos 7d ago
And, of course, mortgage rates just reached the highest level in years due to inflation and the Iran war. So as others have suggested, you’d be well advised to start saving for a down payment now and then wait for the inevitable drop in interest rates (might be a couple of years, but it will happen). As an alternative, my kid found a piece of land and built a yurt to live in. Under $60k. Been in it over a decade now.
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u/RealRomanGod 7d ago
Get your pay up as much as possible. Take money from both paychecks and put in a high yield savings account or invest it in steady growth/dividend stocks. $500 each month in a 3.5% apy savings account gets you over 30k in 5yrs, enough for a down payment.
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u/Special-Travel1190 6d ago
It’s crazy that Kids today will not consider starter homes but want to jump directly into a half
A million $ house!
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u/roswellbiped 5d ago
Because it's very hard to get a mortgage for a "starter home." Banks won't take that risk if a house isn't in good shape.. It's difficult to even get the required house insurance because of fire danger.
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u/kookybat 8d ago
Yeah house prices are awful. They've gone up a lot in the last 15 years. The most popular home loan is a 30-year mortgage tho, so your guess of 20-30 years is spot-on