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CostcoBrandDinosaur t1_ja93464 wrote

Reply to comment by Quirky_Butterfly_946 in ‘A housing market for almost no one’: Rising prices and interest rates have made home buying feel impossible - The Boston Globe by uxd

You can't wait it out. Saving money is being outpaced at the rate of interest rate and home price increases. If you aren't already in, you aren't going to be able to save your way in unless you start making 30% more annual salary.

A lot of us are utterly fucked by treating housing like investments and businesses. Eventually most people in our situation will get sick of endless rent increases and leave for cheaper locations. Boston either starts to fix this now or will see some serious exodus from the mid-high level salary ranges (140-200k) which represents a lot of Boston's workforce and then has knock-on effects on the service industry and small businesses.

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willhill t1_jaa62eb wrote

Bought a condo (converted 4 unit apartment building, nothing remotely fancy) in 2019 after scraping together a down payment. Unit next to mine sold to a boomer couple, who live on the cape, for their late-20s kids to live in. I got in a fight with the mom because she kept calling the building an investment... I had to repeatedly say "This is my home, I live here" to convince her I was much more invested in its upkeep than she would ever be. The "housing as investment" people can get fucked. Housing is a human right and they are the problem.

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vhalros t1_ja9dbks wrote

Not to mention the opportunity cost of letting a downpayment sit there in cash for years while you "wait it out".

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Academic_Guava_4190 t1_jab8acd wrote

This right here. I’m waiting for people to leave because for the last 10 years I get to the point where I finally have 20% saved and then house prices go up by just that much more. I had my fingertips touching a house in 2020 and then I lost my job. I’m thankful it happened before the sale but I’m still bitter about it.

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rainniier2 t1_jabpa1y wrote

Interestingly, my former coworker who lives in nowheresville Texas just accepted a fully remote programming job for a MA hospital. I imagine no one in MA could afford to take the role for the salary she’s being paid (def <$100k/yr). But I guess it’s a win win for them. And yes, that leaves the rest of us screwed or needing to move and reliant on fully remote work.

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