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You are smart. The problem is women will try to convince you into buying the "nest" for your future happy family. I would suggest you sock away a chunk of change in a Roth IRA asap and then save for the down payment.
madhaus
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2011 Oct 15, 3:55am
New 2010 Census data show a big increase in 25-34 year olds living with parents. Not all of them are doing so to save up for a down payment, but you're definitely not unusual. Bad economic times mean fewer households, and it's also burying the real poverty rate. (A single or couple earning poverty wages living with parents who aren't poor shows up as a non-poverty household.)
What you're doing is very common in first generation Asian families here.
The US continues to emulate Japan 10 years ago. Our 20 and 30 somethings will also become the "buy nothing generation" as a reaction against their parents and older cohorts' conspicuous consumption.
Really smart one's will stay with the parents until baby boomer grandparents kick the bucket then take their house. Assuming the grands aren't remortgaged/heloced out.
My boomer parents are pretty healthy so waiting for them to kick the bucket is impractical.
drudometkin
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2011 Oct 17, 2:48pm
I'm 30 and would not voluntarily choose to move back in with my parents. That is social death.
Dan8267
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2011 Oct 17, 4:11pm
It used to be an embarrassment for a man over 22 (past college) to be living with his parents. Now it's the norm. What are we Italy? Well, at least I like the food.
MisdemeanorRebel
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2011 Oct 17, 6:04pm
It's not the American Dream to live with your extended family, but maybe the Dream has to adjust to reality.
That said, I would rather live in a run-down trailer than live with my parents. I love them in doses of a few hours at a time.
Dan8267
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2011 Oct 18, 5:58am
maybe the Dream has to adjust to reality.
I'd rather adjust reality to optimize the welfare of the 99%. Back in the 1950s a single income allowed a middle class family to own its home, vacation, and sometimes have a second vacation home. Today, a dual income family lives paycheck to paycheck at the brink of insolvency.
Today's worker is many times more productive than his counterpart in the 1950s due to amazing advancement in technology. So, if the worker is producing more, why isn't he wealthier or at least as wealthy as before? Because of all the parasites sucking his wealth away, particularly his employer.
What you're doing is very common in first generation Asian families here.
I even know non-Asians who did this -- friends of mine whose families lived in their grandparents' house for a few years before their parents bought their own house. Free child care, for one thing.
It's not the American Dream to live with your extended family, but maybe the Dream has to adjust to reality.
That said, I would rather live in a run-down trailer than live with my parents. I love them in doses of a few hours at a time.
Ditto to both.
FortWayne
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2011 Oct 18, 6:17am
I guess I stayed ahead of the slave drivers again (didn't buy during the boom), but at the loss of some dignity
Young man you have lost no dignity here. You've done the right thing. Man has all the dignity in the world when he owes nothing to anyone, and has no dignity when his entire life and future is owed to the bank.
You've done the right thing.
Comments 1 - 10 of 31 Next » Last » Search these comments
There are two ways to beat the banks, as I see it: minimize the amount of debt one accrues over one's lifetime, and pay down debt faster than the schedule dictates. A mortgage is for most the biggest debt they will assume. I'm trading in some pride and independence and recently moved in with my parents to save money for a down payment. I feel pretty emasculated by this, since I'm in my late twenties, but then again I have a couple friends who overextended themselves and have already been foreclosed on. Where I live in Chicago, landlords were jacking up rents because so many people are renting now. I guess I stayed ahead of the slave drivers again (didn't buy during the boom), but at the loss of some dignity. My planned downpayment will exceed 20% and I hope to get a ten-year mortgage for the remainder and pay that at an accelerated pace. The price of the property I buy will not exceed 3x of my income.
#housing