I'm curious, if you apartment/home was more than $2 million, how did you afford it? Your salary? Selling a starter home which had appreciated? Parental help?
We are finally about to buy our first home (early 40s, 15ish years of work for both of us following grad school). The down payment is mostly from family help - a meaningful of money in our hometowns but not much in nyc - and the rest is from salaries, combined with living in a modest rental for the past 10 years while we saved. We are living in a well-located but cramped space (I’m somewhat embarassed to host DC’s private school friends and parents), but covid conditions have brought what we want within reach, finally. I am so grateful for family help and every day I wonder how people manage to save enough if they don’t have outside help. DH and I are both smart, capable people with highly competitive jobs, and it’s taken us this long to buy a primary home...
Lived in low-rent, small, not nice apts for years and saved, then bought 1st place, that appreciated, sold 1st place and used that plus my salary to buy 2nd place for 2MM. No parental help.
Wow. What's your salary? DH and I have plenty of equity in our apartment (probably worth $1.2 mil and mortgage is $350k) but with a $350k HHI we don't save a ton beyond college + retirement.
@anonymous Lawyer. DH and I shared a studio for years, and saved, and then we were in a 1BR with DC for several years, and saved, until we bought 1st place, and the appreciation on that one paid for the 2nd one. I cried the day our offer on 1st place was accepted, never thought we could do it. Sounds like you are in great shape, that's a tiny mortgage, ours was much more, and you are saving for college and retirement, don't sell yourself short, many people don't do any of those things, let alone all three.
A combo. I bought for $200k immediately after I finished grad school and did have help with the down payment. DH did the same before we were married but his place was $6-700k but his was fully leveraged (including 401k loan). After we got married, we combined and upgraded (this was a stretch buy based on an assumption we would be there long-term) but we later successfully re-sold with a nice profit sooner than expected. FWIW, we have had mostly high incomes and and one of us had no student debt while the other had 3 years of law school debt.
This makes me so bummed. We bought a house for 550 years 15 years ago - it’s now worth approx 900k mortgage is paid off but I have been relunctant to move to something better bc I don’t want the pressure of a monthly payment, so now we are in a small house without upgrading and getting a better place with more appreciation. Sigh. Good job to all of you though!
@Anonymous I guess I was renting below my means, but I don't really know what that means. I didn't max out 40x salary or whatever the calculation is. Didn't need to. I had kids when I bought.
Bought and sold 3x over (bought 230k > sold 565K, bought 750K > Sold 760K, bought 1.3 > sold 1.7, bought 2.495) - granted, there was some business success/bonus $$ from 750k - on and we got seriously lucky from the 230 - 565 bump - it was the go go go boom boom Guiliani years when everyone wanted to live here.
If you need 40%, you need to save about $800-900k. It depends on what your expenses are (which is why when people say "salary" I want to ask how they paid for school and whether they had kids).
40%. That was the minimum in our co-op. I guess we were but it wasn’t something we discussed. This home wasn’t a stretch for us- we were fairly conservative with the mortgage amount and could have been approved for more.
@Anonymous Is it salary or bonuses? I can't imagine a base salary high enough to salt away almost a million bucks on top of retirement, college savings etc.
I don't have a $2mm apt and couldn't afford a 2mm apt. But when I bought my apt 5 yrs ago for 200k, I couldn't even afford that--I had to borrow my 10% down-payment from my 401k. I used to look at people who had apts in the millions like they were from another planet. Well, guess what--my 200k apt is now worth 400k, and having cheap housing for 5 yrs has allowed me to save and invest a lot, so a $1mm apt would now actually be in my price range. Crazy.
By building completion the same apartment was priced 25-30% higher. We bought when the building was a shell based on a floor plan. We‘be done it twice and it’s worked well for us (minus the wait and construction delays).
First apt was 750k and sold for 1.1M. Second was just under 3M in the first offering plan. Neighbors one floor up (same unit) paid 28% more at building completion. We got in early at a discount before prices increased but had to wait a long time (18+ months) to move in.
We are finally about to buy our first home (early 40s, 15ish years of work for both of us following grad school). The down payment is mostly from family help - a meaningful of money in our hometowns but not much in nyc - and the rest is from salaries, combined with living in a modest rental for the past 10 years while we saved. We are living in a well-located but cramped space (I’m somewhat embarassed to host DC’s private school friends and parents), but covid conditions have brought what we want within reach, finally. I am so grateful for family help and every day I wonder how people manage to save enough if they don’t have outside help. DH and I are both smart, capable people with highly competitive jobs, and it’s taken us this long to buy a primary home...
Lived in low-rent, small, not nice apts for years and saved, then bought 1st place, that appreciated, sold 1st place and used that plus my salary to buy 2nd place for 2MM. No parental help.
A combo. I bought for $200k immediately after I finished grad school and did have help with the down payment. DH did the same before we were married but his place was $6-700k but his was fully leveraged (including 401k loan). After we got married, we combined and upgraded (this was a stretch buy based on an assumption we would be there long-term) but we later successfully re-sold with a nice profit sooner than expected. FWIW, we have had mostly high incomes and and one of us had no student debt while the other had 3 years of law school debt.
This makes me so bummed. We bought a house for 550 years 15 years ago - it’s now worth approx 900k mortgage is paid off but I have been relunctant to move to something better bc I don’t want the pressure of a monthly payment, so now we are in a small house without upgrading and getting a better place with more appreciation. Sigh. Good job to all of you though!
I bought it myself with earnings from work. I had been working about 15 years by then.
Bought and sold 3x over (bought 230k > sold 565K, bought 750K > Sold 760K, bought 1.3 > sold 1.7, bought 2.495) - granted, there was some business success/bonus $$ from 750k - on and we got seriously lucky from the 230 - 565 bump - it was the go go go boom boom Guiliani years when everyone wanted to live here.
Salary, but we had been renting a long time before purchase. We were in our 40s when we purchased the apartment.
If you need 40%, you need to save about $800-900k. It depends on what your expenses are (which is why when people say "salary" I want to ask how they paid for school and whether they had kids).
Curious how many years people work before they can afford a $2m+ home.
Salary.
I don't have a $2mm apt and couldn't afford a 2mm apt. But when I bought my apt 5 yrs ago for 200k, I couldn't even afford that--I had to borrow my 10% down-payment from my 401k. I used to look at people who had apts in the millions like they were from another planet. Well, guess what--my 200k apt is now worth 400k, and having cheap housing for 5 yrs has allowed me to save and invest a lot, so a $1mm apt would now actually be in my price range. Crazy.
Selling starter apartment with appreciation, salary, and buying pre-construction (first offering).