5 ms·

With two programmer incomes we can't buy a home 35 miles away from Boston. So pathetic.

dkonofalski 11y ago
Sadly it's not surprising. As it was said once on The Wire, "We used to make things in this country, build things. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket." That's the economy that the previous generations left us and that we're perpetuating for our children.
- Phlarp 11y ago
  I feel like there is a lot of context lost in this quote without pointing out that it's being said by a union dock worker to a lobbyist he has been paying to bribe politicians with money earned from smuggling prostitutes and heroin into Baltimore for an international crime syndicate.
  - ericzawo 11y ago
    Nah man, let him have the simplification for the HN upvotes.
  - dkonofalski 11y ago
    I agree. The irony of that statement was huge. But it also brings it back to a "chicken or the egg" scenario. That's what I didn't really want to get into. Is the dock worker's union struggling because he's been paying the lobbyists or are they struggling because everyone else was?
- brandonmenc 11y ago
  We do build things. We're the 2nd largest manufacturer on the planet. We just don't need guys on an assembly line tightening the same bolt ten thousand times a day for forty years, like my grandfather did (true story.)
  - dkonofalski 11y ago
    Sure, we build things... but not without layers upon layers of middlemen to just pass the buck along with interest.
  - rsync 11y ago
    "We just don't need guys on an assembly line tightening the same bolt ten thousand times a day for forty years, like my grandfather did" I would argue that we do need that. You don't take a child straight from the womb to an r-rated movie, nor do you put a small plant start right into a torrent of rain. Living things need an environment and activities that match their lifecycle. A society is also a living thing and has strata that are at different points in that continuum ... and if there is nothing appropriate for that strata, that strata will stagnate and die. So when people look ahead to some golden utopia where we all work half time as knowledge workers and spend the other half on philosophy or maker projects, they ignore the fact that some sect of a society will not have the makeup for that. You need to have something for them. Your society needs to have depth and breadth.
    - brandonmenc 11y ago
      This is why I think we need a basic guaranteed income - for all the people who would've been bolt-tighteners fifty years ago. We just don't have the work for them anymore.
ryanSrich 11y ago
You wouldn't be better off in the Valley either. With home prices topping $1m/1000sqft, only the elite of the elite can afford to buy now.
- cobookman 11y ago
  You can buy a home with as little as 3% down in the valley. That's 30k down for a 1mil home. Sure payments will be a lot at around 4k/month, but you can rent out a room to help out. Its not any less affordable than an apartment really.
  - rwmj 11y ago
    If people are doing this, it's no wonder there's a crazy bubble going on. Here's a better plan: Buy a huge house for a fraction of that money in the north of England, rural Spain, anywhere in Japan which isn't Tokyo, etc., and telecommute to work.
    - merpnderp 11y ago
      How do you find these good telecommute jobs? I'm a web developer and would love to telecommute.
      - ryanSrich 11y ago
        - https://weworkremotely.com/ https://weworkremotely.com/ - https://angel.co/jobs#find/f!%7B%22types%22%3A%5B%22full-time%22%5D%2C%22remote%22%3Atrue%7D https://angel.co/jobs#find/f!%7B%22types%22%3A%5B%22full-tim... - http://hnhiring.me/ http://hnhiring.me/ {remote ok} - https://authenticjobs.com/#types=7,1&onlyremote=1 https://authenticjobs.com/#types=7,1&onlyremote=1
  - refurb 11y ago
    Some people can buy a home with only 3% down. FHA loans and some first time buyer programs allow that. If you're borrowing $970K, you're monthly payment would be a lot more than $4K. When I was looking at mortgages, borrowing $600K was ~$4500/month in mortgage, property taxes and insurance. $970K would be more like $6K per month.
laotzu 11y ago
Amazing how artificially inflated the housing/real estate market is considering the surplus that exists due to overproduction. Last I checked there are around 5 vacant homes for every homeless person in the US. Playing the game of Monopoly as a kid was just getting us ready for reality.
- ido 11y ago
  Which incidentally was the goal of the game Monopoly! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Mono...
phillmv 11y ago
The lack of affordable housing is an intentional policy. Take https://twitter.com/bryan_kirschner/status/667760751830929408 https://twitter.com/bryan_kirschner/status/66776075183092940...
- avn2109 11y ago
  Intuitively this seems very true to me, but can you recommend somewhere to read more about this? The residential real estate market definitely feels rigged, but I don't know where to find the case for this claim layed out in a cogent way. The linked tweet (being a tweet) is not particularly detailed, nor is the 2-links deep Vox article.
  - tostitos1979 11y ago
    You can consider the greater Toronto area as a case in point. We had greenbelt laws enacted for supposedly environmental reasons. We got shitty, tiny condos all over the city and million dollar detached houses. What I thought was particularly perverse was builders lamenting that no one wanted 3 bedroom condos, which is why they were building so few. Complete B.S.! Since they charge per square foot, no one can afford the 3 bedroom condos! I recall reading somewhere how this will eventually affect the fertility rate. As a couple that waited quite a bit longer to have kids, I can see this being accurate.
didgeoridoo 11y ago
Curious, what towns are you looking in and what prices are you seeing? We're about to go through that process too (similar income situation), and were thinking we could afford to live within 5-10 miles (e.g. Medford, Malden, Waltham, Allston/Brighton). Not possible?
- ecopoesis 11y ago
  We bought a 4 bed in Medford (10 min walk to Davis) in February 2015 for 765k. Later in the spring, we sold our previous 3 bed in Wakefield (10 min walk to commuter rail) for 465k. Prices are reasonable, but houses sell quick. Both the house we bought and the house we sold had multiple offers the Monday after the first open house weekend.
ecopoesis 11y ago
Then you're looking in the wrong place or you are both underpaid, because with two programmer incomes, we bought 8.5 miles from Boston.
- ones_and_zeros 11y ago
  Really? I just did a search on Redfin centered around Boston for sales in the last year, SFH (3bd/2ba, etc), and built within the last 25 years and found the averages to roughly be near a million... Loosening the age to all years, I saw the average to be about 650-700k. That is 140k down payment plus a probably expensive upgrade to the old and aging systems in the house...
  - ecopoesis 11y ago
    Boston was settled in the 1700s. You need to open up your date range. My house was built in 1870. It needed some work, but has mostly been fine because the previous owners (and probably the one before them too) had kept it pretty up-to-date. An 140k downpayment sounds about right. It did wipe out all our savings, but that was only because we decided to buy and then sell. The equity in our old home basically offset it.
    - ones_and_zeros 11y ago
      Please reread, I loosened the date range to all years... However I find it a bit dishonest on your part to claim it is easy with 2 programmer jobs to afford a 765k house, including a ~150k down payment which puts you at jumbo rate mortgage rates and hide the fact that you used the equity from a previous property and you bought an extremely old house (I've lived in Boston all of my life, no way would I buy a home that old).
      - ecopoesis 11y ago
        1) Jumbo rates are basically the same as regular rates in this area. Source: https://www.dcu.org/loans/mortgage-fixed.html https://www.dcu.org/loans/mortgage-fixed.html 2) We had the downpayment in cash. Selling the old house just let us replenish savings. Doesn't change the fact that it's possible to save 150k with two developers working (actually more, because we had previously saved for a down payment on our old house, and for extensive (100k+) renovations to our previous house). 3) I'm sorry you don't want an old house. Yes, they can have their problems, but so do houses of any age, including brand new ones. They also have charms that newer houses don't. It's a tradeoff. Newer houses are also available. The same day we first saw our house, we looked at another for around the same price built in the 70s a few blocks away (also in Medford). It needed a lot more work (a new kitchen) where our house was move in ready. Get an inspection and figure out if the problems are deal breakers for you. Expensive problems are part of the "joy" of owning a house.
harryh 11y ago
Then buy a smaller home. Homes have increased in size by 50% since the 1970s and more than doubled in size since the 19050s while people per household have decreased. You aren't poorer than your parents. It's just that your expectations are bigger.

Sadly it's not surprising. As it was said once on The Wire, "We used to make things in this country, build things. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket." That's the economy that the previous generations left us and that we're perpetuating for our children.

Phlarp 11y ago
I feel like there is a lot of context lost in this quote without pointing out that it's being said by a union dock worker to a lobbyist he has been paying to bribe politicians with money earned from smuggling prostitutes and heroin into Baltimore for an international crime syndicate.
- ericzawo 11y ago
  Nah man, let him have the simplification for the HN upvotes.
- dkonofalski 11y ago
  I agree. The irony of that statement was huge. But it also brings it back to a "chicken or the egg" scenario. That's what I didn't really want to get into. Is the dock worker's union struggling because he's been paying the lobbyists or are they struggling because everyone else was?
brandonmenc 11y ago
We do build things. We're the 2nd largest manufacturer on the planet. We just don't need guys on an assembly line tightening the same bolt ten thousand times a day for forty years, like my grandfather did (true story.)
- dkonofalski 11y ago
  Sure, we build things... but not without layers upon layers of middlemen to just pass the buck along with interest.
- rsync 11y ago
  "We just don't need guys on an assembly line tightening the same bolt ten thousand times a day for forty years, like my grandfather did" I would argue that we do need that. You don't take a child straight from the womb to an r-rated movie, nor do you put a small plant start right into a torrent of rain. Living things need an environment and activities that match their lifecycle. A society is also a living thing and has strata that are at different points in that continuum ... and if there is nothing appropriate for that strata, that strata will stagnate and die. So when people look ahead to some golden utopia where we all work half time as knowledge workers and spend the other half on philosophy or maker projects, they ignore the fact that some sect of a society will not have the makeup for that. You need to have something for them. Your society needs to have depth and breadth.
  - brandonmenc 11y ago
    This is why I think we need a basic guaranteed income - for all the people who would've been bolt-tighteners fifty years ago. We just don't have the work for them anymore.

ryanSrich 11y ago

You wouldn't be better off in the Valley either. With home prices topping $1m/1000sqft, only the elite of the elite can afford to buy now.

cobookman 11y ago
You can buy a home with as little as 3% down in the valley. That's 30k down for a 1mil home. Sure payments will be a lot at around 4k/month, but you can rent out a room to help out. Its not any less affordable than an apartment really.
- rwmj 11y ago
  If people are doing this, it's no wonder there's a crazy bubble going on. Here's a better plan: Buy a huge house for a fraction of that money in the north of England, rural Spain, anywhere in Japan which isn't Tokyo, etc., and telecommute to work.
  - merpnderp 11y ago
    How do you find these good telecommute jobs? I'm a web developer and would love to telecommute.
    - ryanSrich 11y ago
      - https://weworkremotely.com/ https://weworkremotely.com/ - https://angel.co/jobs#find/f!%7B%22types%22%3A%5B%22full-time%22%5D%2C%22remote%22%3Atrue%7D https://angel.co/jobs#find/f!%7B%22types%22%3A%5B%22full-tim... - http://hnhiring.me/ http://hnhiring.me/ {remote ok} - https://authenticjobs.com/#types=7,1&onlyremote=1 https://authenticjobs.com/#types=7,1&onlyremote=1
- refurb 11y ago
  Some people can buy a home with only 3% down. FHA loans and some first time buyer programs allow that. If you're borrowing $970K, you're monthly payment would be a lot more than $4K. When I was looking at mortgages, borrowing $600K was ~$4500/month in mortgage, property taxes and insurance. $970K would be more like $6K per month.

laotzu 11y ago

Amazing how artificially inflated the housing/real estate market is considering the surplus that exists due to overproduction. Last I checked there are around 5 vacant homes for every homeless person in the US. Playing the game of Monopoly as a kid was just getting us ready for reality.

ido 11y ago
Which incidentally was the goal of the game Monopoly! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Mono...

phillmv 11y ago

The lack of affordable housing is an intentional policy. Take https://twitter.com/bryan_kirschner/status/667760751830929408 https://twitter.com/bryan_kirschner/status/66776075183092940...

avn2109 11y ago
Intuitively this seems very true to me, but can you recommend somewhere to read more about this? The residential real estate market definitely feels rigged, but I don't know where to find the case for this claim layed out in a cogent way. The linked tweet (being a tweet) is not particularly detailed, nor is the 2-links deep Vox article.
- tostitos1979 11y ago
  You can consider the greater Toronto area as a case in point. We had greenbelt laws enacted for supposedly environmental reasons. We got shitty, tiny condos all over the city and million dollar detached houses. What I thought was particularly perverse was builders lamenting that no one wanted 3 bedroom condos, which is why they were building so few. Complete B.S.! Since they charge per square foot, no one can afford the 3 bedroom condos! I recall reading somewhere how this will eventually affect the fertility rate. As a couple that waited quite a bit longer to have kids, I can see this being accurate.

didgeoridoo 11y ago

Curious, what towns are you looking in and what prices are you seeing? We're about to go through that process too (similar income situation), and were thinking we could afford to live within 5-10 miles (e.g. Medford, Malden, Waltham, Allston/Brighton). Not possible?

ecopoesis 11y ago
We bought a 4 bed in Medford (10 min walk to Davis) in February 2015 for 765k. Later in the spring, we sold our previous 3 bed in Wakefield (10 min walk to commuter rail) for 465k. Prices are reasonable, but houses sell quick. Both the house we bought and the house we sold had multiple offers the Monday after the first open house weekend.

ecopoesis 11y ago

Then you're looking in the wrong place or you are both underpaid, because with two programmer incomes, we bought 8.5 miles from Boston.

ones_and_zeros 11y ago
Really? I just did a search on Redfin centered around Boston for sales in the last year, SFH (3bd/2ba, etc), and built within the last 25 years and found the averages to roughly be near a million... Loosening the age to all years, I saw the average to be about 650-700k. That is 140k down payment plus a probably expensive upgrade to the old and aging systems in the house...
- ecopoesis 11y ago
  Boston was settled in the 1700s. You need to open up your date range. My house was built in 1870. It needed some work, but has mostly been fine because the previous owners (and probably the one before them too) had kept it pretty up-to-date. An 140k downpayment sounds about right. It did wipe out all our savings, but that was only because we decided to buy and then sell. The equity in our old home basically offset it.
  - ones_and_zeros 11y ago
    Please reread, I loosened the date range to all years... However I find it a bit dishonest on your part to claim it is easy with 2 programmer jobs to afford a 765k house, including a ~150k down payment which puts you at jumbo rate mortgage rates and hide the fact that you used the equity from a previous property and you bought an extremely old house (I've lived in Boston all of my life, no way would I buy a home that old).
    - ecopoesis 11y ago
      1) Jumbo rates are basically the same as regular rates in this area. Source: https://www.dcu.org/loans/mortgage-fixed.html https://www.dcu.org/loans/mortgage-fixed.html 2) We had the downpayment in cash. Selling the old house just let us replenish savings. Doesn't change the fact that it's possible to save 150k with two developers working (actually more, because we had previously saved for a down payment on our old house, and for extensive (100k+) renovations to our previous house). 3) I'm sorry you don't want an old house. Yes, they can have their problems, but so do houses of any age, including brand new ones. They also have charms that newer houses don't. It's a tradeoff. Newer houses are also available. The same day we first saw our house, we looked at another for around the same price built in the 70s a few blocks away (also in Medford). It needed a lot more work (a new kitchen) where our house was move in ready. Get an inspection and figure out if the problems are deal breakers for you. Expensive problems are part of the "joy" of owning a house.

harryh 11y ago

Then buy a smaller home. Homes have increased in size by 50% since the 1970s and more than doubled in size since the 19050s while people per household have decreased. You aren't poorer than your parents. It's just that your expectations are bigger.