Would-be home buyers are giving up on the housing market and finding other ways to use the money they had been saving.

With mortgage rates near 8% and average home prices hitting record highs, sales of existing homes were down 15.4% year-over-year in September, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Those thwarted by one of the worst-ever times to buy instead of rent are deferring their first house hunts not just for a few months, but for years. Others locked into low mortgages are realizing they're stuck in their starter homes indefinitely.

Some of these people are putting money that would have gone into a home into their relatives' futures. There was a 15% increase in the number of new 529 college savings accounts opened in the third quarter from a year ago, according to data firm ISS Market Intelligence.

Others are taking more expensive vacations and shelling out for extensive renovations and decorations for their current spaces. Homeowners spent $489 billion on improvements and repairs over the 12 months ending in September, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, a 5.4% gain over the previous period on top of a 17% gain the year before.

These consumers are helping fuel a spate of increased spending in the U.S. that has confounded economists who were predicting a recession less than a year ago.

"People are taking their frustrations out by using that money on vacations and enjoying life," says Jamie Battmer, the chief investment officer at wealth-management firm Creative Planning. Unlike the equity they could build through a mortgage, "that money is gone and it's never coming back," Battmer says.

Beth Michalec thought moving back in with her parents in 2020 would enable her to put the thousands she saved on rent toward a down payment on a first home. She's still renting.

"What would have been a sizable amount down in 2020 or 2021 now barely put the smallest dent on anything that one might consider decent," the 41-year-old Michalec says of her search.

Michalec, who works in higher education, recently sat down with a financial planner to map out what retirement could look like while renting instead of owning a home. In the meantime, she's investing more in what she finds meaningful, including a $2,000 trip to see Dolly Parton perform and contributions to college savings accounts for her two young nephews.



OK RENTER

@Agilt
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@TheWhitePill
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Tangibles and capabilities, as someone on here phrased it.

Hookers and blow.

I put all mine into Crypto

I got a hot tip on GD that Safemoon is going to make me a fortune

hellyeahbrother.gif

i pity the fool that don't get all his stonk/dating/legal/financial/medical/investing/relationship/helth advice from the GDs.

Losers.

Guess nobody ever told them about the late 70's early 80's when rates were 12 percent, 13 percent or higher.  

They could easily wait for home prices and mortgage rates to fall--- but that's not instant gratification.

This.  We're seeing a basic failure of public education system which failed to teach them the distinctiono between money and currency?  They don't know.  They probably do know that putting it into the bank exposes them to devaluation through brrrrrrrr!  The spending helps GDP though.

Obviously you put it towards a down payment on a van!

Except that $45k only gets you the beat to shit Amazon delivery version of the van from the auction yard.

/ thread

Guitars to hang on the wall so when I have visitors to my tent for dinner parties they’ll say oh wow you play guitar. I will say no, not really. Boomer achievement reached!!!

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Wait... and put the money under a mattress in the meantime?  

Or invest it in something else?  What's this thread about again?

Use it to fund welding certifications so I can have a real career making $300k instead of wasting $250k on a college degree

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Keep saving eventually there will be a correction

Putting the money in short term treasuries at 5.5% makes too much sense.

I'm gonna pay $2k to see Dolly!

Idiotic. They could be making an easy 5%+

oof, read the story.

glad thrustin MY STOMA, didn’t get me tagged in dis thread too.

You know, $75,000 worth of ammo SOUNDS LIKE a lot of ammo, but...

Buy groceries.

Smoke em if you got em

Yep


They don't think beyond the next Starbucks latte.

Their parents and shitty educations never taught them these cool tricks. They have to learn it from YouTube.

And how much was a decent 3/2 in 1975? 45k? 50? maybe in the 85-90 range if you adjust for inflation.

There’s not much worth buying around here under 400k (I’ve been looking).

50k x 12% is alot different number than 400x8%

50 at 12 for 30 years is ~$500/mo and aggregate price of 185000 dollars

400k at 8% for 30 is $3000/month and a over million dollars over the life of the loan.

Nearly 10x the cost in total dollars

What have wages done in the same time? They’re not up 10x that’s for sure.

Paying off credit card debt doesn’t seem to be the answer to the question.

Aka losing 3-10% plus a year in purchasing power.

Plus next year dolly will be $3,500.

You only get one shot around the earth, use it wisely.

Damn millennials will spend it all on avocado toast.

If they were smart they’d slap it into a HYSA paying 4-5% and just let it grow till something comes along / prices drop.

But sure, just go blow it out of spite so you can cry that you still can’t afford a home

fuckallthat.gif

Fucking idiots

My wife and I bought our current house in 1988.  WE sold the starter home we had for a good price and came out with $20k.  We found the neighborhood we liked and put some of it down on a new construction home.  When it came time to close on the new house, the interest rate was 14%.  We also needed 20% down, which we were short on.  PMI was expensive for the first year, but the value of the house grew and we put all of our extra money into the principal.  A couple of years went by and we were able to refinance and get rid of the PMI and get a lower rate.  Eventually we refinanced again to an even lower rate.  Point is, if you sit there waiting, the right house or the right mortgage may never come along at the exact right time.  That $125k house is now worth $350k, according to the comps in my area.  You have to get out there and work for what you want or you might be stuck paying a landlord for the rest of your life.

You don't give up.

Just cut down eating to every other day and pick up a third job. Before you know it you’ll have enough for a down payment for a nice canvas tent

those wall tents aren't cheap, yo.

silver/gold

This - in 10-15 years we boomers will be dropping like hot rain at Chernobyl and there will be empty houses everywhere.

Glukhov : We're gonna need more men. Four hundred at least. We'll have to work around the clock. How deep do you want this tunnel - six meters?

Valery Legasov : Twelve.

Glukhov : Twelve? Why?

Valery Legasov : For your protection. At that depth, you'll be shielded from much of the radiation.

Glukhov : The entrance to the tunnel won't be twelve meters below ground.

Valery Legasov : No.

Glukhov : And we're not twelve meters below ground now.

Valery Legasov : No. We're not. We have some equipment here outside. More will arrive by midnight. You can start in the morning.

Glukhov : No. We start now. I don't want my men here one more second than they need to be.

[gestures at the face mask on the desk]

Glukhov : If these worked... you'd be wearing 'em.

[leaves]

Valery Legasov : Are they all like that?

Boris Shcherbina : They're all like that.

Going to see Dolly Parton perform is not an investment.

That's $1k per bewb.

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Better rate of return than a Bachelors of Arts Degree, and you might not die 10 years after the show, unlike welding

It’s an investment if you can convince Dolly to smother your parents in their sleep with her tits so you can inherit their houses.

39 year old female moves in with Mom and Dad to save money, and two years later she hasn’t saved enough to buy her own place so she takes a trip for herself. I can’t imagine who she wasn’t able to save enough for her own place. I wonder if she has a nicer car and a new phone from two years ago.

I had millennials I work with save money living with parents and they bought homes. Also knew one who rented and found a way to buy a home. The people giving up on buying a home thought it would be easy and they’re tired of sacrificing. They’ll pay later when they don’t have any more fun to have.


This article is dumb and is written to justify the folks who want to take a trip to an upcoming concert for a few grand. “Everyone is doing it” is the phrase they’ll use too.

On homes that cost 60k

The people who paid for PMI then refinanced already had a home before 2020. They were the large group of people refinancing their first home helping contribute to the housing shortage by not upgrading. This woman didn’t have money at 39 to buy one of the few homes people moved out of so she went home.

hell, i did exactly that

was saving for a house right before covid, covid hit and FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKED that all to hell

bought the wife and i both new vehicles instead.  judging by the price increase from '22 to now and the recent union fuckery i probably came out way ahead since i'm not yet ready to rebuild shitboxes (though if the fuckery continues, that's not off the table for the future)

And the cost of the home wasn’t what, the same as a decent annual salary?  Maybe 2 years salary if you wanted to live high on the hog? And that bought you a home where the nearest gunshots were 35 miles from you in the nastiest part of the south side of the nearest big city instead of a few streets over.

But muh 70s and 80s interest rates!! Cry me a river, old man. I’d give my left nut to live in that version of America. Hell, I’d give my right nut to live in 90s America when I was in my late teens.

Investors and businesses are buying up massive swaths of American homes and driving the prices for decent ones in decent areas through the roof.