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If you move outside the city, shit gets much, much cheaper. Mortgages are easily $1,750/mo ($300k, 30yr, tax + insurance included). If your goal is to live in NYC or Seattle, you will be spending quite a bit on your chosen lifestyle. If your goal instead is to buy/rent an affordable 2-3br home, there are lots of options.
"If you live where the jobs aren't, you can afford a house."
Cool.
The trades (electricians, etc) pay well and are in demand basically everywhere. The jobs are out there.
Ah, so this has become, "if you don't want to pay high rent, get trained to be an electrician, then move out to some shithole, then buy a house."
Let's see... this says that trade school to become an electrician costs between $3000 and $19,000, so enjoy that debt- https://www.bobvila.com/articles/electrician-school-cost/
This says it then takes nine months to two years to get your trade school training, then 4,000 to 12,000 hours as an apprentice to become an electrician- https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-long-does-it-take-to-become-an-electrician
You're right, this is totally a doable plan for most people to pay less rent money. Eventually.
Lets put these all together then:
I don't know about you, but that all sounds quite reasonable. That is a nice home, student loans that are very affordable and will be paid off soon, a good job, and a promising career path. You own your home, meaning you are building equity. And, hell, you can even rent out one of the bedrooms to vastly lower that already reasonable monthly mortgage.
This may not be what you specifically want in life, but it is a very achievable goal and a comfortable life for the average man.
Yes. Very reasonable. You just need to find a way to afford rent and food for you and your kids for those seven years, at least a couple of which you won't be earning the sort of money you could earn to move out to Shitsville, Nowhere and buy a modest home.
I'm guessing your next piece of advice would be: just don't have kids. Because women can just vacuum those back up once they come out.
Huh, it's like planning ahead isn't even a thing.
Once the kid situation hits then yeah, it's harder to make planning decisions, people's options are limited at that point. I agree we should help people in those circumstances, but I also think we should help people make plans which avoid painting themselves into a corner.
It's like people who were formally doing fine hit hard times, like during an economic downturn.
So the economy made it so people who were planning ahead suddenly woke up one day with an unplanned 2 year old?
Sure, money and housing are tougher than they used to be, but don't pretend like an embarrassing number of people just don't care to plan ahead, and when they get into deep shit they look to blame everyone else.
Please do tell me how to plan ahead for getting laid off from the job you've had for 10 years.
I mean, yeah, I plan for that. If you're a wage earner like me, you should know you're employed at the will of some company, and they don't give a shit about you.
I plan for this by interviewing for other jobs at least once a month. I turn down offers every few months. I keep my skills sharp and my eyes open, and change employment when it makes sense.
The longest I've been at one company is 7 years, but it's not unusual for me to change companies after 18-24 months.
I don't plan to get laid off, but it happens a lot in my industry, and I roll with it. It is planned out, risk management, or whatever you want to call it.
Again, how do you plan for that? Most towns only have one or two companies per type of occupation.
Bear in mind that 78% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck so regularly moving elsewhere is not an option.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-statistics-2024/
This kind of sounds like one of those Boomer "I got a job at 18 and started saving and paid for college and bought a house" things that are no longer possible in 2024.
How do I plan for job instability? By interviewing at many places continuously. By keeping my job skills and interviewing skills sharp, while interviewing continuously. By keeping my eye on the market and my value, by interviewing continuously, and evaluating the incoming offers.
It's not easy, but it's pretty straightforward. I picked a job sector with lots of opportunities and upward mobility, but also tons of instability. I picked a place to live which gives me physical proximity to those opportunities. I work smart and stay agile. All of that without a college degree.
Stuff is expensive and we don't always have everything we want, but we're secure enough to have everything we need, with a healthy risk management plan.
I do live in a major city in the US, so I have more local opportunities than someone in a small town. But I'd argue that my decision to live near where there are job opportunities was part of my planning process.
Didn't you start this by saying people should move out of cities and get homes where they are affordable?
Sounds like you need to make up your mind.
You must have me confused with someone else?
Nowhere in this thread did I suggest people find cheaper housing by leaving cities.
Where are you finding a livable home for 300k? I live in a rural area, and I love it here, but you're never going to find a house for 300k unless you're willing to put another 150k into stripping it down to the studs and renovating it.
Detroit Metro area. That's what I did. Went from a $3400 rent to a $1800 mortgage. House is in great condition but I do have plans to remodel it, no rush.
They are rare but they are out there.
I was able to find a home for about $320k about 15 miles from the city. I searched for two years. My interest rate is shit. But hey, I have a house!
It was fully renovated.
I'm not saying the market isn't shit. Because it is due to fucking investors.
I know I am lucky to have a job that pays well, even though it hasn't kept up with inflation. I know that this isn't the case for everyone and I'd be willing to take a hit on my home value if it meant others could buy a home too.
But my neighbors don't feel the same way.
Now add in the cost of a car
The last time we moved we actually did this. Kept us from paying more bills to commute longer. I highly recommend figuring out your monthly gas/mass transit bill and adding that to the price of places you're comparing.
Also, commuting time. If you have young kids but you don't get home until 7:30, you're going to spend very little time on them. And possibly a lot on child care.
But even if you're not a parent, long commutes, by car, by public transit, or both can be pretty stressful after a long day at work.
And the cost of time spent commuting 2-3h each way to and from work every day
Ugh. I get really annoyed when people defend egregious housing prices with the "just live in a shitty place, in a shitty location, in the middle of a food desert, far from economic opportunities, social interactions, public transportation, and you can afford it" argument
F
There are a lot of unanswered questions here: what size is the place where you live? What is your income? How many people live with you and what is the collective income? How long is your commute? How long is the commute of the others who live with you, if there are any? What local amenities are available?
Not only that I’d be curious if 1) you’re required to own a car and all the costs associated with it, 2) the only thing really out there is chain restaurants and chain stores? 3) the only “entertainment” is a massive movie theater, and maybe a bowling alley.
Lol yeah exactly.. Its such a brain dead take.
Move far, far outside of populated areas and you don't even need a mortgage.
Also known as The Unabomber Rental Mitigation Technique.
Kaczynski was unironically right about a number of things, criminal activity aside.
Like avoiding high rent by living in a shack in the woods!
Actually yes. Really. True peace is not having debt or ongoing payments being demanded of you. Living in an apartment in a city sounds like hell.
I'd rather live where it doesn't take an ambulance or a fire truck two hours to get to me, but you do you.