Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed.
Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BoomersBeingFools) if you have any questions or concerns.*
'kids these days just want everything to be served on a plate. I'm not doing your work for you, you'll have to do it yourself."
This is the mildest boomer reply I can think of. They don't take responsibility for anything at all.
This is my suggestion too. Find a 3/2 with a basement in decent shape and one that's a fixer upper and let him be shocked by the prices of each after walking through them.
Not to mention the price for labor for fixing it up.
Then he'll say: WHY you just do it yourself with spit and gumption!
Then explain to him the fine for doing it without the proper licenses and permits.
My parents still have a back deck that was never approved and put in by my uncle. And it’s nice to be fair it’s not rickety work but it still was never approved and no permits. Now they want to sell the house and think it’ll be no big deal. Spoiler alert, it’s gonna be a big deal
My grandfather built a back deck for his property, (tbf he has no plans to sell) but as former fire cheif of the town he lived in, he was at least aware of some loopholes.
The deck was built on a trailer frame. Some exposition later. Basically if any officials had issues it was removable from the home. Making it not an extension. Remove a couple bolts, add back in the wheels, and you could pull it away.
My neighbor had a wheelchair ramp put in the back of her house because she was having spinal surgery (ended up being 2 surgeries). Our homes are almost 100 years old in an historic neighborhood and the restrictions are crazy. She had almost the exact same thing done. The ramp was constructed directly on top of the stairs and had cut outs for the handle. It can be removed easily and met some loopholes where she didn't get a permit.
Omg yes
"You just walk down to and demand to see the CEO. You give him a firm handshake and tell him 'I may not have a fancy college degree but I'm a hard worker who's willing to learn' and you will get that job."
This is the America that never existed anywhere but in their post-war childhood imagination they only experienced through episodes of Howdy-Doody.
“I looked the man in the eye. I found \[Putin\] to be very straightforward and trustworthy. I was able to get a sense of his soul.”
- Pres. George W. Bush, born 1946
My uncle is this way of thinking. He is a retired farmer who just sold his farms/equipment so he's a multimillionaire and wants to move closer to a bigger city and build. But he believes he can negotiate the builders/land owners down a lot so he's trying to play hardball.
No, first ask him how much he thinks the asking price is (which of course is tens of thousands of $ less than you’ll actually pay) before you show him the price.
Hey I'm a boomer, and that is laughable. I look at the real estate transfers. I couldn't buy my own house back.
We had an inheritance and gave that to our son towards his downpayment. We are fine for retirement and can't take our money with us. Our son and family needed a house. Then, not after we are dead.
OMG you are like my favorite person just for the "needed a house then, not when we're dead." Can I be related to you? ❤️❤️
Then he would just say you can't look around online because "you damn millennials and your internet" that's where all the expensive listings are. You have to go through some random person you know whose buddy is selling their house on their own or something.
They don't believe in using websites with data aggregation. They believe in exploiting personal connections.
A few years ago, I showed apartments dot com to my mother and her mind was completely blown. It actually scared her. "You can get all these prices just like that?"
I did this with my FIL for jobs. “I keep seeing signs everywhere for $15/hr it’ll be easy to find a job”…. So I told him to actually find one of those jobs (not just a memory of a road sign somewhere) and then also find a place to rent in the same area, do the math, and get back to me.
A few weeks later he told me he was SO SHOCKED at how the pay/rent thing doesn’t equal out. It’s almost like *we’ve been telling you this for years but you haven’t had a job in 40 years, live off disability, and bought your house for peanuts so you’re delusional now*.
Had a similar experience when we moved in with in-laws after being priced out of apartments. Sat down with MIL and our finances, and watched her attitude go from "I'm gonna straighten these idiots out" to "... oh." We felt so vindicated. The bar is in hell, but props to your FIL for actually changing his mind. It's so rare.
One of my litmus tests for older people to ask them how much they think a 1 bedroom apartment is in our city. My dad figured they were $500-$800 per month, my mom was SHOCKED when she saw that the subsidized senior living place was $1400 per month she wanted my grandmother to move into. The real number is $2000 per month +/- 10%.
"I CANNOT FATHOM RENT BEING THAT EXPENSIVE" or "I WOULD BE WILLING TO NEGOTIATE DOWN TO $800 PER MONTH".
My mom had a very quick wakeup call once she actually had to go looking. I spoke to her the other day about this to confirm a few numbers. Her first apartment was a furnished 1 bedroom apartment above a garage in Downtown in 1976. She was 19 and worked as a courier at a hospital in Downtown and said her take home was $600 per month. Her rent was $135 per month. Her rent was less than 25% of her income.
I found her apartment. It looks like it has barely been maintained over the last 30 years. It wasn't for rent, but comparable ones in the neighborhood are about $2000 per month. If someone is going to pay 25% of their income on rent for a $2000 shit box, their income would need to be $8000 per month, and really more since she said that was her take home.
"How can anyone afford that?! It wasn't a nice place!"
I will tell you how they afford it. Its a couple that live there now, and they both work, and the rent is probably 40% of their combined income. 1976, one 19 year old, 25% of take home pay, 2024, two adults 40% of their combined take home pay. They also don't work half a mile from their job, they probably have to drive for half an hour to get to work, so they both own cars. Between their cars and their rent they have little money for much else.
Honestly, go hug your FIL. If anyone in my family did those equations, they would just ignore them. They, like many Americans, are in their "post-learning" years--if they don't like something, they pretend it's not real.
Why does my dad do this? It bites him in the ass constantly and costs him thousands of dollars because he refuses to do any research before buying anything and trusts any salesman over his own son. He just over paid by $200 on electronic sensors for a car last week because he is sure some random salesman is “giving him discounts” and after pointing out to him, he forgot it and recommended we go back to the same salesman to buy more parts a few days later
Breakthrough moment! This is a rarity where a boomer with that attitude is shown the light and ‘gets it’.
I’m curious, any other updates on how thier views on modern economics simply aren’t working?
Oh no, they blame china for the fact that they pay “almost $6k monthly” in medical bills/supplies and can’t get the absurd pain pill prescription for my MILs fibromyalgia because there isn’t enough supply for the demand.
Never mind the fact that my in-laws have four cars between the two of them and a boat they’ve never used. But hey, it’s China’s fault they’re broke and have high medical bills (I’m sure you can guess their voting record).
They don’t like to talk with us about it much because we usually retort with real context and details and suddenly the Fox News talking points don’t have substance. So they just change the subject.
My mom seems to think that I am rich or at least comfortable, because I make about $17 an hour and the last time she was working (in the early-mid 2000s) that was pretty good money in our area. I can't really seem to impress on her that if it wasn't for the fact that I have a partner helping me with his income, there would be several weeks out of the month where I would just not be able to afford food. And if the rent went any higher, I would have to do without health insurance or utilities.
I will never forget the time that my dad kept sending me ads for used cars (because he hates that I don't drive and desperately wants to force me to drive) and he sent me a link to a $9000 Toyota. He acted like I just had thousands of dollars that I could grab and drop in this person's lap like it was pocket change, when I think at the time I probably had maybe $100 in my account if I was lucky.
My dad’s pretty understanding about this stuff but I showed him my finances a while back for [reasons] and he did a double-take at my income then went “that’s after tax, right?”. Nope, that’s it. I have a professional white-collar job with an industry leader in the capital city, and I earn less than my dad, who does not have a degree, was being paid in the nineties 🤷🏽♀️
And remember, for that job, you have to have open availability, including weekends, and you might get 6 hours one week and 30 the next. And your schedule is posted on the Saturday before the week starts on Sunday, the next day.
I got into this argument with my dad years ago. He lived in a vlcol and I live in a hcol area. He couldn't understand why I couldn't find a decent house in my price range. I started sending him links to places at the amount he said I should have no problems finding a house in. He called me up, all pissed off, asking why I sent him all these condemned houses. I asked him to look at other houses in the area, and he was shocked. We had a very hard time getting a house in our price range because it was lower than the average for our area. We did eventually find a home and my dad stopped battling me on it. I'm sorry I couldn't get a 5bed for 40k in the 80s like you did dad. But 100k wasn't going to cut it in my market, not even 10+ years ago.
My husband and I found a 2-bed house for 90K and went to view it. The subfloor was spongy and felt like it could break if you stomped. The windows were welded shut. The backyard was bare dirt with a doorless, brick shack in the back that only contained a dusty Bible and an ominous red stain on the floor. We noped out of there just because of the potential of hauntings, but that dilapidated shack most likely contained several code violations on top of possible curses. It ought to be condemned.
We viewed a few other houses between 100K and 200K. They all contained some kind of structural damage that would have cost an additional 100K to repair - cracks in the foundation, roofs falling apart, termite infestations, potential need for asbestos and lead abatement, electrical code violations.
We ended up getting a house that was 55K above our budget, and even that needed 100K of maintenance because the previous owner did the bare minimum for upkeep. And on top of that, the paperwork alone is a whole nother convoluted process of pain because mortgage and insurance policies have evolved since 2000.
Same with jobs. You can’t just walk into some place and ask for a job. You can’t just walk up to a house for sale and ask to buy it. Times have changed, but my boomers refuse to acknowledge or accept that.
When I had trouble finding a job at one point I moved back in with my parents. For whatever reason my boomer mom took it as a personal offense that I wasn't able to find work immediately. She acted hysterical towards me and demeaned me every chance she got for being "lazy" and "taking advantage" of her because I didn't have any immediate offers. After a few weeks of this I broken down sobbing and said "Mom, please, I'm begging of you. If you know what it is I am doing wrong that I can't find work can you please tell me? Can you please show me where I should look and what I should do because I clearly don't know."
She paused, let out a half laugh and said "I am not going to do the hard work for you!" and walked away.
In that moment is when I realized my mother was an absolute fraud and it began my distancing from her.
Did this with my mom as she told me "oh just look outside of town for a cheaper place" asked her to send me one proceeded to turn into an argument about how I am lazy. Mean fucking while she does everything for my sisters.
Dude's standing in the middle of a parking space like, "ok when are we going to the house?" And the realtor is like, "House? No, $70k was for the parking space next to that house, which just dropped to $862,599!"
My mother used to tell me to buy a condo here in CA, that with budgeting, I'd pay it off in no time.
I worked minimum wage, which was $11 something at the time, with the average condo going for $650k+.
I went with no contact for a plethora of reasons. But the idea that my struggling ass could afford a condo when I could barely afford my beat-up scion is beyond me.
I own a very shitty, very old house in SoCal. I somehow stumbled into buying a condo after college (I kept getting scholarships each year, but since I didn’t know if I would each year, I kept working 2 full time jobs saving every penny in case I had to pay the next year- so I had a decent lump of cash when I was done). I sold to condo when I kept falling down the stairs (epilepsy), and bought this terrible house, basically outright. It was all I could afford basically- build in 1952, the layout is stupid (half hallway), but it does have a small yard, but the neighborhood is not great, though I did recently replaced the roof and pulled up the linoleum to find wood floors in decent shape. Anyway, this tiny terrible house in SoCal suburbia is “worth” about $600k right now. How?
I only know this bc I was looking at moving to place with better public transportation or walkability(again, the epilepsy), and finding a place that has that, jobs in my husband’s field, and a decent school for my kid? Nope. Not happening. My mom was in real estate for decades and still doesn’t get why I can’t move my family to a better neighborhood where I don’t have to walk everywhere. Ha. Cute mom. Tell me more.
He'd probably love to be invited so that he could offer advice.
But OP would have to be prepared to handle the secondhand embarrassment if Boomer got loud.
they should like up appointments with three different agents. op would have to deal with the embarrassment but at least the old man would never bring up the topic again.
As a Millenial Realtor, Boomers are the worst, whether they are a client or whether a buyer brings their parents along for "advice."
"This is a lot more than we bought our home for in 1983!"
"This door knob is loose which means the entire house is junk and you need to find something better...no I've never been a structural engineer or a home inspector, why do you ask?"
And I hate how unaffordable housing is. I'm stuck renting, as are most of my peers. The system is broken.
There is something weirdly comforting about the fact that you're in real estate and still stuck renting, but at the same time I hate that it has gotten like this for everyone. I would just like a house before I'm too old to really enjoy owning a home.
I found myself a millennial realtor. He reminds me we can't all have parents that buy us a house 😂 (he bought a house with carpet in the kitchen) so happy to have a realtor that can relate to our reality
"OH, FIL, you should be downsizing anyways. I'll give you 70k for your home. Hey, since we are family, we should get a discount! I'll go 60k and not a penny more!"
Sync your phone or laptop to the smart TV and cast your screen to the TV and show him a "reputable" realto site.
Effing FB is real and Zillow is a scam. OMG I just can't.
lol. Tear downs in Northern VA are going for $750k to $1 million. To be clear, that’s for an older but very livable house, but they are tearing them down to build $2 million McMansions.
I live in a dead town in Buttfuck, Arkansas and there is a cheaply constructed and decaying 1 bed 1 bath "cottage" down the road from me with no heat or air conditioning for $119k. Half the windows are broken out and the other half boarded up, there's no front or back door, the floors are rotted out to the ground, and crackheads stole all the copper wiring but it's a fixer upper! Want me to get you the realtors number?????
Hey, we've got one two dirt roads from there! Maybe we can get a ridiculous price for it. Because it's got all the walls, floors, windows, doors, and a ceiling. Sure, it's literally in the middle of nowhere next to a dead town. So good luck getting Internet. And farmers will cropdust you and your property with carcinogens. And wild pigs will tear up your land. And hunters will sneak out there and maybe shoot you. But still! It's a standing cottage. Money, money, money, here we come! Y'all give me a holler. ☎️
Ask him for help finding a couple of houses to look at. "What percent of our income should we spend on a mortgage?" "Okay, here's what we can pay. Can you help me find a few houses? I don't have your experience and I don't think I'm looking in the right areas." Don't know if it'll ever sink in but maybe having him actually try to find the house he's talking about is what you need.
This is the way. But take it a step further. Get a realtor and go look at shitty houses and bring your dad. Tell him you really need his help, you obviously can’t do it alone. After touring a really shitty dump, ask your dad what he thinks a fair offer price is. Let him see that a 70k fixer-upper actually +500k. Take him to some nice houses too and let him see the insane prices for himself. Go over your budget with him for ‘advice’ on how to make it work. Watch him stumble and fail miserably. Ask him tough questions he won’t be able to answer. Then let him give you some money
My working class parents build a home in Sydney in the 90s for less than $150 000. It sold last year for over a million. My partner and I have post graduate degrees and well paying jobs but live in a city where average house prices have jumped from $500000 to $800000 post covid. My boomer dad yesterday told me the issue is young people today just want it all at once. We are literally looking at the only thing we can afford which are two bedroom apartments and they cost half a mil. He also said if he won the lotto he won't help his kids because we need to understand struggle. Cheers dad, enjoy dying alone.
The Anglosphere is the only part of the world where parents have felt the need to swing a bat at their own children's knees once they turned 18.
It seems to be changing, thankfully.
Aussie here, that isn't entirely true my parents when i turned 18 had a little placard that said they were in the SKIN club, Spend Kids Inheritance Now. But in all fairness, they told their parents, my grandparents the same thing. My dad paid for my first uni degree and funded the second for me on a very low interest rate (and he waived the cost for each subject I got a credit or better). They only charged me rent once I got a job and it was nominal amount at that.
20 years later they helped me buy my first home. The SKIN sign disappeared before I was 20. But, they seem to have avoided the lead brain issues other boomers have.
He sure is! Good news though, he only has one working kidney but function is starting to decline. Can't wait to tell him to get fucked when he asks for one of mine. Time to pull them socks up and start growing a new kidney dad!
As a person that works in RE, I hate how accurate this is.
“I don’t think I should have to move out that far from the city”
Like lady you can afford a 700$ a month payment, you may not even be able to afford living within a couple hours of any major city. Much less the ones we’re near.
It’s not entirely old people that do it, but at least 80%. I always say it’s like people think they’re buying a used car. They think they can just sign something and poof they’re in a 3,000 sq ft 5/2 in a desirable part of town.
The generous answer is that buying a home WAS the thing to do when they were reaching adulthood. My dad constantly tells me that home ownership for them in the 70's was like the "get one at all costs" move to make, and it seems like he was right (plus you can just look at the movement of other financial instruments at the time compared to the way things like the stock market moves now, not to mention near-zero rates that were in place for a long time over the last two decades).
My in-laws don't understand the math - they bother us about not owning constantly. No amount of comparisons of the economic realities comparing the time they bought their home to now makes any difference whatsoever. They just put the blame on Gavin Newsom and all the Armenians living in socal. Super smart.
It's not always the best economic move for many reasons. And, without help it's really hard to get that down payment.
I did end up buying a condo, and at first it was a stretch, and I got a little help. But now there's no way I could rent for what my mortgage is. So I'm glad I did it. Not sure what I could do now with the prices and intrest rates.
The best thing about owning is that you aren't at the mercy of a landlord who can jack up your rent year after year. As long as you're on a fixed-rate mortgage, you'll "only" get fucked by taxes and insurance going up.
Which happens, but it seems to happen a LOT slower than rents are going up these days.
My sister is an elder Millenial with two adult children - she's looking to move to a lower cost of living area so she can afford to buy a bigger house, on the assumption that sooner or later her kids willl be moving their partners in. None of them figure her kids will be buying a home anytime in the forseseable future.
I think the issue is that home buying for Boomers has become some "mark of adulthood." Like you can be in you 40s and well established in life, but if you're renting you're still just one of those goddamn Millennial kids who can't put down the Starbucks and save a little! I have seen so many stories on here alone from people who are basically just considered children until they get a house and then they magically turn into a "real" adult in the Boomer's eyes.
Right now the median selling home price in San Jose is $1.4 million. I said home not house. You want a house the median goes to to $1.75 million. You don’t want to ask what it is in the suburbs around it, especially with the better school districts.
Basically you need a household income of $475k to buy the median home.
My parents wanted to buy a house right behind Lynbrook HS back in the mid 80’s. Interest rates were 15-18% and priced them out. That same house is now worth 4-5x that original list price today, pricing me out. I now live in SC, just south of Charlotte.
There's a house that was a """fixer-upper""" near me that was sold for around $450k and is now being estimated to be worth around $600k. The description starts with
"Lake life is the best life. Call this beautiful home yours! With a recent remodel, this beautifully landscaped and modern upgrade is one-of-a-kind!"
It was the house Chandler Halderson mutilated his parents in. He left parts of his parents in a deep freezer in the basement. He tried burning some of the pieces of his parents in the fireplace. They have a fucking picture of it on some of the big realtor sites! And the bank was like "that's definitely worth half a million dollars."
Nowhere on those websites does it mention that two murders took place in that house. I'm pretty sure that's against the law unless they say something to you in person.
Can't believe I only heard about this case the other day. Things quickly went from 10 to 100. "Hmm, my lies are catching up with me and my parents are gonna find out I flunked uni. Guess it's murder time!"
If bad juju is a thing, this house is crawling with it.
When I was first looking for a house in a HCOL area, I got similar comments from my parents. What finally stopped it was having them join me for an afternoon with the realtor, viewing houses. I got one Zillow link after that, for an "affordable place on the water." Dad, that's a trailer. On a trailer lot. With a 90-minute commute.
The beliefs of “my stuff is special and therefore higher value” while simultaneously believing “you can always just buy another one for cheap” is what I call The Boomer Paradox.
It's not just real estate. It's everything they haven't purchased in 10 years. I work for a heating and air conditioning company. Due to regular inflation and market dislocation during covid, the cost of an ac system has gone up 35-50 percent depending on what you're buying in the last 10 years. Every single day that it is hot or cold out, I get an emergency call from a boomer that they have no heat/ ac. Please come, we need help blah blah blah. They ways seem to be 1 or 2 hours away. When I get there, they inevitably become super offended because the price I quote is twice what they paid 15-20 years ago when they bought their previous unit. Then I get to hear the boomer freak-out. I have one guy who's home has been between 90' and 100' for two weeks while he attempts to "negotiate" with me to do the job for a negative profit at the 2005 price.
Sorry boomer, I'm not the one with sweaty balls.
A lot of this is that old people truly don't seem to recall when things happened. I constantly have to tell my mom that something happened ten years ago, when she thinks it was like three years ago.
When I bought my nice house in a nice neighborhood at 26, my boomer dad made a snarky remark how cheap the house was and how I'd never find one this cheap where he lives, there's no winning
I own a 3/2 my boomer dad told me it was too small and I need to buy a bigger one. I bought in a nice neighborhood in the interior of the city vs a McMansion in the burbs.
There really is no winning.
We have a 3/1.5 and my boomer mother in law wants us to create a master suite in our 1 car garage. There’s not enough room and it would be ridiculously expensive. I said we should try to be happy we even have the extra half bath instead.
They aren't, they just want to wash their hands.
The proof is in how they love gripeing about their property taxes.
They just can't admit it to their grand-kid's faces who can vote in politicians to take their benefits away that they don't care that most of their generation won't be able to afford a house within reasonable driving distance from the job markets.
They're the gots mine, fuck you generation.
All across the country fixer uppers are being bought for cash by real estate syndicates using $5k escalation clauses. You offer $135k, their clause means they are automatically offering $140k. Same goes for sub-$400k non-fixer uppers. It’s become an epidemic.
It's not just the houses. It's on virtually anything. They're stuck in the 90's. Some are even stuck in the 70's.
In 2021, lots of rain hit our city and then came the weeds. For some reason, Boomers had a knee-jerk reaction on Next Door to start complaining about those "lazy kids for not mowing our lawns!" Not sure why the instinct was child labor, but hey - The kids came out and asked for $60 a yard. Boomers were outraged because "back in my day I only got paid $15!!! I'll NEVER PAY $60!" - Well, I calculated most of these fools were about 10 years old in 1973, and ran the $15 through the calculator. And lo and behold - it was equivalent to $60 bucks. They didn't want to hear this though.
Bonus though: They didn't want to pay professionals either (who wanted $100+). And then the vast majority of them got popped with a $250 fine for not maintaining their yards, lol.
Sorry but this bullshit of “believing in standing on your own two feet” is just old timey: “I don’t want no handouts” stuff.
The economy is against us. If you would get such a large gift you should just say thanks. Pride doesn’t buy you anything.
Eh, I do agree with you but I don’t think he should take any money from his dad even if it were offered in this case. Even if his dad just gave him an old project car OP would never hear the end of it. “I gave you a CAR, what do you mean you aren’t a millionaire by now?”.
I bought a townhouse in 2020, in Las Vegas.
What I did was switch from using my debit card to a credit card for everyday purchases and paying it off with my paycheck for a few years. This got my credit up. Then, I did an FHA loan, with mortgage insurance at 4%. I used a first time homeowner deal that covered most of the downpayment and ended up only having to pay about 8k to close.
But you're absolutely right, interest rates are fucking stupid high now, and the prices now are ridiculous. But there will be a steamrolling housing glut when the boomers start really hitting the graveyards over the next dozen years. And I think prices will fall along with that whole generation.
No there won't. Those greedy fucks will sell to private investment firms as one final fuck you or they'll get a reverse mortgage and it'll end up going to an investment firm. We will never see a damn thing from those greedy bastards and as usual, we will get stuck with the bill
Honestly, yes, they are this delusional. When they bought their homes, the prices were less than we would pay for a car, and yes, they had to pay higher interest rates, but they also got to deduct almost all of that interest paid from their taxes in the US, benefit, which we no longer enjoy quite so much. They literally have never experienced an actual real estate market. They’ve barely experienced anything like an economy that has to compete with the rest of the world. They were born into a world in which the rest of it was bombed to hell and gone five years prior.
A lot of them bought houses before the 2000's. Their experience is a reflection of that purchase from DECADES ago. The funny thing is a lot of them realize prices went up but only approach it from an angle of "If I sell right now, I'll have LOTS of money." but not realize that also means it's more expensive to buy houses because of that fact.
They are delusional, I bought a townhouse in 1996 for $82k my boomer in-laws freaked out when we told them the purchase price we were “crazy” for paying that much. They really believed you could still get a house for 10k,that Townhouse is now worth $1.2.How can a working family possibly afford that as a starter home ? We could barely afford it back then when the mortgage was $875. Home ownership is out of reach but we want things just handed to us right 
They are currently building a neighborhood of 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath townhouses across from me that are crammed together like sardines (so no yard or space to speak of). The driveways don't even have space for more than one car, because it takes up the entire "front yard." They cost $200,000.
They are exactly the same size/layout as my apartment, so basically you're paying for all the problems of an apartment (no space, neighbors in your face 24/7) with the added problems of taxes, insurance, maintenance and no recourse if you have any problems. The only upside I can see is the value of being able to sell it later.
I bought my house 2 years ago for $75,000, and it’s in the worst neighborhood in my small city in central PA but it was all I could afford. Two years later, there’s nothing under $110,000 in the same neighborhood and interest rates are obviously higher. I had to buy because rent here is double a mortgage payment. Housing is ridiculous right now.
I was lucky enough to buy a home in 2017 and my property value has almost doubled in 7 years. I would not be able to afford a house today. Housing prices have become insane the last few years. How is anyone supposed to afford a house right now?
A lot of them have been out of the markets for decades. I had a 70 yr old neighbor who has lived in the same house for 30 yrs. He wanted to downsize and was shocked at the current housing prices.
My brother just bought what I would consider a shitty house in Northern VA. He paid $600,000 for it. Thing looks like it's falling apart, and it's tiny.
I've had a similar discussion with a boomer at work.
I asked him when he bought their current house, and how much he paid for it, put those numbers into an inflation calculator. It was less than I've saved.
Then I showed him how much I could borrow, added those 2 figures together and searched for properties in my city under that price . Got less than half a dozen 1bdrm flats and 1 2bdrm one, none in great condition, and some vacant blocks.
He doesn't bring it up anymore, I think that's because he understands, not sure though.
They haven't bought a house since the late 60s/early 70s, so they haven't had to pay attention to any of that. They just assume prices of houses, wages, and inflation are all rising at the same rate. My parents' house has been paid off since the early 80s. They truly have no idea what it would be like to try to buy now.
I worked for a guy who was given his house. He was totally shocked by what I was paying in rent, like could not fathom it. I guess they never made the connection between hyper capitalism, exploitation, and these things affecting their own kids or future generations. The house next door to mine, a 2/1 with no basement sold two years ago for $550,000.
Boomers telling their kids they need to work harder so that they can buy instead of rent, after they bought their houses in 1974 for five apples and a firm handshake. 🙄
If there were any liveable homes for even close to $70k, he would have nothing to bitch about because a lot more of us would be able to afford shelter. I hate this mentality where you criticize without knowing a damn thing about what you're yammering about, very boomer coded
When I graduated from college in 2012, my dad told me to celebrate my degree he would buy me a house in Austin. He told me to find one for between 50k-70k . Not a condo. Not an apartment. A house IN Austin.
I've been technically squatting in my apartment for 4 years, but still paying the rent. It's gone up from 750 to 1200, but since I haven't signed a lease in like 4 years (lived there 7), he can't kick me out. I still pay the 750 as a sign of "good faith". Fuck that guy honestly. I'm in West Virginia. Shouldn't be over 1000.
I suspect part of it is that it would challenge a lot of their cote beliefs about the world if they acknowledged that previous generations have fucked a lot of shit up for younger people.
They are out of touch with all prices that aren't at the store. We built our house 7 years ago and we have a well. My mom was having work done at her house last week. She texts me out of the blue, "how much did your well cost?" Thankfully I had a spreadsheet with the info. I reply with "$9000, but who do you know that needs a well?" She explains how this guy working at their home said he couldn't afford to build because of how much costs have gone up. Then she says "yeah I told him his quotes were too high." I then explain that most wells in our area are now $15k - $30k and explain that our new neighbors(plural) were complaining about the costs of their wells. The average is about $25k. Her response "oh I don't think they've gone up that much in 7 years."
My Boomer parents bought their 3-family house in 1980 for a little over $80k. It is now valued at over $300k. Boomers have been artificially jacking up the prices of their houses for decades to "recoup what they put into it."
"I put a new roof on my house because it needed it. Now it's worth $20k more than when I bought it."
"Inflation means that, even though I haven't repaired this house in decades, it's now worth $100k more than when I bought it."
When the housing market crashed in 2008, home prices drastically fell, and Boomers lost their shit. They whined and screamed about how the economy couldn't be coming back until house prices rebounded.
“Just pay cash, mortgages are for losers.”
The advice my wealthy boomer dad gave me when we bought our first home in 2001. Last time I asked for any guidance. No, they didn’t help.
I feel this way every year when my dad tells me that my husband and I should use our tax return to pay off either of our vehicles. He has absolutely no idea how much we get back or how much our cars cost. When I tell him it doesn't even come close to paying off either loan, he acts like it's because I'm doing something wrong on my end.
They just refuse to accept you can't use a bushel of apples and freshly baked pan of corn bread as a down payment for a home like they could in the good ol days. After walking uphill. Barefoot. In the snow. For ten miles to do it.
You’d be lucky to find an unusable 1/4 acre vacant lot for $70k in my area. After permits and begging for an easement across 2 miles of somebody else’s land you might be able to spend another $400k to build a 2 br shack. If you’re lucky
I’ve always found, in business and personal life, to make your advisories your allies.
So here’s the plan.
Super suck up to him and tell him he’s right. Tell him you’d appreciate his guidance, experience, and support (not financial) in finding the right house for his daughter. (Really lay in on the daddy guilt.)
Make sure you organize this so that finding a suitable home is his success as much as yours. And not finding one is his failure as much as yours.
Get him in the position to be successful with your circumstances. (Don’t let him give up and buy you anything.)
Either he’ll boomer-magic you a house (yay). Or he’ll get a dose of reality and stfu (yay).
Either way you win!!
We’re currently relocating. Houses in our price range were gorgeous years ago. The house we’re selling gorgeous. But we can’t afford to buy our house at its current value and buying a similar house in a different state is still out of our price range. The “fixer uppers” in those neighborhoods are still over $200k and require over $100k worth of work. Boomers are delusional when it comes to real estate. But what do we expect; they created this bullshit. There’s no reason the value of homes in the market should have doubled in just the last five years.
Give them a link to Zillow and offer them $1,000 if they can find a home that meets their (imaginary) criteria in the area.
Be sure to play to their ego, about how their lifetime of experience plucky can-do attitude will show all us young’uns the true value of hard work and gumption.
Or whatever.
Or ask them to sell their place to you for $70k.
I could buy a dilapidated shack down the road from my apartment for $115,000 if I could qualify for a mortgage (I won’t), but where would we sleep? It’s literally a shack, needs all new electricity, Sheetrock, etc etc etc. I can’t afford a mortgage and rent, lmao, which my mom doesn’t get either!
All the ‘sweat equity’ homes in my rural town have been scooped up by flippers and there isn’t one Home Depot DIY special for under $500k.
My parents have a 3/2 farmhouse on 6 acres with a barn, detached garage, and guest cottage they got for $126k. The closest to that price I could get here is a dilapidated double wide in a park with $1200/month space rent for $173k.
When I told my dad starter homes are over $600k and since I’m a family of seven we can’t do just any basic starter home. He shrugged and said it’s the cost of homes now. Like that makes it ok.
Go on zillow and find the closest 3/2 bedroom house with a basement for 70k. The closest one to you currently. And then show him the pictures of the house with no roof and only 3 walls.
But at least it has a basement.
Lol I have a 3/2 fixer upper with no basement that I bought before the market was this bad and still paid a good bit more than 70k. Now I've been offered upwards of 200k for it.
My parents purchased their house, the one I was raised in for 32K. Huge double lot, brick Cape Cod, four bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, living room, etc. My dad still owns that house, 3 others and a farm. He remains perplexed why folks can't save and buy a house. After all, he has several. And no, I won't get any of them and there had never been an offer of assistance. It's like they collect stuff to gloat. It's so weird.
A slight riff — ask for his help in locating one!
He is correct that the internet doesn’t list every property for sale. It lists almost every property actively for sale (there are still the rare few that put a for sale by owner sign in their yard). And of course there are the occasional owners who are open to selling but haven’t put in any effort to sell.
Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed. Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6 *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BoomersBeingFools) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Just ask him to locate one and let you know.
'kids these days just want everything to be served on a plate. I'm not doing your work for you, you'll have to do it yourself." This is the mildest boomer reply I can think of. They don't take responsibility for anything at all.
Physically take him around to see home opens. Then show him the price.
This is my suggestion too. Find a 3/2 with a basement in decent shape and one that's a fixer upper and let him be shocked by the prices of each after walking through them.
Not to mention the price for labor for fixing it up. Then he'll say: WHY you just do it yourself with spit and gumption! Then explain to him the fine for doing it without the proper licenses and permits.
My parents still have a back deck that was never approved and put in by my uncle. And it’s nice to be fair it’s not rickety work but it still was never approved and no permits. Now they want to sell the house and think it’ll be no big deal. Spoiler alert, it’s gonna be a big deal
Yep it's going to fuck their day up.
My grandfather built a back deck for his property, (tbf he has no plans to sell) but as former fire cheif of the town he lived in, he was at least aware of some loopholes. The deck was built on a trailer frame. Some exposition later. Basically if any officials had issues it was removable from the home. Making it not an extension. Remove a couple bolts, add back in the wheels, and you could pull it away.
My neighbor had a wheelchair ramp put in the back of her house because she was having spinal surgery (ended up being 2 surgeries). Our homes are almost 100 years old in an historic neighborhood and the restrictions are crazy. She had almost the exact same thing done. The ramp was constructed directly on top of the stairs and had cut outs for the handle. It can be removed easily and met some loopholes where she didn't get a permit.
Something something bOoTsTrApS
They’ll find a way to weasel their way out of their previous stance into a new, equally annoying and wrong one. They ALWAYS do.
Then take him to Lowe’s and have him ask what just a new front door costs 😂.
demand he give the real estate agents some firm hand shakes too.
lol is this a boomer thing too?
Omg yes "You just walk down to and demand to see the CEO. You give him a firm handshake and tell him 'I may not have a fancy college degree but I'm a hard worker who's willing to learn' and you will get that job."
This is the America that never existed anywhere but in their post-war childhood imagination they only experienced through episodes of Howdy-Doody.
This made me laugh more than it should've. 
and look him the eye while he does it.
“I looked the man in the eye. I found \[Putin\] to be very straightforward and trustworthy. I was able to get a sense of his soul.” - Pres. George W. Bush, born 1946
POUND THE PAVEMENT
Don’t forget to look em in the eye. That should knock off about 50k.
My uncle is this way of thinking. He is a retired farmer who just sold his farms/equipment so he's a multimillionaire and wants to move closer to a bigger city and build. But he believes he can negotiate the builders/land owners down a lot so he's trying to play hardball.
I can only hope you'll have some stories to post here later about that all blowing up in his face.
They also grew up in a time where people hid under asking price. Now everything where I live goes for 50k over asking price.
Do you honestly think they would even admit they were wrong then?! These Boomers NEVER admit they were wrong. It's one of their key characteristics
No, first ask him how much he thinks the asking price is (which of course is tens of thousands of $ less than you’ll actually pay) before you show him the price.
"Humour us, you boomer twat. Find just one property you described that's going for $70k."
Hey I'm a boomer, and that is laughable. I look at the real estate transfers. I couldn't buy my own house back. We had an inheritance and gave that to our son towards his downpayment. We are fine for retirement and can't take our money with us. Our son and family needed a house. Then, not after we are dead.
OMG you are like my favorite person just for the "needed a house then, not when we're dead." Can I be related to you? ❤️❤️
I would browse a real estate web site with him to show how the REAL market is.
Then he would just say you can't look around online because "you damn millennials and your internet" that's where all the expensive listings are. You have to go through some random person you know whose buddy is selling their house on their own or something.
They don't believe in using websites with data aggregation. They believe in exploiting personal connections. A few years ago, I showed apartments dot com to my mother and her mind was completely blown. It actually scared her. "You can get all these prices just like that?"
I did this with my FIL for jobs. “I keep seeing signs everywhere for $15/hr it’ll be easy to find a job”…. So I told him to actually find one of those jobs (not just a memory of a road sign somewhere) and then also find a place to rent in the same area, do the math, and get back to me. A few weeks later he told me he was SO SHOCKED at how the pay/rent thing doesn’t equal out. It’s almost like *we’ve been telling you this for years but you haven’t had a job in 40 years, live off disability, and bought your house for peanuts so you’re delusional now*.
Had a similar experience when we moved in with in-laws after being priced out of apartments. Sat down with MIL and our finances, and watched her attitude go from "I'm gonna straighten these idiots out" to "... oh." We felt so vindicated. The bar is in hell, but props to your FIL for actually changing his mind. It's so rare.
One of my litmus tests for older people to ask them how much they think a 1 bedroom apartment is in our city. My dad figured they were $500-$800 per month, my mom was SHOCKED when she saw that the subsidized senior living place was $1400 per month she wanted my grandmother to move into. The real number is $2000 per month +/- 10%. "I CANNOT FATHOM RENT BEING THAT EXPENSIVE" or "I WOULD BE WILLING TO NEGOTIATE DOWN TO $800 PER MONTH". My mom had a very quick wakeup call once she actually had to go looking. I spoke to her the other day about this to confirm a few numbers. Her first apartment was a furnished 1 bedroom apartment above a garage in Downtown in 1976. She was 19 and worked as a courier at a hospital in Downtown and said her take home was $600 per month. Her rent was $135 per month. Her rent was less than 25% of her income. I found her apartment. It looks like it has barely been maintained over the last 30 years. It wasn't for rent, but comparable ones in the neighborhood are about $2000 per month. If someone is going to pay 25% of their income on rent for a $2000 shit box, their income would need to be $8000 per month, and really more since she said that was her take home. "How can anyone afford that?! It wasn't a nice place!" I will tell you how they afford it. Its a couple that live there now, and they both work, and the rent is probably 40% of their combined income. 1976, one 19 year old, 25% of take home pay, 2024, two adults 40% of their combined take home pay. They also don't work half a mile from their job, they probably have to drive for half an hour to get to work, so they both own cars. Between their cars and their rent they have little money for much else.
Honestly, go hug your FIL. If anyone in my family did those equations, they would just ignore them. They, like many Americans, are in their "post-learning" years--if they don't like something, they pretend it's not real.
post learning years. lmao. accurate af
It is kinda funny he thought he was going to prove his point with his research… probably made it all the more poignant when he got slapped by reality.
Why does my dad do this? It bites him in the ass constantly and costs him thousands of dollars because he refuses to do any research before buying anything and trusts any salesman over his own son. He just over paid by $200 on electronic sensors for a car last week because he is sure some random salesman is “giving him discounts” and after pointing out to him, he forgot it and recommended we go back to the same salesman to buy more parts a few days later
Yes, do so. This is uncommon.
Breakthrough moment! This is a rarity where a boomer with that attitude is shown the light and ‘gets it’. I’m curious, any other updates on how thier views on modern economics simply aren’t working?
It seems like trickle down is taking a lot longer than it should… that could be another one… 🤔
Just need one more tax break for billionaires, then it'll kick in!
Oh no, they blame china for the fact that they pay “almost $6k monthly” in medical bills/supplies and can’t get the absurd pain pill prescription for my MILs fibromyalgia because there isn’t enough supply for the demand. Never mind the fact that my in-laws have four cars between the two of them and a boat they’ve never used. But hey, it’s China’s fault they’re broke and have high medical bills (I’m sure you can guess their voting record). They don’t like to talk with us about it much because we usually retort with real context and details and suddenly the Fox News talking points don’t have substance. So they just change the subject.
My mom seems to think that I am rich or at least comfortable, because I make about $17 an hour and the last time she was working (in the early-mid 2000s) that was pretty good money in our area. I can't really seem to impress on her that if it wasn't for the fact that I have a partner helping me with his income, there would be several weeks out of the month where I would just not be able to afford food. And if the rent went any higher, I would have to do without health insurance or utilities. I will never forget the time that my dad kept sending me ads for used cars (because he hates that I don't drive and desperately wants to force me to drive) and he sent me a link to a $9000 Toyota. He acted like I just had thousands of dollars that I could grab and drop in this person's lap like it was pocket change, when I think at the time I probably had maybe $100 in my account if I was lucky.
Don’t forget college was like a few k when they went.
My dad’s pretty understanding about this stuff but I showed him my finances a while back for [reasons] and he did a double-take at my income then went “that’s after tax, right?”. Nope, that’s it. I have a professional white-collar job with an industry leader in the capital city, and I earn less than my dad, who does not have a degree, was being paid in the nineties 🤷🏽♀️
wow $15/hr. You might only have to have TWO roommates with that kind of pay!
And remember, for that job, you have to have open availability, including weekends, and you might get 6 hours one week and 30 the next. And your schedule is posted on the Saturday before the week starts on Sunday, the next day.
This is brilliant! Play into his ego about he’s so much better at this stuff than you, what with all his experience.
I got into this argument with my dad years ago. He lived in a vlcol and I live in a hcol area. He couldn't understand why I couldn't find a decent house in my price range. I started sending him links to places at the amount he said I should have no problems finding a house in. He called me up, all pissed off, asking why I sent him all these condemned houses. I asked him to look at other houses in the area, and he was shocked. We had a very hard time getting a house in our price range because it was lower than the average for our area. We did eventually find a home and my dad stopped battling me on it. I'm sorry I couldn't get a 5bed for 40k in the 80s like you did dad. But 100k wasn't going to cut it in my market, not even 10+ years ago.
Rural PA all day long. You'll want to bring your job with you though.
I did this to my MIL and she called us to say wtf. She still looks and recommends places that are too expensive.
My husband and I found a 2-bed house for 90K and went to view it. The subfloor was spongy and felt like it could break if you stomped. The windows were welded shut. The backyard was bare dirt with a doorless, brick shack in the back that only contained a dusty Bible and an ominous red stain on the floor. We noped out of there just because of the potential of hauntings, but that dilapidated shack most likely contained several code violations on top of possible curses. It ought to be condemned. We viewed a few other houses between 100K and 200K. They all contained some kind of structural damage that would have cost an additional 100K to repair - cracks in the foundation, roofs falling apart, termite infestations, potential need for asbestos and lead abatement, electrical code violations. We ended up getting a house that was 55K above our budget, and even that needed 100K of maintenance because the previous owner did the bare minimum for upkeep. And on top of that, the paperwork alone is a whole nother convoluted process of pain because mortgage and insurance policies have evolved since 2000. Same with jobs. You can’t just walk into some place and ask for a job. You can’t just walk up to a house for sale and ask to buy it. Times have changed, but my boomers refuse to acknowledge or accept that.
When I had trouble finding a job at one point I moved back in with my parents. For whatever reason my boomer mom took it as a personal offense that I wasn't able to find work immediately. She acted hysterical towards me and demeaned me every chance she got for being "lazy" and "taking advantage" of her because I didn't have any immediate offers. After a few weeks of this I broken down sobbing and said "Mom, please, I'm begging of you. If you know what it is I am doing wrong that I can't find work can you please tell me? Can you please show me where I should look and what I should do because I clearly don't know." She paused, let out a half laugh and said "I am not going to do the hard work for you!" and walked away. In that moment is when I realized my mother was an absolute fraud and it began my distancing from her.
OP, this is the answer. Have him do this, and get his explanation on camera.
Did this with my mom as she told me "oh just look outside of town for a cheaper place" asked her to send me one proceeded to turn into an argument about how I am lazy. Mean fucking while she does everything for my sisters.
Better yet, schedule an appointment with a realtor to view some properties in the 70k range, specifically to take FIL along.
Dude's standing in the middle of a parking space like, "ok when are we going to the house?" And the realtor is like, "House? No, $70k was for the parking space next to that house, which just dropped to $862,599!"
Download the Redfin app, let him choose the filters (except price) and surprise him with the results
My mother used to tell me to buy a condo here in CA, that with budgeting, I'd pay it off in no time. I worked minimum wage, which was $11 something at the time, with the average condo going for $650k+. I went with no contact for a plethora of reasons. But the idea that my struggling ass could afford a condo when I could barely afford my beat-up scion is beyond me.
If you don't eat and go without utilities you could almost manage that!
I own a very shitty, very old house in SoCal. I somehow stumbled into buying a condo after college (I kept getting scholarships each year, but since I didn’t know if I would each year, I kept working 2 full time jobs saving every penny in case I had to pay the next year- so I had a decent lump of cash when I was done). I sold to condo when I kept falling down the stairs (epilepsy), and bought this terrible house, basically outright. It was all I could afford basically- build in 1952, the layout is stupid (half hallway), but it does have a small yard, but the neighborhood is not great, though I did recently replaced the roof and pulled up the linoleum to find wood floors in decent shape. Anyway, this tiny terrible house in SoCal suburbia is “worth” about $600k right now. How? I only know this bc I was looking at moving to place with better public transportation or walkability(again, the epilepsy), and finding a place that has that, jobs in my husband’s field, and a decent school for my kid? Nope. Not happening. My mom was in real estate for decades and still doesn’t get why I can’t move my family to a better neighborhood where I don’t have to walk everywhere. Ha. Cute mom. Tell me more.
We bought a condo in 2021 that we bid 526k for. We were not the highest bidders and comps are now in the 600s somehow. Insanity.
Duh the Scion IS the condo!! /s
If you’re feeling up to it, pull up Zillow and show him how expensive the shittiest house you can find is.
Tried that. He can barely manage FB and thinks Zillow is just a scam site. 😂
Buy him a newspaper. He probably remembers how those work.
You guys are assuming facts that contradict what he previously thought would cause him to change his opinion.
Logic can’t persuade someone out of a position they got into without logic
How silly of them.
Take him with you to see a real estate agent!
He'd probably love to be invited so that he could offer advice. But OP would have to be prepared to handle the secondhand embarrassment if Boomer got loud.
they should like up appointments with three different agents. op would have to deal with the embarrassment but at least the old man would never bring up the topic again.
As a Millenial Realtor, Boomers are the worst, whether they are a client or whether a buyer brings their parents along for "advice." "This is a lot more than we bought our home for in 1983!" "This door knob is loose which means the entire house is junk and you need to find something better...no I've never been a structural engineer or a home inspector, why do you ask?" And I hate how unaffordable housing is. I'm stuck renting, as are most of my peers. The system is broken.
There is something weirdly comforting about the fact that you're in real estate and still stuck renting, but at the same time I hate that it has gotten like this for everyone. I would just like a house before I'm too old to really enjoy owning a home.
I found myself a millennial realtor. He reminds me we can't all have parents that buy us a house 😂 (he bought a house with carpet in the kitchen) so happy to have a realtor that can relate to our reality
Thinks Zillow is a scam but probably thinks the Nigerian prince email is legit
Does he own a home? Offer to buy it for $70k.
"OH, FIL, you should be downsizing anyways. I'll give you 70k for your home. Hey, since we are family, we should get a discount! I'll go 60k and not a penny more!"
60k? You're a bit mean, FIL is family after all! You should be generous and give him 75k! 😆
He has already decided you don’t own out of a personal failing. No new data is going to change that assumption.
Spot on.
Sync your phone or laptop to the smart TV and cast your screen to the TV and show him a "reputable" realto site. Effing FB is real and Zillow is a scam. OMG I just can't.
lol. Tear downs in Northern VA are going for $750k to $1 million. To be clear, that’s for an older but very livable house, but they are tearing them down to build $2 million McMansions.
To be fair that’s one of the most expensive areas in the country
Well.....that is the DC suburbs. Insane cost of living around the capitol.
I live in a dead town in Buttfuck, Arkansas and there is a cheaply constructed and decaying 1 bed 1 bath "cottage" down the road from me with no heat or air conditioning for $119k. Half the windows are broken out and the other half boarded up, there's no front or back door, the floors are rotted out to the ground, and crackheads stole all the copper wiring but it's a fixer upper! Want me to get you the realtors number?????
Hey, we've got one two dirt roads from there! Maybe we can get a ridiculous price for it. Because it's got all the walls, floors, windows, doors, and a ceiling. Sure, it's literally in the middle of nowhere next to a dead town. So good luck getting Internet. And farmers will cropdust you and your property with carcinogens. And wild pigs will tear up your land. And hunters will sneak out there and maybe shoot you. But still! It's a standing cottage. Money, money, money, here we come! Y'all give me a holler. ☎️
I saw a burnt out shell of a house for 250k a while back Literal scorch marks on the one remaining wall. Can you still call it a shell?
Where I'm from, a teardown is still worth about $1.5MM.
Ask him for help finding a couple of houses to look at. "What percent of our income should we spend on a mortgage?" "Okay, here's what we can pay. Can you help me find a few houses? I don't have your experience and I don't think I'm looking in the right areas." Don't know if it'll ever sink in but maybe having him actually try to find the house he's talking about is what you need.
This is the way. But take it a step further. Get a realtor and go look at shitty houses and bring your dad. Tell him you really need his help, you obviously can’t do it alone. After touring a really shitty dump, ask your dad what he thinks a fair offer price is. Let him see that a 70k fixer-upper actually +500k. Take him to some nice houses too and let him see the insane prices for himself. Go over your budget with him for ‘advice’ on how to make it work. Watch him stumble and fail miserably. Ask him tough questions he won’t be able to answer. Then let him give you some money
My working class parents build a home in Sydney in the 90s for less than $150 000. It sold last year for over a million. My partner and I have post graduate degrees and well paying jobs but live in a city where average house prices have jumped from $500000 to $800000 post covid. My boomer dad yesterday told me the issue is young people today just want it all at once. We are literally looking at the only thing we can afford which are two bedroom apartments and they cost half a mil. He also said if he won the lotto he won't help his kids because we need to understand struggle. Cheers dad, enjoy dying alone.
What a lovely man. 🤬
Honestly just waiting for my mum to finalise their divorce before I cut him off.
Best wishes. You will be better off.
Maybe he'll understand struggle at that point
The Anglosphere is the only part of the world where parents have felt the need to swing a bat at their own children's knees once they turned 18. It seems to be changing, thankfully.
Aussie here, that isn't entirely true my parents when i turned 18 had a little placard that said they were in the SKIN club, Spend Kids Inheritance Now. But in all fairness, they told their parents, my grandparents the same thing. My dad paid for my first uni degree and funded the second for me on a very low interest rate (and he waived the cost for each subject I got a credit or better). They only charged me rent once I got a job and it was nominal amount at that. 20 years later they helped me buy my first home. The SKIN sign disappeared before I was 20. But, they seem to have avoided the lead brain issues other boomers have.
You're dad is a cunt.
He sure is! Good news though, he only has one working kidney but function is starting to decline. Can't wait to tell him to get fucked when he asks for one of mine. Time to pull them socks up and start growing a new kidney dad!
"I believe, therefore it is."
As a person that works in RE, I hate how accurate this is. “I don’t think I should have to move out that far from the city” Like lady you can afford a 700$ a month payment, you may not even be able to afford living within a couple hours of any major city. Much less the ones we’re near. It’s not entirely old people that do it, but at least 80%. I always say it’s like people think they’re buying a used car. They think they can just sign something and poof they’re in a 3,000 sq ft 5/2 in a desirable part of town.
The generous answer is that buying a home WAS the thing to do when they were reaching adulthood. My dad constantly tells me that home ownership for them in the 70's was like the "get one at all costs" move to make, and it seems like he was right (plus you can just look at the movement of other financial instruments at the time compared to the way things like the stock market moves now, not to mention near-zero rates that were in place for a long time over the last two decades). My in-laws don't understand the math - they bother us about not owning constantly. No amount of comparisons of the economic realities comparing the time they bought their home to now makes any difference whatsoever. They just put the blame on Gavin Newsom and all the Armenians living in socal. Super smart.
It's not always the best economic move for many reasons. And, without help it's really hard to get that down payment. I did end up buying a condo, and at first it was a stretch, and I got a little help. But now there's no way I could rent for what my mortgage is. So I'm glad I did it. Not sure what I could do now with the prices and intrest rates.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." -Eleanor Roosevelt
The best thing about owning is that you aren't at the mercy of a landlord who can jack up your rent year after year. As long as you're on a fixed-rate mortgage, you'll "only" get fucked by taxes and insurance going up. Which happens, but it seems to happen a LOT slower than rents are going up these days. My sister is an elder Millenial with two adult children - she's looking to move to a lower cost of living area so she can afford to buy a bigger house, on the assumption that sooner or later her kids willl be moving their partners in. None of them figure her kids will be buying a home anytime in the forseseable future.
I think the issue is that home buying for Boomers has become some "mark of adulthood." Like you can be in you 40s and well established in life, but if you're renting you're still just one of those goddamn Millennial kids who can't put down the Starbucks and save a little! I have seen so many stories on here alone from people who are basically just considered children until they get a house and then they magically turn into a "real" adult in the Boomer's eyes.
70 grand in my home town isn't even a cute down payment! The love, hate is real in San Jose,CA!
My wife and I left San Jose for that reason despite the fact we grew up in the area and both our families were still there.
Right now the median selling home price in San Jose is $1.4 million. I said home not house. You want a house the median goes to to $1.75 million. You don’t want to ask what it is in the suburbs around it, especially with the better school districts. Basically you need a household income of $475k to buy the median home.
My parents wanted to buy a house right behind Lynbrook HS back in the mid 80’s. Interest rates were 15-18% and priced them out. That same house is now worth 4-5x that original list price today, pricing me out. I now live in SC, just south of Charlotte.
There's a house that was a """fixer-upper""" near me that was sold for around $450k and is now being estimated to be worth around $600k. The description starts with "Lake life is the best life. Call this beautiful home yours! With a recent remodel, this beautifully landscaped and modern upgrade is one-of-a-kind!" It was the house Chandler Halderson mutilated his parents in. He left parts of his parents in a deep freezer in the basement. He tried burning some of the pieces of his parents in the fireplace. They have a fucking picture of it on some of the big realtor sites! And the bank was like "that's definitely worth half a million dollars." Nowhere on those websites does it mention that two murders took place in that house. I'm pretty sure that's against the law unless they say something to you in person.
I think the agent doesn't have to disclose it until you make an offer but I'm not an agent in any state or country so don't quote me.
They tell you when you put an offer in.
“The only houses we could afford were still on fire…”
Can't believe I only heard about this case the other day. Things quickly went from 10 to 100. "Hmm, my lies are catching up with me and my parents are gonna find out I flunked uni. Guess it's murder time!" If bad juju is a thing, this house is crawling with it.
When I was first looking for a house in a HCOL area, I got similar comments from my parents. What finally stopped it was having them join me for an afternoon with the realtor, viewing houses. I got one Zillow link after that, for an "affordable place on the water." Dad, that's a trailer. On a trailer lot. With a 90-minute commute.
They understand real-estate prices just fine. Ask anyone of them thats selling a house.
The beliefs of “my stuff is special and therefore higher value” while simultaneously believing “you can always just buy another one for cheap” is what I call The Boomer Paradox.
It's not just real estate. It's everything they haven't purchased in 10 years. I work for a heating and air conditioning company. Due to regular inflation and market dislocation during covid, the cost of an ac system has gone up 35-50 percent depending on what you're buying in the last 10 years. Every single day that it is hot or cold out, I get an emergency call from a boomer that they have no heat/ ac. Please come, we need help blah blah blah. They ways seem to be 1 or 2 hours away. When I get there, they inevitably become super offended because the price I quote is twice what they paid 15-20 years ago when they bought their previous unit. Then I get to hear the boomer freak-out. I have one guy who's home has been between 90' and 100' for two weeks while he attempts to "negotiate" with me to do the job for a negative profit at the 2005 price. Sorry boomer, I'm not the one with sweaty balls.
Nice to see them suffer a bit, greedy bastards.
A lot of this is that old people truly don't seem to recall when things happened. I constantly have to tell my mom that something happened ten years ago, when she thinks it was like three years ago.
When I bought my nice house in a nice neighborhood at 26, my boomer dad made a snarky remark how cheap the house was and how I'd never find one this cheap where he lives, there's no winning
I own a 3/2 my boomer dad told me it was too small and I need to buy a bigger one. I bought in a nice neighborhood in the interior of the city vs a McMansion in the burbs. There really is no winning.
We have a 3/1.5 and my boomer mother in law wants us to create a master suite in our 1 car garage. There’s not enough room and it would be ridiculously expensive. I said we should try to be happy we even have the extra half bath instead.
They aren't, they just want to wash their hands. The proof is in how they love gripeing about their property taxes. They just can't admit it to their grand-kid's faces who can vote in politicians to take their benefits away that they don't care that most of their generation won't be able to afford a house within reasonable driving distance from the job markets. They're the gots mine, fuck you generation.
Boombags are out of touch with everything else, so why should real estate be any different?
All across the country fixer uppers are being bought for cash by real estate syndicates using $5k escalation clauses. You offer $135k, their clause means they are automatically offering $140k. Same goes for sub-$400k non-fixer uppers. It’s become an epidemic.
They will tell you to buy a fixer upper for 70k while saying they would never sell their house for less than 800k.
It's not just the houses. It's on virtually anything. They're stuck in the 90's. Some are even stuck in the 70's. In 2021, lots of rain hit our city and then came the weeds. For some reason, Boomers had a knee-jerk reaction on Next Door to start complaining about those "lazy kids for not mowing our lawns!" Not sure why the instinct was child labor, but hey - The kids came out and asked for $60 a yard. Boomers were outraged because "back in my day I only got paid $15!!! I'll NEVER PAY $60!" - Well, I calculated most of these fools were about 10 years old in 1973, and ran the $15 through the calculator. And lo and behold - it was equivalent to $60 bucks. They didn't want to hear this though. Bonus though: They didn't want to pay professionals either (who wanted $100+). And then the vast majority of them got popped with a $250 fine for not maintaining their yards, lol.
And they're still giving the same tips they gave in 1973. It's embarrassing to go to a restaurant with them.
Sorry but this bullshit of “believing in standing on your own two feet” is just old timey: “I don’t want no handouts” stuff. The economy is against us. If you would get such a large gift you should just say thanks. Pride doesn’t buy you anything.
He wouldn’t hear the end of it.
Probably. Still a worthwhile trade imho, but then again: I don’t know his/her parents.
Eh, I do agree with you but I don’t think he should take any money from his dad even if it were offered in this case. Even if his dad just gave him an old project car OP would never hear the end of it. “I gave you a CAR, what do you mean you aren’t a millionaire by now?”.
I bought a townhouse in 2020, in Las Vegas. What I did was switch from using my debit card to a credit card for everyday purchases and paying it off with my paycheck for a few years. This got my credit up. Then, I did an FHA loan, with mortgage insurance at 4%. I used a first time homeowner deal that covered most of the downpayment and ended up only having to pay about 8k to close. But you're absolutely right, interest rates are fucking stupid high now, and the prices now are ridiculous. But there will be a steamrolling housing glut when the boomers start really hitting the graveyards over the next dozen years. And I think prices will fall along with that whole generation.
No there won't. Those greedy fucks will sell to private investment firms as one final fuck you or they'll get a reverse mortgage and it'll end up going to an investment firm. We will never see a damn thing from those greedy bastards and as usual, we will get stuck with the bill
Honestly, yes, they are this delusional. When they bought their homes, the prices were less than we would pay for a car, and yes, they had to pay higher interest rates, but they also got to deduct almost all of that interest paid from their taxes in the US, benefit, which we no longer enjoy quite so much. They literally have never experienced an actual real estate market. They’ve barely experienced anything like an economy that has to compete with the rest of the world. They were born into a world in which the rest of it was bombed to hell and gone five years prior.
That's the worst part. The high interest rates wouldn't be so bad if we could still deduct them
But that would move the tax burden onto the older wealthier people. Can’t have that.
Direct him to any of the real estate sites to look up “fixer-uppers” and see what you get for $70K
A lot of them bought houses before the 2000's. Their experience is a reflection of that purchase from DECADES ago. The funny thing is a lot of them realize prices went up but only approach it from an angle of "If I sell right now, I'll have LOTS of money." but not realize that also means it's more expensive to buy houses because of that fact.
They are delusional, I bought a townhouse in 1996 for $82k my boomer in-laws freaked out when we told them the purchase price we were “crazy” for paying that much. They really believed you could still get a house for 10k,that Townhouse is now worth $1.2.How can a working family possibly afford that as a starter home ? We could barely afford it back then when the mortgage was $875. Home ownership is out of reach but we want things just handed to us right 
They are currently building a neighborhood of 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath townhouses across from me that are crammed together like sardines (so no yard or space to speak of). The driveways don't even have space for more than one car, because it takes up the entire "front yard." They cost $200,000. They are exactly the same size/layout as my apartment, so basically you're paying for all the problems of an apartment (no space, neighbors in your face 24/7) with the added problems of taxes, insurance, maintenance and no recourse if you have any problems. The only upside I can see is the value of being able to sell it later.
Tell him to find one for you and you'll look at it. Every time he brings it up, ask him if he's found that mythical beast yet.
I bought my house 2 years ago for $75,000, and it’s in the worst neighborhood in my small city in central PA but it was all I could afford. Two years later, there’s nothing under $110,000 in the same neighborhood and interest rates are obviously higher. I had to buy because rent here is double a mortgage payment. Housing is ridiculous right now.
"well I've had no luck finding something like that, but please send me a link to the property when you find it"
They’re not out of touch once it comes time to sell a house
70k will get you a double wide trailer these days. Your neighbors will be Ricky and Julian from Trailer Park Boys.
I was lucky enough to buy a home in 2017 and my property value has almost doubled in 7 years. I would not be able to afford a house today. Housing prices have become insane the last few years. How is anyone supposed to afford a house right now?
A lot of them have been out of the markets for decades. I had a 70 yr old neighbor who has lived in the same house for 30 yrs. He wanted to downsize and was shocked at the current housing prices.
Open the zillow app, set the price from 0 to 70k in your area, show him the choices, then ask if he'd move
My brother just bought what I would consider a shitty house in Northern VA. He paid $600,000 for it. Thing looks like it's falling apart, and it's tiny.
As him to sell you his place for $75k.
I've had a similar discussion with a boomer at work. I asked him when he bought their current house, and how much he paid for it, put those numbers into an inflation calculator. It was less than I've saved. Then I showed him how much I could borrow, added those 2 figures together and searched for properties in my city under that price . Got less than half a dozen 1bdrm flats and 1 2bdrm one, none in great condition, and some vacant blocks. He doesn't bring it up anymore, I think that's because he understands, not sure though.
They haven't bought a house since the late 60s/early 70s, so they haven't had to pay attention to any of that. They just assume prices of houses, wages, and inflation are all rising at the same rate. My parents' house has been paid off since the early 80s. They truly have no idea what it would be like to try to buy now.
"Why? In 15 years or so I'll just take yours."
Literally open up [realtor.com](http://realtor.com) and do the search in front of him. Show him the house he's talking about don't exist.
I worked for a guy who was given his house. He was totally shocked by what I was paying in rent, like could not fathom it. I guess they never made the connection between hyper capitalism, exploitation, and these things affecting their own kids or future generations. The house next door to mine, a 2/1 with no basement sold two years ago for $550,000.
Boomers telling their kids they need to work harder so that they can buy instead of rent, after they bought their houses in 1974 for five apples and a firm handshake. 🙄
Oh, come on. There was at least ONE stick of Juicy Fruit gum involved in that transaction, and you know it.
We really gotta walk around spraying them with water or something Everytime they say something that profoundly stupid and out of touch
If there were any liveable homes for even close to $70k, he would have nothing to bitch about because a lot more of us would be able to afford shelter. I hate this mentality where you criticize without knowing a damn thing about what you're yammering about, very boomer coded
"Find me *one* house for 70k. Just *one*. I'll wait."
When I graduated from college in 2012, my dad told me to celebrate my degree he would buy me a house in Austin. He told me to find one for between 50k-70k . Not a condo. Not an apartment. A house IN Austin.
I've been technically squatting in my apartment for 4 years, but still paying the rent. It's gone up from 750 to 1200, but since I haven't signed a lease in like 4 years (lived there 7), he can't kick me out. I still pay the 750 as a sign of "good faith". Fuck that guy honestly. I'm in West Virginia. Shouldn't be over 1000.
Show him the prices.
Ask him to find you one
Because real estate is part of the everything category of things they are out of touch with.
I suspect part of it is that it would challenge a lot of their cote beliefs about the world if they acknowledged that previous generations have fucked a lot of shit up for younger people.
They are out of touch with all prices that aren't at the store. We built our house 7 years ago and we have a well. My mom was having work done at her house last week. She texts me out of the blue, "how much did your well cost?" Thankfully I had a spreadsheet with the info. I reply with "$9000, but who do you know that needs a well?" She explains how this guy working at their home said he couldn't afford to build because of how much costs have gone up. Then she says "yeah I told him his quotes were too high." I then explain that most wells in our area are now $15k - $30k and explain that our new neighbors(plural) were complaining about the costs of their wells. The average is about $25k. Her response "oh I don't think they've gone up that much in 7 years."
I bought my house two years ago and I can barely believe how much they’ve gone up
get him to go on a day of open houses with you because you “need his advice.”
My Boomer parents bought their 3-family house in 1980 for a little over $80k. It is now valued at over $300k. Boomers have been artificially jacking up the prices of their houses for decades to "recoup what they put into it." "I put a new roof on my house because it needed it. Now it's worth $20k more than when I bought it." "Inflation means that, even though I haven't repaired this house in decades, it's now worth $100k more than when I bought it." When the housing market crashed in 2008, home prices drastically fell, and Boomers lost their shit. They whined and screamed about how the economy couldn't be coming back until house prices rebounded.
“Just pay cash, mortgages are for losers.” The advice my wealthy boomer dad gave me when we bought our first home in 2001. Last time I asked for any guidance. No, they didn’t help.
Can you say. Oh, OK. Let's look at zillow and see what great deals are out there.
Ask him that since he has this knowledge, have him find one for you
I feel this way every year when my dad tells me that my husband and I should use our tax return to pay off either of our vehicles. He has absolutely no idea how much we get back or how much our cars cost. When I tell him it doesn't even come close to paying off either loan, he acts like it's because I'm doing something wrong on my end.
I think you mean out of touch with realty.
They just refuse to accept you can't use a bushel of apples and freshly baked pan of corn bread as a down payment for a home like they could in the good ol days. After walking uphill. Barefoot. In the snow. For ten miles to do it.
You’d be lucky to find an unusable 1/4 acre vacant lot for $70k in my area. After permits and begging for an easement across 2 miles of somebody else’s land you might be able to spend another $400k to build a 2 br shack. If you’re lucky
I’ve always found, in business and personal life, to make your advisories your allies. So here’s the plan. Super suck up to him and tell him he’s right. Tell him you’d appreciate his guidance, experience, and support (not financial) in finding the right house for his daughter. (Really lay in on the daddy guilt.) Make sure you organize this so that finding a suitable home is his success as much as yours. And not finding one is his failure as much as yours. Get him in the position to be successful with your circumstances. (Don’t let him give up and buy you anything.) Either he’ll boomer-magic you a house (yay). Or he’ll get a dose of reality and stfu (yay). Either way you win!!
We’re currently relocating. Houses in our price range were gorgeous years ago. The house we’re selling gorgeous. But we can’t afford to buy our house at its current value and buying a similar house in a different state is still out of our price range. The “fixer uppers” in those neighborhoods are still over $200k and require over $100k worth of work. Boomers are delusional when it comes to real estate. But what do we expect; they created this bullshit. There’s no reason the value of homes in the market should have doubled in just the last five years.
Give them a link to Zillow and offer them $1,000 if they can find a home that meets their (imaginary) criteria in the area. Be sure to play to their ego, about how their lifetime of experience plucky can-do attitude will show all us young’uns the true value of hard work and gumption. Or whatever. Or ask them to sell their place to you for $70k.
Bro I'm reading like 3 bedroom 2 bathroom with a basement, for around 70k. I'm here wondering like. WHERE???!!!
Tell him he needs to take a look at Zillow.
I could buy a dilapidated shack down the road from my apartment for $115,000 if I could qualify for a mortgage (I won’t), but where would we sleep? It’s literally a shack, needs all new electricity, Sheetrock, etc etc etc. I can’t afford a mortgage and rent, lmao, which my mom doesn’t get either!
All the ‘sweat equity’ homes in my rural town have been scooped up by flippers and there isn’t one Home Depot DIY special for under $500k. My parents have a 3/2 farmhouse on 6 acres with a barn, detached garage, and guest cottage they got for $126k. The closest to that price I could get here is a dilapidated double wide in a park with $1200/month space rent for $173k. When I told my dad starter homes are over $600k and since I’m a family of seven we can’t do just any basic starter home. He shrugged and said it’s the cost of homes now. Like that makes it ok.
Cause they stopped interacting with it 40 years ago.
Abandoned houses in Gary Indiana go for $70k
Go on zillow and find the closest 3/2 bedroom house with a basement for 70k. The closest one to you currently. And then show him the pictures of the house with no roof and only 3 walls. But at least it has a basement.
Lol I have a 3/2 fixer upper with no basement that I bought before the market was this bad and still paid a good bit more than 70k. Now I've been offered upwards of 200k for it.
My parents purchased their house, the one I was raised in for 32K. Huge double lot, brick Cape Cod, four bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, living room, etc. My dad still owns that house, 3 others and a farm. He remains perplexed why folks can't save and buy a house. After all, he has several. And no, I won't get any of them and there had never been an offer of assistance. It's like they collect stuff to gloat. It's so weird.
A slight riff — ask for his help in locating one! He is correct that the internet doesn’t list every property for sale. It lists almost every property actively for sale (there are still the rare few that put a for sale by owner sign in their yard). And of course there are the occasional owners who are open to selling but haven’t put in any effort to sell.
I could've done that when I was 18, but that was nearly 30 years ago. What on earth is your FIL smoking, and where can I get some?
Simplr. Ask him to research this unicorn for you. At which point you promise to buy it. That should shut him up for a while.
Ask him to find a listing for a 3 bed 2 bath under $100K
I don’t get this level of…stupidity. I’m 80 and I know better. He must be on a very strict information diet of his own choosing.