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this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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You are probably in a different tax bracket than us.
The median house hold income is 60kish in the US. Meaning half of all households make less than that.
2k for rent or 3k mortgages just isn't doable. But that is the only thing availabe for most of us. The math can't work with taxes, insurance, and utilities. Children right now is a poverty sentence for 50% of Americans.
And "make more money" can't work for everyone. The median is 60k per household, meaning 10s of millions of people would need to find much higher paying jobs to be able to deal with this. But that's not possible, there are not 10s of millions of 80k+ jobs just sitting around.
As I said before - lack of knowledge. You are assuming that the monthly repayment will be $3k. There are tools available for everyone to make it way less.
Let's start with offset account. Having it setup with your mortgage will decrease the interest part of the repayments as long as you will keep adding money to that account. More money, smaller interests.
Second tool - interest only loan. For first few years you will pay only interests. In my case it will cut the monthly repayments almost by half. Combine it with the offset account and each month you save some money on offset account the interests rate will be lower allowing to save more.
And finally - interest in advance (pay the whole year of interests upfront). I don't know US tax laws but where I live this gives me tax deductions starting from day one. This will work only for investment property.
Also there is a thing called refinancing a loan. When the interest only and in advance things are coming to an end refinance a loan and start over.
On top of that is the mindset. People need to realise that in order to make things better some sacrifices have to be made. So when buying a house get the investment property first and work your ass toff to pay it off as soon as possible. After few years the value of the property will go up and you will be able to get a bigger loan. Buy another investment property in a better neighbourhood to get a bigger return.
To summarize, talk to someone who knows that stuff (not a banker, a real money guy), check bank offers, read articles about investments, learn about taxes. It's easy to complain and do nothing.
When people can't even afford 2K rent, there are no games to play. Median house hold income is 60k After taxes that's closer to 40k. When rent alone is 24K, there are no games to play, no moves to be made. The math doesn't work. 2K isn't me over exaggerating, it's median.
https://www.rent.com/research/average-rent-price-report/#:~:text=The%20median%20national%20price%20now,2023%20when%20prices%20reached%20%241%2C937.
Then you're supposed to put 6% into your 401k, then how ever how much for medical insurance , then cost for car insurance ,gas..... where is money for food? Where is the 20% for investing for retirement? The basic of budget is 50,30,20. You're not supposed to spend more than 50% of your income on "needs", yet the median rent is more than 50% of the median after tax household income.
All those tricks are just putting the debt ahead into the future. That only works if you think you'll be making more in the future, but wages have been super stagnant.
You can't play games when rent requires more than half your income.
I own my home, life is fine, I'm fine. But try to do the math, try to make it work. For 60k gross pay and 24k yearly rent, explain how to make it work, how to save up the 10% down for a house and save for retirement.
I was starting with aroud $45k usd before taxes. I live in Australia, one of the most expensive countries. But instead of complaining and saying that math doesn't work I made it work. For years I was saving on everything, putting away every penny on managed fund. It didn't give me huge interest but at least I didn't lose on inflation. Fast forward 7 years and I'm about to buy two houses.
It's all about mindset, dedication and knowledge. And no, this isn't moving debt to the future. It's working around the debt, it's making the debt to work for you. Again, talk to a real money guy and he/she will explain you how it works.
Cost of living, rent, and taxes are all lower in Australia than US on average. Also median income is higher in Australia.
And where did you live? Did you have room mate or live with family?
Melbourne - expensive city to live in and I was living with my wife. The $45k was a household income.
And what was your rent?
It was somewhere around 1500 USD per month. On top of that I had to pay for overpriced health insurance (required by my visa - additional few hundred dollars per month) and I had a huge loan I took to move to Australia (visa costs, moving my stuff across the world, car, etc.). In total I was paying around 2300 USD per month, and I still had to pay for utilities and food.