"Cash-strapped", looking for a $560k house, and burning up to $1.1m over the next few years - which friends and relatives lent them.
The level of privilege fucking burns.
The level of privilege fucking burns.
This is not an understatement for anyone who has just finished reading the entire article. It's in every paragraph. You have to read it just to get a sense of the level of selfishness on display at every level.
That said, I don't think these people are evil, it's easy to loose sight of the fact how lucky you are for all of us. We need to guard against it at all times and it's not easy. I'm guilty of having got somewhat irritated by a homeless person in the past and now I think I was an idiot for being like that and having children has made me so much more understanding and loving of everyone. Going up is also easier than going down, if these people had as much money as me (and owned no properties) they might be suicidal, however I'm quite happy with my life :-) Although of course I do aspire to own one home at least for my family.
Luckily, we still owned the two-bedroom condo at King and Bathurst. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of the soon-to-be four of us sharing 900 square feet, but I figured it would only be for a few months.
almost made my blood boil. Oh dear, how could life treat you that badly. My god. This is nothing but two privileged naive idiots stupidly buying a half million dollar house without even having looked inside and then trying to backwards rationalize and talk themselves deeper into neurosis.. publicly even, so they can farm consolation and attention so their mental abstractions never have to fall apart.
* 22K is the median salary. The people under 22K get propped up by social security up to around that amount (theoretically, practically not)
* top-20% percentil starts at 38K
* top-13% is 45K (relevant in the UK as it is the limit for high tax bracket)
* top-10% is 50K
* top-5% is 70K
* top-2% is 110K
* top-1% is 160K
The average cost of a house is 250K, 400K in London. Only the smallest fraction of the population will be able to get that amount of money from just working. You need to be propped up by something, your parent, luck, post-code lottery on your first ring of the property ladder, ...
You need to borrow from the future and the past to afford the present.
edit: formatting
edit2: all amounts are in GBP.
* Your data is for all workers including part-time workers (including students and part time for lifestyle reasons like parenting). Full time work pay averages are quite a bit higher - median at £28k, 90th percentile at £56k. In London where the housing lottery problem is more extreme, it is partly because pay is also higher - full time annual median at £35k, 90th percentile at £75k. * The median earner doesn't buy property - the people who buy houses are the prime-age segment who earn quite a bit more.
> a young family without a lot of money.
...
> Our budget was $560,000, but nothing came on the market at that price
wat.
> We sold our two-bedroom rat trap for $635,000
wat.
> Luckily, we still owned the two-bedroom condo at King and Bathurst.
Well, that's okay then.
Seriously, these people live in a completely different universe from me.
In this case something as simple as "having a family member with $150k" creates a remarkable difference in consequences.
They did something stupid, which is embark on a renovation without sufficient funds and having no idea what they were doing. The consequence for them is owing a family friend money and being even higher on the wealth and assets ladder with growing equity.
For the person that doesn't have that, the consequences would be losing all of their savings, foreclosure, ruined credit, and a near zero chance of getting another shot at doing it again.
Having access to resources compounds and grows over time, and and changes everything about ultimate outcomes.
Cry me a river.
You two in this thread sound like children. Grow up.
These people had a backup condo to live in after selling their first house. You don't get to use 'cash strapped' when you have a backup condo.
If you can drop nearly three times the entire median family income per year for half a decade on renovations alone, you're not 'cash-strapped'.