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Comment by weberc2 | Hacker News Reader

> Do you know how hard it is to save up for a house (on the west coast !!) knowing you'll never get a windfall from Mom and Dad?

Pardon the naive question, but what sort of windfall from Mom and Dad to people expect when saving up for a house? Is it common on the coasts for parents to help their children buy a house? I've never thought to plan for help from my parents for anything (I'll be happy if they can cover their own care).

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I didn't have any expectations but from anecdotal sampling of homebuyers over the past 20 years in the Bay Area there are lots of parents helping with the down payment, maybe sampling bias but it seem like it's mentioned in most local news articles about the home buying market.

Didn't mean to imply a doubt; I just hadn't heard of this before. In my part of the midwest, you were lucky if your parents could help out with college.

My parents gave each of us kids $10K to help us buy our first house. That’s not a ton, but it’s way better than nothing and that was after helping us graduate from respected colleges with manageable student loan debt and giving us (very) low five-figure gifts to help retire the student loans after graduation.

That’s a ton for lots of families. My family couldn’t afford to help with my education, retirement, or home ownership. Even still, I have more expendable income than I ever dreamt, and I can even give a decent amount away. This is why this article seems really out-of-touch to me—it you’re making six figures and struggling I think you just need to discipline and a budget. Who really needs a $400K house on a San Diego beach? Fantastic that her parents helped her out, but that’s a really out-of-touch definition of “struggling”.

It is common for first time home buyers to get a significant portion(if not all) of their first deposit for their mortgage(often 20%) from either family assistance or inheritance. This is especially common in the more expensive housing markets in the US.

Is that true? The last article I read about millennial homebuyers is that the reason outstanding mortgage balances are increasing is because more millennials are putting down less than 20% because they couldn't otherwise afford to.

From anecdotal data, yes - very true. I think you're seeing a wider spread than before. People who are trying to get homes with less % down than before and people who are using their parents' money. An article I read (that used anecdotal data from real estate agents) was suggesting that around 35% of new home buyers in SF Bay are getting partial to full down payment from parents.

Anyone in my social circle who bought their first home (anywhere on the west coast) and is in their 20's or 30's, they didn't do it by themselves. Their parents chipped in quite a bit.

In a homeowner and the vast majority of my peers are too. I know -ZERO- people who had this sort of financial assistance for a down payment. We all saved up our own money.

I live on the east coast though.

Well shit. I'll be right back; I have to call my parents.

Common? 20%? You are in a rich kid bubble my friend

I’m not convinced this is biased. The GP says it’s common (in whatever market they are in) for house buyers to get help with a down payment (up to 20%) from parents, not that it is common for people to be offered that help from their parents. One could suppose that those people who don’t get help are less likely to be homebuyers and so aren’t included in GP’s anecdote.

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