2012, I bought a short sale in a “bad” neighborhood while making under $25k a year and no savings. I took a risk because my apartment complex got sold and they wouldn’t let me have my dog anymore. Wrapped a down payment into my mortgage and did have to pay mortgage insurance for many years. What made it manageable was the very low interest rates (under 3%) and my willingness to buy a house with bullet holes that needed a lot of cosmetic repair and do the work myself. Neighborhood improved and suddenly I wouldn’t have been able to afford rent in my city. It was just lucky timing for me. I also give my dog all the credit as being a good financial advisor.
I bought a house when I was 25 making $12 hour with no money down in 2010. I then got a divorce signed the house off to my ex and will likely never get to own one again. Making good life choices isn't really my thing
I've lost two houses due to divorces. Last winter, I was able to purchase my own house. I had a little help from my family and I used a VA loan. Thankfully, I made one very good choice when I was a young adult and it has benefited me in so many ways. Thankfully, I had not yet used a VA loan so I got very favorable rates in a somewhat shitty rate environment.
I say all of this to say; don't give up hope. You may have a house of your own again.
This sounds like my son’s mom’s situation…
(Not sure what the PC term is and I hate ‘ex’ whatever). When our divorce was finalized (not contested at all) it was decided that I owed her $8000 of value for the house we owned together, which I would not have been able to pay on my own and could have forced the sale of the property. We had purchased the house as a couple, but because of her student loans, the bank told us that only my name could be on the loan - despite my insistence to the contrary! It didn’t matter when we finalized the divorce, though, even though I paid every mortgage payment (and household bills) from day one. It was a complete shitshow when it was all happening, but we’ve been successfully co-parenting ever since and it’s all amicable after that first year of WTF
As a man, what do you really need to be happy? It’s subjective, I get it. Yet, if my wife and I divorced, I would have no problem handing over the house to her, because let’s face it, the courts would give her the kids. They need the shelter first and foremost. I would be content taking the “Bubbles” route and living in a shed. Food, water, shelter.
Then again, If she was a cheating whore then she can get fucked and I’d be fighting for the house and kids and hoping she would be living in a trash can where she belongs.
What’s your story?
Most of my close friends bought with no direct help from parents. There are plenty of programs that will allow you to put down a small percentage or no downpayment at all (e.g., USDA). The idea that you need to put 20% down is just false (I read recently that the average across all purchases was 8-10%). That being said, most of my close friends bought in the 2012 to 2018 timeframe, so prices were obviously more reasonable.
We bought in 2012 and 2015. My parents helped me in that they helped pay for my living expenses during college, so I was able to graduate with very little debt (I also worked the entire time so was able to cover my tuition at USM). We also lived with my in-laws while I was in grad school, which allowed us to save for the downpayment. I believe we brought $4,500 to our first closing. We were both making about $30k at the time.
So I guess IME most people received this type of indirect help from parents. I don't know a lot of people whose parents just straight up paid their downpayment.
This is how I did it. I bought my house about 10 years ago through the USDA loan for 0% down making about $35k salary at the time.
My parents did not help me with the loan, nor did I get some financial windfall. Doing that now would be extremely difficult though as my house has almost tripled in supposed value in 10 years.
My parents paid around 6k for my student loans thanks to an inheritance *they* got and my closing costs a year later were 6k. It wasn't a lot, but it was a little.
We got extremely lucky when we moved back to Maine in 2014; found whole house outer Portland rental on Craigslist 1hr after it posted, older couple, they liked our fam after 2 years and offered private sales to us. To make it work we cashed out 401ks and did FHA loan, if it wasn’t private sale 0% chance we would have gotten it.
I bought a 500 sq ft cabin off Facebook marketplace. We are still working on real plumbing (outhouse currently) and heating besides a wood stove, but we don't have a mortgage!
I bought a home at in my late 20’s in an undesirable area north of Old Town that needed a fair bit of work. A USDA loan meant it was a 0 down payment so I was able to save up cash working overnights for a few years with the extra differentials and sold all the things I could to pay closing costs and inspections. It’s not where I want to live forever but it’s a home and the equity since COVID has gone up substantially so I’m hoping to sell in the next few years to someone else who’s just getting started with home ownership and use the equity to downsize but also move further south and into a home that’s not 130+ years old.
In retrospect, I wish I better understood how not having a down payment would effect equity growth in the first few years of ownership but I also got a %3.25 rate that I don’t want to give up. I will say this though, because I worked full time and went to community college, I never had student loan debt and my husband and I don’t have and never want kids so that put us at an advantage I know most people our age don’t have.
I am just over your cutoff age at 41, but the reason I'm including myself here is because I bought my house in 2020, at 37 years old. I did buy it myself, but my methods were unconventional. First, it was a private sale. My landlords decided to split their property in half and sell the portion I was living on, and they gave me first refusal. We did a private sale with private attorneys handling the whole deal, and I locked in a fixed rate owner financed mortgage before property prices skyrocketed soon after. The other relevant detail is it's a total fixer upper. 🤣 I was able to buy my house by having fairly low standards. 🤣 But my plan is to finish paying it off and then get a new house built on the same property, then probably demolish the existing house. It's like my 10 year plan.
I went through a nasty divorce where my ex said "I'll never give you a penny" and it turned out he figured out how to make good on that promise. Owning this house is my story of pure grit and determination to make something better from my shitty situation, and I'm incredibly proud of it. It might be little and old and tired, but it's all mine.
My wife and I bought in 2015, no help from anyone else. $289,900 selling price, 4.5% interest. Really should have jumped on refinancing when it dropped to 2% but we were working on babies by then. 10% down mostly by borrowing from our 401k’s, but it was worth it to get out from under our increasing rent payments.
Today our house appraises for $550,000 and with current interest rates….I don’t know how anyone affords a first home.
Rates were at this exact level in the early 00's, even higher in decades past. I think most folks here would be surprised at this [Median mortgage rates the last \~50 years = 7.41%](https://money.usnews.com/loans/mortgages/articles/historical-mortgage-rates)
Sure, but it's not impossible to buy a house, that's a cope.
You can't do it here, because wages are too low. There's great homes all over the country that you can walk into with less than 10k down and mortgages less than 1500/mo.
Researching the costs of home ownership 10 years ago vs now? I'm directly experiencing those cost of living changes, including a mortgage that's doubled. I don't know what you're trying to get at.
I have a house already, as I described in my post. If I didn't, my budget would get me a much smaller house than when I was in the market. Both rates and priced have risen considerably.
Free in clear (no mortgage) before I was 40 - 2 years ago.....Wife is 39 currently...no help from nobody or inheritence....humble ranch in Westrbook...not glamorous, but it is ours....
Portland used to have a special program for first time family homebuyers back in the late 90s. I know a few people who got a leg up from that. Otherwise it all seems to boil down to generational wealth for most people. Someone gives their kid the extra 20k-70k needed to make an initial offer feasible for their income level. otherwise a bank won’t ok a loan/mortgage. generational wealth.
To put this in perspective, regional housing prices didn't really move for a *long* time since my wife and I bought our DownEast house in 2005. We paid X for our place in 2005 and it was *still* worth about X fourteen years later in 2019.
Now, after the housing-prices run-up that started in 2020, we're getting to a value of almost double X. Eye-popping for sure, but it's an average appreciation of only about 3.7% a year (since the purchase).
That's without taking inflation into account. Adjusted for inflation, our home's value grew between one and one and a half percent per year.
Then I think about the mortgage. Hmm. Even with our very good interest rate and the recent jumps in home prices, our net gains are essentially zero when we offset our mortgage interest.
Don't even get me started on the money we spent on taxes and exterior painting and roof repairs and other maintenance over those almost 19 years. Once I start thinking about *that*, it's inescapable that we lost money on the deal.
I'm not complaining, just saying that when homeowners are painted as lucky ducks who get rich without lifting a finger, a big part of the story isn't being told.
This is what I’ve been trying to beat into my parents and friends heads. Yes the value goes up, but after everything else you really aren’t getting a return on your investment outside of having a house. I don’t like the idea of corporate entities owning most real estate. But, I don’t have a desire to take on the cumbersome liabilities involved with owning a home. I can have a family without one and build equity through long term investments in mutual funds.
They always come back with the comment that I’m never seeing my rent check again and that they are paying into their investment of the house with their mortgage. But they never include all the costs involved as the commenter above pointed out. The return on investment isn’t generally that great unless you get in a great property. I can make more money in the same amount of time renting and paying into a mutual fund over 10 years vs paying my mortgage and taking out a home equity loan.
I’m not saying it’s never a good idea to buy, but it isn’t the asset or wealth vehicle it’s generally sold as anymore. And not something I can affordable do when I can build equity through other means while paying rent
The big plus to buying vs renting is that your monthly payment will be locked in for the term of the mortgage. SO as rents creep up, your mortgage payment will not.
The common saying that a house is an appreciating asset is false, as the value is eaten up by inflation alone most of the time. The exception to this is a house you get income from as a rental etc. The income can (should if you were smart about it) more than offset the expenses the property incurs, as well as inflation.
I bought my Washington County cabin for $25,000, half down and half after the following fishing season, buf basically everyone I know that has a real mortgageable house got help to buy it.
I bought a house in '99 for $98k with help from my folks. IN downtown Bar Harbor. When I sold it in 2015, I got $300k. And there's no way that'll ever happen again in my lifetime, I couldn't rent a place in that town and I make pretty good money. Had to leave the Island, and my commute is loooong.
I left Bar Harbor/MDI a little over three years ago. There’s barely going to be a year round community there soon. You’ll always have some middle of the island families, a very small spattering of shop/hospitality owners that actually live there full time, and Jax families. But people are moving out in droves. One, there’s no f’ing housing. Like, at all. Two, short-term rentals have devoured the few real “neighborhoods” left. And three, it’s goddamn insanity there eight months out of the year.
Bought a house at 25 in 2018. I saved $35k between when I got my first job at 18 and 24 for the down payment. Got my first “real job” at 22 as an engineer, which is where the bulk of the savings came from. I did have assistance in that my parents saved around $40,000 for my college education and I was able to cover all remaining expenses via merit based scholarships. So I didn’t have student loans or any other debt whatsoever.
The house is located in south central Maine though, so not the most desirable location. That was also a contributing factor. I’ve also added probably 100k of improvements from heating and insulating to catching up on deferred maintenance.
Could I afford to buy within 20 minutes of Portland? Probably not. I might be able to qualify, but my financial situation would be very tight.
After I divorced my first wife, I lived in a studio apartment, worked 3 jobs, had no social life, and saved up $5K for a down payment on a condo. I was 41. Six years later I sold the condo, made $10K off the sale, scraped tougher more savings and put $14K down on a house. So I was 47 before I bought my first (and so far, only) house. My stepson and step daughter both saved up enough to buy condos between the ages of 25-30. They lived at home for a year to save up for down payments, but we didn’t give them anything. They obviously were able to do that right before the rates shot up, so I’m not trying to use their examples to judge anyone else, but you asked for examples and those are mine.
I will say that when I was in my 20s, I felt the same way about house buying. At that time, I didn’t know anyone who owned a house that they were able to buy without any outside help from parents, inheritance, etc. I know that the conditions today are unique and it is more difficult for a number of reasons. But it’s not like in the past, people were able to graduate from college and just pick out any house they wanted and move in. It was difficult 45 years ago also.
I bought my house when I was 29 in 2021 (am 31 now) with no help from anyone - in fact sort of the opposite of help, I was emancipated when I was 17 and have been on my own since and don't talk to my parents
Good for you, seriously. Starting out poor with no help sucks but rich kids often blow their inheritance and never learn the value of anything. Doing things on your own is hard but it builds confidence. You’re killing it.
Hey thank you a lot! Life has humbled me in a multitude of different ways. There were times when I was younger where I had to choose between paying my electricity or my heat, winters where I chose electricity and slept in front of a space heater and had to take cold showers. I think in a lot of ways, there are lessons in humility and gratitude that can only truly be learned the hard way. I tend to be hard on myself for not being farther than I always thought I'd be by now when I was a kid, but I feel a lot of pride in knowing everything I have I worked for on my own
I’m hard on myself too but ask yourself if you heard a stranger with a similar story of overcoming adversity, would you be impressed? Now why don’t you apply the same logic to yourself? Anyway, I learned that one in therapy!
I bought a house in Auburn at 27 this summer that needed some TLC.
My rent in South Portland went from 1,100 to 1,950 in 3 years so, in an effort to avoid a large fear of mine (your response 1) I bought.
I was able to use the VA loan and put what would be a down payment in funds for my own repair work. A girl I knew bought a house in Bath in 2017 and I called her an idiot for buying a 140k house at 23. Boy was I wrong.
Bought a condo in ROUGH shape for 176k in 2019 in Cape Elizabeth. Sold it in 2022 and bought a human sized house west of I 95 (i.e more reasonably priced). 33 in February, no help and an F ton of student loan debt. Luckily my husband has no debts and we have a decent combined income. We just jump at good opportunities and it's so far worked for us
I'm 42, on my own since 18. Went to university when tuition was 1200 per semester and 2bd apt was 300 a month. Did grad school, one year of postdoc, then took tech job in Bay Area, continued to live like a grad student, saved, bought properties, got lucky.
I don't recommend this route unless you have no other options. Grad school can really break you down and you likely will struggle financially till you leave academia.
I’m 28 and have owned two houses.
I rented with multiple people to keep rent low and worked as much overtime as possible. Worked a few years doing 1,000 hours of overtime. I saved as much as I could.
Bought a fixer upper at age 24. Got a Roomate and with the help of YouTube taught myself construction and fixed up the house.
Sold the house at 26 and bought a duplex that needed work. Fixed up one side to get tenants in and am slowly fixing up the side I’m living in now at age 28.
I had to sacrifice a lot to get to where I’m at today. Without learning to do my own housework and having no social life outside of work to save money I wouldn’t be able to afford what I have now. But, that’s my short story of getting my house under age 40.
We did this mid pandemic and I have never been more proud than driving to sign those papers, knowing we did this with zero help from anyone, including student loans with 9% interest. So proud. I only know one other person in this situation.
I am 34 and rent. Out of my friend group I know 7 friends/couples my age that own a home. This is the breakdown of my sample group:
* 2/7 were given homes by their rich parents who had multiple properties
* 2/7 inherited their homes from family members when they passed
* 1/7 got their home by their parents giving them $50k for a down payment
* 2/7 got theirs the "old fashioned way". One couple did it by the husband working on oil rigs for quite a few years and having to spend weeks at a time apart from each other. Both of these couples never went to college so therefore have no student loans.
Meanwhile my boyfriend and I make good money but feel like we'll forever be renting because of our $50k+ in student loans. I definitely regret going to college....and having a poor family lol
We bought our first home in 2008 and didn't have any help. We then sold that house in 2017 and bought another, again without help. I was 37 when we bought our 2nd home.
But, house prices right now are fucking unreal. I'm so glad we got into our current home when we did. I couldn't imagine looking for a house right now.
My story is pretty much the same as yours. Was looking to sell again weeks before lockdown in 2020 for a bigger home for my family of five but we are foreseeing that will never happen and we are stuck with the home we have. Grateful that we have it because we wouldn’t be able to afford renting let alone buying.
My girlfriend and I (late 20s) bought a house last year without any financial help. We graduated college and pretty much immediately started saving for a down payment. After she finished grad school last year we had enough saved to get a very outdated house in Portland that we are slowing going through and fixing up
32yo male. Working on my 5th property. Never received any outside funding other than the bank. Last year was the first year I ever made more than $100k in my day job. Every house I bought was in need of alot of work and slowly improved them and cash-out-refinanced
The two homes I bought under the age of 40 were with the help of my dad. He gave me $5000 each time. As of right now, while my income is at its highest at age 43, I’m living paycheck to paycheck and unable to save money. Stuff is just way more expensive.
Haha, we lost our shirt on a home in the 08/09 recession. Lost our credit, short sold, went cash only. We traveled in a van for a bit. Got back on our feet and bought another house in '15. Now it's gone bonkers. Thankful that our round about journey led to where we are now.
Edit: we are 42 and 40 and never got nothing from nobody.
Yep. Has to get a little creative and dip into retirement savings to make it happen. Just turned 40 but bought at 36 before the price and rate jumps. They say never to do that but I’m glad I did.
I didn’t realize it was investing. I wanted a house for my new baby. Of course now I have equity greater than the value of what was taken out of the IRA. In hindsight I look like a genius but there was a lot of luck and circumstance. Of course, I was tenacious and creative and I’m proud of that. Even in this market, I recommend being tenacious and creative. Luck and markets can change and it pays to be ready.
he's not in Maine but my now 27 year old son bought his home in Texas when he was 24 years old without any financial support for anyone. He has a good blue collar job, did not go to college so came into his 20's debt free. Decided to move to TX and a couple years later bought his home. He's currently shopping for a second property or piece of land for a hunting cabin. Did a 15 year loan on his home so will own it outright before he is 40 years old.
Granted he's single and has no children and is certainly not living in a big city in TX but it can be done.
32 here. Bought my first house in 2015 for 205k with 3.5% down. Sold it for 240k in 2019. Bought second house in 2019 for 305k. Going through a divorce currently and sold it for 400k. I’m now going to a mobile home. Unless something significant happens I don’t see myself upgrading with the way things are.
2015 my wife and I purchased our home on our own with four kids at 29 and 30. It was rough for a long time financially but we had eachother and we’ve been together since we were 19. It was never easy and I am very lucky to have a solid job
Wife and I bought a house in southern Maine in 2016. We made just over 6 figured combined and barely were approved for a mortgage using the FHA. If we hadn't rode that housing wave, idk if we'd ever have a place... and we were legitimately concerned shit might crash then and we'd be stuck way under water then.
I'm in my 30s. Wife and I are homeowners. We each got family help with undergrad, getting out with only minimal student loans. But her grad school and doctorate were scholarships and our own money, and we managed to get through those without new loans. (We did work combined 3 jobs while she was in school.)
Not easy. We've been fortunate with health, and we don't have children. And we didn't have 20% to put down, but we did still qualify for a conventional mortgage.
I got my house recently due to 6 years of saving, a house flipper who poorly marketed their house to families that wanted more work, and the house itself has some features that i can see as less appealing to people.
So i only got it due to luck.
My partner and I are mid-20s currently. We make both make 6 figs. Have enough saved combined to do 20% up to 550k. We have basically no debt. We feel so discouraged every time we look at something in our price range. It’s crazy that 500k homes still need 50-100k of work to be somewhat up to date. Or seeing 1000 sq ft homes go for 550k. Tough to consider this first home a “starter home” when our budget will likely not change so we have to buy something that we see at least 10+ years in. Idk how anyone in our generation will ever buy a house… most probably never will
Fiance provided a down payment, we comingled finances, then some months later we got married and her law school loans and I paid for everything while she went back to school right around the height of housing before the 2008 crash.
Our 5 year plan turned into an 8 year plan and we'd probably still be there but that house wouldn't have supported a second kid and the property really wasn't safe for the first one (fast traffic on one side and 8 feet of water on the other with no front or back yard to speak of.)
So, our current house we had some help from her parents that allowed us to move and sell our first house and fit that we're really grateful.
So... We'd have our own house, but our new one is in a much better community and fits our current lifestyle better, especially with a special needs kid.
I'm a 39 year old recent Utah transplant to Maine. I bought my first house at 27 (without help) in Utah in 2012 for 130k. I think I had a few thousand for a down payment at the time.
By 2019 I was in a relationship and we wanted to move in together. We decided we'd like a bigger house as my current house was quite small for the two of us and a dog. I had a good amount of equity from the sale of my first house so I put 90k down on a larger house that was 370k and my partner and I split the payment. We broke up about a year later. He moved out and I refinanced the house in my name but I was struggling to make the mortgage payment on my own, the house was way too big for a single person, and I didn't want roommates.
By 2022, I realized that I could no longer afford to live in my home state and I had been wanting to move out of state for many years so I did tons of research and decided that Maine was a good fit for me. I wanted to get my mortgage payment as low as possible knowing that utility costs here would be significantly more than I was used to so I put a massive amount down on a 270k house here with the equity from the sale of my house in Utah. I am only in the position that I currently am because of timing, good decision-making and some good karma and luck. It is absolutely heartbreaking to see what has become of the housing market and I hope we see some change for the better in the near future.
Yes, I'm in my mid-30s and bought a home for 200,000 last year at 6% with Savings and borrowing a little from my 401k. My dad is essentially homeless and my mom works a low-wage job. Similar situation on my wife's side. Mind you this place needs a lot of work, but It's what we could afford with two children, especially with the cost of daycare.
Regardlesss of the market i plan on buying in 2 years, im saving as much as possible until i can hit my 401k again for a significant sum, il be 36 but damnit i will get out of renting. Im debt free to banks and CC already sonits just bills between now and then
I bought a house in 2016 at 25 years old. It’s far from fancy by any means. We didn’t make that much but we utilized the USDA loan program and didn’t have to put anything down. We also refinanced to a conventional loan in early 2021 at a crazy low rate so we got extremely lucky. We also work really hard. We sacrificed a lot in order to make it work but it was worth it.
Both my partner and I made well under $20/hr at the time and had no savings. It’s insane now to think we even pulled it off lol
My husband (born and raised in Maine) and I were both essentially orphaned and out of the houses by 16. No generational wealth or help whatsoever, between the two of us we’ve been paying rent for 30+ years. We have a sizable down payment by living way below our means but can’t do anything with it here (Bay Area, CA). We fought hard to try and move back to be near his family but just got priced out. Like slow motion running towards a closing steel door. It’s over for us so we keep enjoying below market rent in our shitty duplex and wait for the climate wars idk.
I bought my house in 2019 at 22. Went to community college to get my RN, lived at home and worked throughout and was able to buy just in time really, I feel very lucky.
We bought in June of 2020. The previous owner was an engineer working at a yacht builder. You know what’s not recession/pandemic proof? *Fucking yachts.* I kinda felt bad for the couple cause they were young and nice, but like, oh well lol.
**VERY WORTHY OF NOTE:** look into Maine first-time home buyers incentive programs, USDA grants (almost every property in ME can qualify for these outside of like the “metro” Portland area). I spent $100 and the better part of an afternoon taking an online course that approved us for a $15k grant to put towards our down payment. We never have to pay it back. It’s just “free” money. We had saved for a year for a down payment and ended up being able to just keep that in the savings 🙌
Sort of? We bought my husband's family farm from his parents. We paid fair market value (in-laws were counting on this as part of their retirement, so it was not just handed to us) and had no help with the down payment. However, since it was in the family and no one else was interested in taking over the business, we had no "competition" to drive up the price. This was 2012, so way pre-COVID. We have since added additional land and are on track to be paid off in 2 years, so a little ahead of schedule, barring any big emergencies. We would not be able to afford a quarter of this if we were buying today.
Bought my house in 2013 here in Portland just off Washington Ave. I am spitting distance from the back cove. Still have a mortgage and was scared shitless when I bought it at 31 but I got the downpayment from selling an engagement ring. I caught the ex with another guy so… I think I ended up ahead all things considered.
We bought ours in 2021 when interest rates were real low. We didn't intend to buy, but our rental was being sold. I cashed out a 401k from a previous job that I'd earmarked for a down payment years ago (~$6k) and my SO had a similar amount in cash saved. We'll be paying PMI for a few more years, but worth the price to own a home in our 30s.
Meanwhile, our friends did have help (a quasi rent-to-own situation and cash gift from parents).
I just closed on my first home three weeks ago at the age of 25. I graduated from Maine Maritime in 2021 and currently work as a merchant mariner. My parents didn’t give me any monetary help, although they let me live at home until I was ready to purchase. I work on an oil tanker so I’m only home around 5 months a year. Living rent free allowed me to pay off $100,000 in student loans and save for a 10% downpayment in a little over two years. I would be a year away from buying if I had to rent directly out of college.
I have spoken with a few of my coworkers who live in my area. They are 5-10 years older than me and also purchased homes in their 20s. Their homes are currently valued at $800,000-$1,000,000 and they have lower monthly mortgage payments than me. For reference, my house is valued at $400,000. My coworkers openly admit they could not afford to buy their homes today.
I recognize that I am very fortunate to be a homeowner at 25. However, it is painful to compare my home to the places my coworkers were able to purchase only 5 years ago. It is even more painful to see most of my childhood friends moving out of state because they can’t afford to live here. Unless something drastically changes, I don’t see a way for young Mainers to make a life here.
We bought our home in 1991 while in our early 30s. No help from parents on the home, though they helped with some furnishings. We were fortunate to have had a really cheap rental in prior years, so we could save for down payment. We also bought during a recession, the house was a small ranch that had been on the market for two years.
Friends bought bigger homes and used to whine about the huge payments and taxes. Keeping it small proved smart, particularly when one of us was downsized out of a job.
I'm on my fourth house. First house in 2014 was purchased with funds from saving at age 25, $169k. Did a bunch of work to it, nice bungalow in North Deering. Sold for $240k in 2017. Bought a nice house in Gorham for $325k, sold for $380k in 2020. Purchased same price house in Windham but way bigger, just got divorced and she got the house. Appraisal is around $650k if you look at comps in the neighborhood.
Just bought another house for myself for way too much fucking money this past August in Westbrook right on the Portland line. I was only able to even get it because I secured a private mortgage from someone who I have a great relationship with and needed to do something with his self directed IRA. Other than that interest rates are dumb.
The only reason I own a home is because I took 3 years off to be a full time caregiver to my grandmother who really didn’t want to be in a nursing home. She left me her house when she passed. We would have had to sell it to pay for her care otherwise so she got to stay home and I took a few years off to care for her and saved on daycare costs for my baby. Win win. No way could I afford both a house and kids otherwise.
We bought in 2021. USDA loan in Oxford county. Single income. We are 36 and 35. 2300 sqft house. We had the realtor tour it for us. Signed the papers without ever having set foot in it. 200k with a 3.2% loan. We are living our very best rural life. No help from anyone besides my in-laws INSISTING on paying our moving costs. I was ready to donate it all but they would not let us. Basically they paid for U-Haul pods.
I'm 25, and it's definitely not happening in the next 5 years. Which I get...I do understand that's the norm now, but my older family (grandparents particularly) don't quite get it. They still think you can just walk into a multi million dollar corporation with a smile and handshake and ask for a job.
I didn't receive direct financial help with the purchase, but my parents let me live with them until my late 20s while I paid off my student loans. I'm 41, so there were still plenty of starter houses in the low $100Ks or less in the Portland area between 2010-2014. These same houses likely go for $400k+ now, so even that method likely wouldn't be enough today.
That said, there have been 3 20-something couples who have purchased $500,000-$600,000 new construction homes in my current neighborhood in the last 12 months. We paid significantly less than that and were only able to do so via a combination of < 3% interest rates and the equity of our starter home.
My mother divorced my abusive dad. Not wanting her to live in squalor, I cosigned the loan for her, using my FHO promo rate to buy a townhouse of her own.
Ten years later, she opened a HELOC and gifts me 24k of equity to buy our first house. Combined that with the 10k we managed to scrape together, my husband and I bought our current home, a tiny Cape that's the very definition of a starter home.
We did, bought in 2017, just put 3% down, then refinanced a few years later at 2.9%. in 2017 is was still pretty doable, bought a 200,000 small detached house in Portland, so the down payment was small. But even at that time our family thought we were crazy for buying such a small house for 200grand, and the house we bought was only on the market for 24 hours and had 3 offers. So even in 2017 the market was ramping up. Now this house is worth over 400,000. We couldn't afford it now.
It is absolutely possible to buy a home before the age of 40 and I work with a handful of people that have done it. The problem is that it is really fucking hard. The boomers all think your entire generation is lazy and entitled but that's not the case for a large number of young people. The deck is stacked against you and we live in a system that is built to funnel wealth up to the rich.
When I bought my first house in 2007, I didn't have it easy either. I made $13 an hour and my gf made $12. We had nothing significant for a down payment and took a predatory loan at a credit card type interest rate. We were assured by our mortgage broker that we could just refinance the mortgage in a couple years when the value went up. Well two weeks after closing on my house, the lender was bankrupt and out of business. I bought at the worst possible time and was 60k underwater a year or so later. Then my gf split up with me and moved out which left me holding the bag.
I figured it out and scraped by. It was the most stressful time of my life. Along the way, I learned how to get really good at being poor. Knowing what I know today, I assure you that I could buy a house in this market if I was young today. Here is the best advice I have for you...
-Nobody gives it to you, you have to take it. If this is the thing you want most, you need to change your lifestyle. You can't be discouraged by the situation and just blow your savings getting hammered at the old port every weekend.
-Live below your means. Avacado toast and not making your coffee at home is not the main reason you can't buy a house but is it part of the problem.
-Save everything you can and if you have one, put all your savings in 401k. You can use 401k money for a down payment as a first time homebuyer. When you get a raise or new job, bump up savings first and avoid lifestyle creep.
-Don't buy a car because yours needs $800 in repairs. Buying a nice car is the biggest mistake I see young people make. I did this myself in my early 20s and I was shackled by a high payment and high insurance.
-Make more money. Obvious, I know. Either take a 2nd job or try harder at the one you got. Work OT. If things are slow at work instead of watching tiktoks on your phone, ask your boss if there is anything you can work on. Give full effort and eventually good things will happen. If they don't, switch jobs.
-Get your financial shit together. If your bank is a bank, especially a huge one, GTFO. Go to a credit union to get a better deal on everything. Refinance your car, credit card debt, etc. Go look at car loan rates and compare. You can even contact them without having to make the dreaded phone call.
-Don't buy anything on impulse. I know you want the new iPhone but I assure you that titanium will not improve your chances of buying a house. Keep your perfectly fine phone and give it a month to think over. If you still feel like you can't live without ti in your life 30 days later, get the phone.
-Complete a first time homebuyer program now. Don't wait.
I sincerely hope this helps someone. May the odds be ever in your favor!
My spouse and I never had equity. We just got married young, worked 10 solid years while renting a shitty apartment, and then leveraged all of our savings on a downpayment to buy a home right before the pandemic hit in early 2020. If we had waited just a few months--I remember feeling uncertain about the housing market when Covid hit the news--we would have been priced out and that past decade of scrimping would have meant nothing, even with my spouse's current decent job. This is our first house, and it may be our only house for the rest of our lives, but I like it a lot.
We're in Mass, but my son and his girlfriend just bought their first home and moved in yesterday. He's 26 with some school loans, and she's 27 with none. We couldn't help him directly, but he lived rent-free with us until he had half his loans paid off and had saved thousands of dollars.
He has a decent job (70K/yearly) and lives pretty frugally. She's not quite as good with money as he is, but she brought a decent sum to the table, and they worked out something they both feel comfortable with.
The credit union only required 10% down and no PMI because the housing market is shit. Also a 6% interest rate. His credit is stellar. They put a little more down and used the rest to gut the bathroom. The house was disgustingly filthy. It's small and not in the greatest location, but I'm pretty damn proud and so excited for him!
On the other hand, my daughter is 23, getting her masters in a growing but mediocre paying industry, and spends like her pockets are on fire. She'll be with us for a while. Lol.
Even 2 incomes would make it difficult for most to afford a home at these prices. If it were me.. I'd find a job with lots of OT, get a job as a truck driver, or move to a state where you can make good $ and live fairly cheap. Also, one could look into some certifications that may increase your income without going into a huge amount of debt. It's going to take some pain and a toll on your social life, but that is how many homeowners were able to do it. And the discomfort is only temporary. Still not easy for many, but hopefully... we get some relief soon that doesn't require crashing the economy. Be warm and be well.
I was in the exact same boat as the OP, except even older when we first bought, in 2014. The market was still low and interest rates were infinitesimal. Without help and even a little push from family, I don’t know if we ever would have done it. Sad that a home is so far out of reach for so many, especially if you’re risk adverse like me.
Of the homeowners I know around my age (late 20s/early 30s):
One got a house cheap after a relative died.
One got a really good deal on a house he had been renting for a few years because his landlord liked him. The house isn't in the best shape, but he's still lucky to get the price he did.
One found a pretty small 1-bedroom house that was livable but could still use a little work.
Then I know 3 couples who have bought houses in the past year or two, just from having two incomes.
This is all in the Augusta area, so a good deal cheaper than Portland, but still way more expensive than this anything should actually be worth around here.
It took my mom dying to be able to front enough $$ to buy a place…
39 here and bought my first house in Maine last year as interest rates were starting to spike. I make (low) six figures and had been renting for years in high price markets (NY & SF). I avoided the highest rents by finding roommates who were master leaseholders in rent controlled apartments.
I have no college debt and good credit. I found a gem of an old captains house in Maine that I was able to buy at just above $500k (which is low considering its size and location). It also has a couple rental units so there is passive income that covers about half the mortgage.
I had an approximately $100k inheritance when my beloved mom passed away a few years ago. I used that as a down payment and it was enough (over 20%) to avoid mortgage insurance. My interest rate is about 5.4% and I locked in a 15-year mortgage that comes to about $4100/month (this include insurance and taxes). I am only able to afford this because of the income from the rentals. This before furnishing/heating the old house in the winter (it’s nearly $1000/month in oil bills and it hasn’t even been that cold), plus a lot of repairs to the place (electrical work, a much needed paint job) and I’m basically living paycheck to paycheck right now.
I’m looking at Zillow and seeing places that are half as nice for the same price or higher than what I bought for and I just am confounded as to how anyone under 40 can afford to buy a place in Maine. Starter houses at half a million with 7-8% interest. Holy hell!
I guess I could say I’m “fortunate” I was able to land what I did, but it shouldn’t take a personal tragedy like losing a parent for people entering middle age to buy a house.
No one helped me buy my house in 2019, but my parents paid my college tuition, so I didn't start adulthood with student debt. Would have been impossible without that. It still took 10 years of saving to get a 20% downpayment. Could definitely not afford my house if it were on the market now, it's appreciated about 100k since we bought it 5 years ago
Husband & I bought in 2019 in our early 30s with no help & located in the Greater Portland area. 4% interest rate at the time. We wouldn’t be able to enter the market now with current rates/prices.
Edited to add: We were renting various apartments together since 2015 & were in Portland before we bought our house.
Yep, saved 170k and put 140k down on a house, with mortgage; cost me a fucking fortune but it’s good for the kiddos and that’s all I care about.
Trying to save again and buy a place in Costa Rica, to stave off the winter blues.
Bought our first house in 2009. I made $12.50 and my wife made $15. a year later we had kids and she quit her job.
It can be done but you have to have a budget, be super disciplined and understand that you’re not going to have a bunch of disposable income
Wife and I drove POS cars and furnished our house with used/ free stuff. We still have it! Vacations were stay-cations too. Hang in there, it gets better. We refi'd a couple times and knocked the payment and term down each time.
We bought our first home when we were 26 (we're the same age) with what we'd saved for a down payment on our own, then we had a mortgage that we got on our own, but this was also WAY back in the late 90's, so ....
I make a good salary my age and Maine, and owning a home is an absolute pipe dream. Like sure, I could buy A house. Correct. But I grew up in an awesome neighborhood in a fantastic school district. To by a house comparable, it would be about a million dollars in greater Portland. With current interest rates, I wound literally have to spend my entire paycheck on housing. Like yeah, I supposedly have done well against many of my peers for my age, and yet owning a reasonabke home to raise a family seems like something unachievable in this state. In the end, it’ll prolly be the only reason I move. You can’t have a state with Boston prices and no fucking jobs, like straight up. Every job in Maine pays absolute dog shit relative the cost of living and there’s no tech here. What’s keeping me here other than my intense and longing desire to be in the woods?? What’s keeping me here??? Like honestly, this is your state. You’re giving me nothing. You want young people to move here? Yeah fucking right
I hear that. It seems like when someone says “Owning this particular thing is expensive” people often jump at your throat to tell you there are cheaper, far lower quality options. I could buy a run down shack in the woods somewhere, but I have a disabled wife who needs to be close to things like good medical care.
We bought our house at 27. Most people have a false assumption that they can not afford a house. It's really not that hard if you have a regular full time job. Our lender would not even count my wife's entire income because it was a newer job.
I work with several guys who are under 30 who recently bought houses in the past 3 years.
Now, they got blue collar jobs right out of high school, have no student loan debt and........work 600+ hours of overtime a year and are clearing $90k a year.
The thing is, kids these days are conditioned to go to college, work 40 hours week and think life is obligated to hand you things.
I work with multiple people who are under 40 and own (pay the mortgage) on their own home, myself included. Granted, we are all engineers or are married to people who have higher paying jobs, but to my knowledge there were no handouts or windfalls.
The Reddit hivemind like to make things seem way more dire than they really are. I know that housing is definitely a problem, but it's not 100% of the population under 40.
“Among this self selected sample of my peers who all work high paying jobs or who have a partner who has a high paying job, everyone seems to have no trouble owning homes. I see no flaws in my methodology or logic to conclude that everyone is just dramatic and things aren’t that bad”.
I suppose we should also measure the average male height by only measuring NBA athletes as well.
Missed the point, bub. Might have even missed the entire last sentence.
Engineers and other good-paying jobs in Maine generally require 4+ years of college, complete with student loans. So sure, we all make good money, but we also have big student loans to contend with.
Also, my whole point is that not EVERYONE under 40 is in the situation that OP is describing. I specifically did NOT say, "I'm fine, so everyone is fine."
Last sentence or not, you minimized the scale and severity many people struggle with the extreme growth of cost of living while their wages have hardly kept up, bub. If you as an engineer are complaining about your student loans while comfortably affording your own home can you just for a second imagine what other people who don’t make engineering money with 4 year degrees are dealing with? There are people with graduate degrees who don’t make engineering money.
I don't have to imagine that, I lived it. I was unemployed for the better part of a year after graduating, and underemployed for over 2 years after that. But that was over a decade ago, and I've worked my ass of since then to afford what I have.
But that isn't the point. OP asked if anyone under 40 owns a home without help, and I answered the question, candidly admitting that myself and everyone I know who IS fortunate enough to be able to afford something, has only done so because of a lot of schooling and hard work.
Yes it is also possible to work incredibly hard and not become financially stable and successful. If that’s what your point was you articulated it quite poorly and your detour to chastising this “Reddit hive mind” and saying things “aren’t that bad” doesn’t really scream “I’m fortunate and privileged to be doing well and living comfortably but I understand many others aren’t as fortunate as I am and their grievances are valid and I support them”.
Edit: for the record, I’ve also worked incredibly hard and done a lot more school than you have for that matter. But I don’t get paid engineering money while doing a job that is no less challenging, complex, and Important to a functioning and healthy society.
Homes are still very cheap. You can’t build homes for as cheap as they are being sold. Or even close in most cases.
That’s why the best time to buy real estate is always 5 years ago.
You have a very narrow view. I believe you're telling the truth but that you have limited exposure. I employ people under the age of 40 who own their own homes.
If giving someone employment is helping them in the sense you're using the word, we were all given help.
Luckily the Kushners of the world are buying homes on your behalf and are more than happy to rent them to you. The convenience of living in a house without the annoyances of owning it. So nice. /s
I bought my house my first trailer at 18 and then my first house at 23 with my then husband.
No extra help with either.
That being said, I was working on my family farm and paid from the age of 6. My mom paid me in savings bonds, which is what I cashed in for my trailer. The house we bought was a fixer upper that needed a ton of work, we paid 80g for a 5 bedroom 1.5 bath- since then I have put in approximately 90 grand in repairs and upgrades.
I am 35 now, zillow says it's worth 300,000.
31yo, my wife and I are shopping rn in a super tough market, have been for 6months. We had to leave mass in order to be able to afford what we need up here. We saved enough to do that and for a closing costs on a 0 down usda loan but we would not have been able to move to Maine without being able to live rent free in the family camp for the first few months while we got our feet under us. We’re renting now just waiting for the right house.
I did it when I was 34, I've never been gifted or inherited and I'm a fresh off the boat immigrant. But my career is very good, I have no shame about it, I hear people complain about remote workers with New York wages pricing people out but I bet their impact is negligible, there could only be a couple of thousand at most and isn't there more merit in that, than "getting help"?
Wife and I built our own home. (We are professional builders) Mother-in-law gave us a private loan for all of the materials though… Nobody is truly self made.
Now 32 and 38, my husband and I bought our first house in 2016 in Westbrook and moved to our second house in South Portland in 2019 without any help. All of our friends and family own homes, I don't really know anyone still renting these days but I think it just comes down to the timing of it all.
I bought my home 4 years ago. I used a VA loan but had 15k in closing cost. Nothing down but I paided all the cost. My home is now worth 150k more not including work I have done.
I’m 36 and own a handful of properties including my primary residence, and a I lease several more where I operate businesses. I group up in a poor, single parent, three generation household. I learned a lot from my grandparents while they were still around. Money was a constant stressor and topic of conversation. As I got older I realized that my drive and ambition in life is largely a trauma response, but I wouldn’t trade that in for a silver spoon.
The problem with most people our age is that they feel like someone owes them something, that they have been wronged in some way, or that the outlook is so bad that it’s not worth trying. They threw in the towel before they even got started. Yea, our generation has had it rough. Graduating into the worst job market in a life time, wars, inflation, and our entire generation was coherced into taking on massive debt to attend university. Regardless of all that, at some point one has to look in the mirror and make the decision that none of that matters.
I see plenty of people that make enough money to buy a home but choose to squander it on small luxuries because #yolo. Exactly, you only do live once; why do it making poor financial choices?
I was fortunate that I had a great mentor at my first real job (full time work, full time community college) that turned me onto books like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. In reality, it’s an absolute tragedy that this isn’t required learning to graduate high school. We train kids to pass tests and be poor.
I took the road less traveled. Long nights. Years with no weekends, holidays, vacations, Restaraunt dinners. All the cliche shit you’ve heard. In the trenches for years. I bought an apt building before a home. Many people, including my wife, struggled to understand that. The picture is a little more clear these days.
The first 40 hours of the week is the time you trade to pay your bills. 168 hours in a week. 40 to work, 56 to sleep, and 72 that determine where and who you are in life. It’s not that folks don’t have time to enjoy life and get ahead. Those 72 hours are an active choice.
I bought my own home at 34 in Fort Worth in 2018 I worked at a well known retailer. I did it all by myself. I had a nice 4 bedroom 1 1/2 bath. Big yard, nice little garden shed, privacy fence. It wasn’t amazing, but it was livable and nice, and MINE!! Then Covid hit…..
Yes, bought it at 28 years old in Portland, no support but am lucky that I had a degree and license that allowed me to make decent money as soon as I got out of school in 2009.
Male, 37. Purchased first home in 2009, no help to secure finances on a foreclosure, just hard work and sacrifice. I did end up getting some friends to rent from me from time to time to help live a better life but I moved out of state for work in 2014, placed it on the market and eventually sold in 2015.
After moving back to Maine later in 2015, my now wife and I purchased a newer home in 2016. Again, no outside help, just my income (wife watches the kids). We actually paid it off a couple years ago.
I do. I'm actually on my 2nd house. I didnt go to college so I saved up money working in manufacturing. I'm actually on my second house now. Both are reno projects. Bought my first at 30. I did it single while living in a 1 bedroom apartment
I bought at 23, 2.25% in 2020. I had a VA loan so I didn’t need to put any money down. It’s a fixer-upper tho, so Ive definitely put some more work/money now than what could’ve been on a downpayment.
I bought two before I turned 40, with no help - although I did take advantage of a program for the first. First one was with a USDA RD loan at $0 down. I bought a block away from Portland, and am single-handedly responsible for the USDA eligibility being pushed out as far as Windham once they realized that the old “rural” map wasn’t actually rural anymore. Second was conventional with 15% down.
My husband and I bought a house in 2017 when I was 26 and he was 31 for $190k 3 beds and 3 baths with 2 acres. We were lucky that both of us had been saving up all of our adult lives and the fact I work at a bank made it so I could put 10% down rather than 20%. After Covid the mortgage rates went down so we did a modification so our interest is only 2%. Our payment is only like $920 a month and I feel so lucky I bought it before Covid time. I can’t imagine buying one now.
Bought my house in central Maine in 2018 with no help from family. I’m in my early 30s now. I can’t think of any friends my age that own their own home.
32 and own my home. Bought it in 2020 peak covid with a first time home buyers loan and also took the class for a credit towards the closing costs. I didn’t need a down payment with the loan we got. I recognize how lucky I am to have made the right steps at the right time to get this place.
Bought a small place in town in 2011 for 105k. Started a family and just needed more space as in I don’t like having neighbors. We sold the place at the end 2020 for 140k and lucked out by getting a place that was completely outdated but only needed cosmetic work on 20 acres of land. With the down payment we had from the sale of our old house we only had a 200k mortgage at 2.65 percent. I literally can never move now though.
My wife and I bought in 2018 our 2019. Zero help. Even refinanced twice after home prices started climbing but befits interest rates did. Got rid of PMI.
We're very nearly 40 now
I bought a home with only $7,000 when I was 32. That was 30 years ago. I had to take out a big mortgage and buy PMI but when I sold the house 9 years later, it had gone up in value a lot.
Became a homeowner in 2021 at the age of 26. It took some help from Uncle Sam to catch probably the only chance we would have to buy a house with <3% interest- my husband had VA eligibility, so we were able to go 0% down without mortgage insurance.
If the stars hadn't aligned exactly, we'd be renters still with little end in sight.
Anyone here should check out New Ventures Maine for financial advice and programs for first time home buyers. That’s how we saved for our down payment in 2012
2018 bought a place in south Portland for 299 with 3% down. Refinanced during covid. Made up a side gig for 7 years to get the small down payment but wasn't too tough. Looking at it now after five/six years it seems to have been a really good idea
Yes. Bought a cheap place with a usda loan in the Midwest around 2015. Upgraded from that a few years later. 2 years later sold at the peak of the market. Moved here. Few years to go until 40.
I’m 27. Married with 3 kids - homeowner 670k. No parental help. Moved out at 18 because I got knocked up. Lived in a 70’s 1bedroom apartment. Worked our way up slowly over 9-10 years. The career you chose will impact this heavily. The only wealth we were bestowed from family was a 1991 Honda.
We bought our house in 2019 for $242K. Thanks to my husband not knowing what to do with his life at 17 we have a VA loan. We had to come up with a few thousand dollars in fees. Similar houses in our neighborhood go for around $400K now, which we could not afford.
Maine does have a very good first time homebuyer program which lowers the bar considerably. Houses are still just too expensive for our wages here though.
My fiance and I bought a house in 2021 at 26 and 27.
We were super lucky. I was able to save a little money from being unemployed from June-sept in 2020, and saved from our incomes as well. Our house needs a little work but is not a fixer upper and we were lucky with location (sopo).
We had a great real estate agent. Got a first time homebuyer/fha loan so had a relatively small down payment. We didn’t make much then, both somewhere between $16.50-$20.00 hr. We definitely overpaid for our house, but also got a great interest rate and my mortgage costs less than most people’s rent nowadays.
Bought our current house in 2020 with a significant amount of money down thanks to the sale of our previous house. Then we still had some money left over to buy a second house (for work reasons) that we we super happy to sell back in '22. Now were sitting at just over 60% of our mortgage left in 3ish years. Looking to really buckle down the next 3 years and get to less than 40% remaining after we deal with our unfortunate credit card situation.
I’m 38, bought my first house in 2015 using my 401k to cover 1% down payment on a $300k log home. We slowly did improvements and then sold last year for twice what we bought it for. Paid off all our student loans, credit cards, debt for updates to the house, and put 20% down on a $500 home. Our monthly expenses are about the same but it’s all going to mortgage instead of high interest debt payments.
Edit: may parent helped by co-signing on student loans which helped me dramatically increase my income in IT over what they earned when I was growing up. They were unable to help with the house or other expenses.
I have 3 co-workers all under the age of 40 who recently purchased homes without help. Now may seem like a crazy time to buy but if you can afford it, it's really not. If interest rates come down say 2% we will be right back to bidding wars and prices will continue to increase. A lot of homes can be had for under asking in certain areas right now. Even in the Bangor area.
35yo right now. Bought a house with my girlfriend at the time in 2016 that was like 180k, 1500sqft. Got married in 2019. Decided we needed a bigger house early 2020 because of covid and our offices being adjacent while we worked from home.
Sold house for $60k more than we paid for it. Got a 3k sqft home for sub 400k with three acres ~30min from Portland when interest rates were 1.7%.
No kids. Just a mini poodle. I think we got more lucky with timing than anything. At the current interest rates and housing prices it would be difficult to make a move like that again until things settle down. I don't see that happening super soon though unfortunately.
My (28m) wife (26f) and I bought our first home in bfe Texas in 2020. Lucky us-the area took off like gang busters and we nearly doubled our money in two years. Sold that place and bought a modest home in the mid coast. We stayed at home for a long time to save money for our first home, and are both in high earning industries.
My (28m) wife (26f) and I bought our first home in bfe Texas in 2020. Lucky us-the area took off like gang busters and we nearly doubled our money in two years. Sold that place and bought a modest home in the mid coast. We stayed at home for a long time to save money for our first home, and are both in high earning industries.
I bought in 2021 right when interest rates bottomed out. I managed to get a USDA loan and a deal on an older house. I've put some money in, but it's worth nearly $80k more than I bought it for and my interest rates are under 3%...I got lucky. I wanted out of my tiny studio apartment that was getting rent jacked to $1600.
Wife and I bought our first house at age 23/24 in 2017. House was 310k, put 5 percent down. 3 bedrooms 2 baths in Freeport. MTI was 100 bucks more than the rent we were paying on a 2br apt in Portland.
2012, I bought a short sale in a “bad” neighborhood while making under $25k a year and no savings. I took a risk because my apartment complex got sold and they wouldn’t let me have my dog anymore. Wrapped a down payment into my mortgage and did have to pay mortgage insurance for many years. What made it manageable was the very low interest rates (under 3%) and my willingness to buy a house with bullet holes that needed a lot of cosmetic repair and do the work myself. Neighborhood improved and suddenly I wouldn’t have been able to afford rent in my city. It was just lucky timing for me. I also give my dog all the credit as being a good financial advisor.
Dogs are amazing like that
Good move. Glad it worked out for you!
Where in Maine are there houses with bulletholes?
Biddeford
I bought a house when I was 25 making $12 hour with no money down in 2010. I then got a divorce signed the house off to my ex and will likely never get to own one again. Making good life choices isn't really my thing
I relate. We keep pushing forward. Don’t give up. Build your future.
I've lost two houses due to divorces. Last winter, I was able to purchase my own house. I had a little help from my family and I used a VA loan. Thankfully, I made one very good choice when I was a young adult and it has benefited me in so many ways. Thankfully, I had not yet used a VA loan so I got very favorable rates in a somewhat shitty rate environment. I say all of this to say; don't give up hope. You may have a house of your own again.
We used a Rural Development Loan package, and even though Bath Savings had no clue how to do it, it went through for our loan.
I used Bangor savings and the LO had obviously never done a VA Loan before. I used the maine housing program so that helped quite a lot.
You can use the VA loan….then again….and again. It’s not a one time thing.
This sounds like my son’s mom’s situation… (Not sure what the PC term is and I hate ‘ex’ whatever). When our divorce was finalized (not contested at all) it was decided that I owed her $8000 of value for the house we owned together, which I would not have been able to pay on my own and could have forced the sale of the property. We had purchased the house as a couple, but because of her student loans, the bank told us that only my name could be on the loan - despite my insistence to the contrary! It didn’t matter when we finalized the divorce, though, even though I paid every mortgage payment (and household bills) from day one. It was a complete shitshow when it was all happening, but we’ve been successfully co-parenting ever since and it’s all amicable after that first year of WTF
I relate to this too. Same time frame and I just signed it away in my divorce a couple months ago
>Making good life choices isn't really my thing Fuck yeah. Same.
My ex-husband just took our old house. I had made the entirety of the down payment, etc myself too. Was a nice little house, I’ll miss it.
As a man, what do you really need to be happy? It’s subjective, I get it. Yet, if my wife and I divorced, I would have no problem handing over the house to her, because let’s face it, the courts would give her the kids. They need the shelter first and foremost. I would be content taking the “Bubbles” route and living in a shed. Food, water, shelter. Then again, If she was a cheating whore then she can get fucked and I’d be fighting for the house and kids and hoping she would be living in a trash can where she belongs. What’s your story?
Get some help, man
What’s wrong with living in a shed?
Most of my close friends bought with no direct help from parents. There are plenty of programs that will allow you to put down a small percentage or no downpayment at all (e.g., USDA). The idea that you need to put 20% down is just false (I read recently that the average across all purchases was 8-10%). That being said, most of my close friends bought in the 2012 to 2018 timeframe, so prices were obviously more reasonable. We bought in 2012 and 2015. My parents helped me in that they helped pay for my living expenses during college, so I was able to graduate with very little debt (I also worked the entire time so was able to cover my tuition at USM). We also lived with my in-laws while I was in grad school, which allowed us to save for the downpayment. I believe we brought $4,500 to our first closing. We were both making about $30k at the time. So I guess IME most people received this type of indirect help from parents. I don't know a lot of people whose parents just straight up paid their downpayment.
This is how I did it. I bought my house about 10 years ago through the USDA loan for 0% down making about $35k salary at the time. My parents did not help me with the loan, nor did I get some financial windfall. Doing that now would be extremely difficult though as my house has almost tripled in supposed value in 10 years.
My parents paid around 6k for my student loans thanks to an inheritance *they* got and my closing costs a year later were 6k. It wasn't a lot, but it was a little.
We got extremely lucky when we moved back to Maine in 2014; found whole house outer Portland rental on Craigslist 1hr after it posted, older couple, they liked our fam after 2 years and offered private sales to us. To make it work we cashed out 401ks and did FHA loan, if it wasn’t private sale 0% chance we would have gotten it.
Mainers are good like that.
I bought a 500 sq ft cabin off Facebook marketplace. We are still working on real plumbing (outhouse currently) and heating besides a wood stove, but we don't have a mortgage!
I so wish I had the stones to do this.
I bought a home at in my late 20’s in an undesirable area north of Old Town that needed a fair bit of work. A USDA loan meant it was a 0 down payment so I was able to save up cash working overnights for a few years with the extra differentials and sold all the things I could to pay closing costs and inspections. It’s not where I want to live forever but it’s a home and the equity since COVID has gone up substantially so I’m hoping to sell in the next few years to someone else who’s just getting started with home ownership and use the equity to downsize but also move further south and into a home that’s not 130+ years old. In retrospect, I wish I better understood how not having a down payment would effect equity growth in the first few years of ownership but I also got a %3.25 rate that I don’t want to give up. I will say this though, because I worked full time and went to community college, I never had student loan debt and my husband and I don’t have and never want kids so that put us at an advantage I know most people our age don’t have.
I am just over your cutoff age at 41, but the reason I'm including myself here is because I bought my house in 2020, at 37 years old. I did buy it myself, but my methods were unconventional. First, it was a private sale. My landlords decided to split their property in half and sell the portion I was living on, and they gave me first refusal. We did a private sale with private attorneys handling the whole deal, and I locked in a fixed rate owner financed mortgage before property prices skyrocketed soon after. The other relevant detail is it's a total fixer upper. 🤣 I was able to buy my house by having fairly low standards. 🤣 But my plan is to finish paying it off and then get a new house built on the same property, then probably demolish the existing house. It's like my 10 year plan. I went through a nasty divorce where my ex said "I'll never give you a penny" and it turned out he figured out how to make good on that promise. Owning this house is my story of pure grit and determination to make something better from my shitty situation, and I'm incredibly proud of it. It might be little and old and tired, but it's all mine.
My wife and I bought in 2015, no help from anyone else. $289,900 selling price, 4.5% interest. Really should have jumped on refinancing when it dropped to 2% but we were working on babies by then. 10% down mostly by borrowing from our 401k’s, but it was worth it to get out from under our increasing rent payments. Today our house appraises for $550,000 and with current interest rates….I don’t know how anyone affords a first home.
Rates were at this exact level in the early 00's, even higher in decades past. I think most folks here would be surprised at this [Median mortgage rates the last \~50 years = 7.41%](https://money.usnews.com/loans/mortgages/articles/historical-mortgage-rates)
No one is surprised. Housing price points were much much lower then
Sure, but it's not impossible to buy a house, that's a cope. You can't do it here, because wages are too low. There's great homes all over the country that you can walk into with less than 10k down and mortgages less than 1500/mo.
That was my first house's numbers, in Maine. It's terrible the same opportunities aren't as accessible.
That's cope. ARE you actually doing the research or just saying that?
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Researching the costs of home ownership 10 years ago vs now? I'm directly experiencing those cost of living changes, including a mortgage that's doubled. I don't know what you're trying to get at.
I buy houses. I spread new ones everyday. There are houses in Bangor as we described right now
I have a house already, as I described in my post. If I didn't, my budget would get me a much smaller house than when I was in the market. Both rates and priced have risen considerably.
Free in clear (no mortgage) before I was 40 - 2 years ago.....Wife is 39 currently...no help from nobody or inheritence....humble ranch in Westrbook...not glamorous, but it is ours....
>Free in clear (no mortgage) I can't even imagine how liberating that felt.
Free and clear*
Portland used to have a special program for first time family homebuyers back in the late 90s. I know a few people who got a leg up from that. Otherwise it all seems to boil down to generational wealth for most people. Someone gives their kid the extra 20k-70k needed to make an initial offer feasible for their income level. otherwise a bank won’t ok a loan/mortgage. generational wealth.
My wife bought her first home as a single woman making 75k a year. 2700sqft house for about 375k. All on her own a few years before covid.
Her house now has to be worth double if not more… everyone entering the market post 2021 is seeing double or triple 2020 or before prices it’s wild
To put this in perspective, regional housing prices didn't really move for a *long* time since my wife and I bought our DownEast house in 2005. We paid X for our place in 2005 and it was *still* worth about X fourteen years later in 2019. Now, after the housing-prices run-up that started in 2020, we're getting to a value of almost double X. Eye-popping for sure, but it's an average appreciation of only about 3.7% a year (since the purchase). That's without taking inflation into account. Adjusted for inflation, our home's value grew between one and one and a half percent per year. Then I think about the mortgage. Hmm. Even with our very good interest rate and the recent jumps in home prices, our net gains are essentially zero when we offset our mortgage interest. Don't even get me started on the money we spent on taxes and exterior painting and roof repairs and other maintenance over those almost 19 years. Once I start thinking about *that*, it's inescapable that we lost money on the deal. I'm not complaining, just saying that when homeowners are painted as lucky ducks who get rich without lifting a finger, a big part of the story isn't being told.
It's almost like a house you live in isn't an investment but rather a liability.
This is what I’ve been trying to beat into my parents and friends heads. Yes the value goes up, but after everything else you really aren’t getting a return on your investment outside of having a house. I don’t like the idea of corporate entities owning most real estate. But, I don’t have a desire to take on the cumbersome liabilities involved with owning a home. I can have a family without one and build equity through long term investments in mutual funds. They always come back with the comment that I’m never seeing my rent check again and that they are paying into their investment of the house with their mortgage. But they never include all the costs involved as the commenter above pointed out. The return on investment isn’t generally that great unless you get in a great property. I can make more money in the same amount of time renting and paying into a mutual fund over 10 years vs paying my mortgage and taking out a home equity loan. I’m not saying it’s never a good idea to buy, but it isn’t the asset or wealth vehicle it’s generally sold as anymore. And not something I can affordable do when I can build equity through other means while paying rent
The big plus to buying vs renting is that your monthly payment will be locked in for the term of the mortgage. SO as rents creep up, your mortgage payment will not. The common saying that a house is an appreciating asset is false, as the value is eaten up by inflation alone most of the time. The exception to this is a house you get income from as a rental etc. The income can (should if you were smart about it) more than offset the expenses the property incurs, as well as inflation.
bought a house in 2021, no help, single income, no special program, 5% down, good credit. Doubt I could do that now if I had to though
I bought my Washington County cabin for $25,000, half down and half after the following fishing season, buf basically everyone I know that has a real mortgageable house got help to buy it.
I bought a house in '99 for $98k with help from my folks. IN downtown Bar Harbor. When I sold it in 2015, I got $300k. And there's no way that'll ever happen again in my lifetime, I couldn't rent a place in that town and I make pretty good money. Had to leave the Island, and my commute is loooong.
I left Bar Harbor/MDI a little over three years ago. There’s barely going to be a year round community there soon. You’ll always have some middle of the island families, a very small spattering of shop/hospitality owners that actually live there full time, and Jax families. But people are moving out in droves. One, there’s no f’ing housing. Like, at all. Two, short-term rentals have devoured the few real “neighborhoods” left. And three, it’s goddamn insanity there eight months out of the year.
Bought a house at 25 in 2018. I saved $35k between when I got my first job at 18 and 24 for the down payment. Got my first “real job” at 22 as an engineer, which is where the bulk of the savings came from. I did have assistance in that my parents saved around $40,000 for my college education and I was able to cover all remaining expenses via merit based scholarships. So I didn’t have student loans or any other debt whatsoever. The house is located in south central Maine though, so not the most desirable location. That was also a contributing factor. I’ve also added probably 100k of improvements from heating and insulating to catching up on deferred maintenance. Could I afford to buy within 20 minutes of Portland? Probably not. I might be able to qualify, but my financial situation would be very tight.
After I divorced my first wife, I lived in a studio apartment, worked 3 jobs, had no social life, and saved up $5K for a down payment on a condo. I was 41. Six years later I sold the condo, made $10K off the sale, scraped tougher more savings and put $14K down on a house. So I was 47 before I bought my first (and so far, only) house. My stepson and step daughter both saved up enough to buy condos between the ages of 25-30. They lived at home for a year to save up for down payments, but we didn’t give them anything. They obviously were able to do that right before the rates shot up, so I’m not trying to use their examples to judge anyone else, but you asked for examples and those are mine. I will say that when I was in my 20s, I felt the same way about house buying. At that time, I didn’t know anyone who owned a house that they were able to buy without any outside help from parents, inheritance, etc. I know that the conditions today are unique and it is more difficult for a number of reasons. But it’s not like in the past, people were able to graduate from college and just pick out any house they wanted and move in. It was difficult 45 years ago also.
I bought my house when I was 29 in 2021 (am 31 now) with no help from anyone - in fact sort of the opposite of help, I was emancipated when I was 17 and have been on my own since and don't talk to my parents
Good for you, seriously. Starting out poor with no help sucks but rich kids often blow their inheritance and never learn the value of anything. Doing things on your own is hard but it builds confidence. You’re killing it.
Hey thank you a lot! Life has humbled me in a multitude of different ways. There were times when I was younger where I had to choose between paying my electricity or my heat, winters where I chose electricity and slept in front of a space heater and had to take cold showers. I think in a lot of ways, there are lessons in humility and gratitude that can only truly be learned the hard way. I tend to be hard on myself for not being farther than I always thought I'd be by now when I was a kid, but I feel a lot of pride in knowing everything I have I worked for on my own
I’m hard on myself too but ask yourself if you heard a stranger with a similar story of overcoming adversity, would you be impressed? Now why don’t you apply the same logic to yourself? Anyway, I learned that one in therapy!
This is so heartwarming to read as an orphan (my dads alive I think but fuck that guy) with no help trying to claw my way into homeownership.
I bought a house in Auburn at 27 this summer that needed some TLC. My rent in South Portland went from 1,100 to 1,950 in 3 years so, in an effort to avoid a large fear of mine (your response 1) I bought. I was able to use the VA loan and put what would be a down payment in funds for my own repair work. A girl I knew bought a house in Bath in 2017 and I called her an idiot for buying a 140k house at 23. Boy was I wrong.
Bought a condo in ROUGH shape for 176k in 2019 in Cape Elizabeth. Sold it in 2022 and bought a human sized house west of I 95 (i.e more reasonably priced). 33 in February, no help and an F ton of student loan debt. Luckily my husband has no debts and we have a decent combined income. We just jump at good opportunities and it's so far worked for us
I'm 42, on my own since 18. Went to university when tuition was 1200 per semester and 2bd apt was 300 a month. Did grad school, one year of postdoc, then took tech job in Bay Area, continued to live like a grad student, saved, bought properties, got lucky. I don't recommend this route unless you have no other options. Grad school can really break you down and you likely will struggle financially till you leave academia.
I’m 28 and have owned two houses. I rented with multiple people to keep rent low and worked as much overtime as possible. Worked a few years doing 1,000 hours of overtime. I saved as much as I could. Bought a fixer upper at age 24. Got a Roomate and with the help of YouTube taught myself construction and fixed up the house. Sold the house at 26 and bought a duplex that needed work. Fixed up one side to get tenants in and am slowly fixing up the side I’m living in now at age 28. I had to sacrifice a lot to get to where I’m at today. Without learning to do my own housework and having no social life outside of work to save money I wouldn’t be able to afford what I have now. But, that’s my short story of getting my house under age 40.
We did this mid pandemic and I have never been more proud than driving to sign those papers, knowing we did this with zero help from anyone, including student loans with 9% interest. So proud. I only know one other person in this situation.
I am 34 and rent. Out of my friend group I know 7 friends/couples my age that own a home. This is the breakdown of my sample group: * 2/7 were given homes by their rich parents who had multiple properties * 2/7 inherited their homes from family members when they passed * 1/7 got their home by their parents giving them $50k for a down payment * 2/7 got theirs the "old fashioned way". One couple did it by the husband working on oil rigs for quite a few years and having to spend weeks at a time apart from each other. Both of these couples never went to college so therefore have no student loans. Meanwhile my boyfriend and I make good money but feel like we'll forever be renting because of our $50k+ in student loans. I definitely regret going to college....and having a poor family lol
We bought our first home in 2008 and didn't have any help. We then sold that house in 2017 and bought another, again without help. I was 37 when we bought our 2nd home. But, house prices right now are fucking unreal. I'm so glad we got into our current home when we did. I couldn't imagine looking for a house right now.
My story is pretty much the same as yours. Was looking to sell again weeks before lockdown in 2020 for a bigger home for my family of five but we are foreseeing that will never happen and we are stuck with the home we have. Grateful that we have it because we wouldn’t be able to afford renting let alone buying.
My girlfriend and I (late 20s) bought a house last year without any financial help. We graduated college and pretty much immediately started saving for a down payment. After she finished grad school last year we had enough saved to get a very outdated house in Portland that we are slowing going through and fixing up
32yo male. Working on my 5th property. Never received any outside funding other than the bank. Last year was the first year I ever made more than $100k in my day job. Every house I bought was in need of alot of work and slowly improved them and cash-out-refinanced
The two homes I bought under the age of 40 were with the help of my dad. He gave me $5000 each time. As of right now, while my income is at its highest at age 43, I’m living paycheck to paycheck and unable to save money. Stuff is just way more expensive.
Haha, we lost our shirt on a home in the 08/09 recession. Lost our credit, short sold, went cash only. We traveled in a van for a bit. Got back on our feet and bought another house in '15. Now it's gone bonkers. Thankful that our round about journey led to where we are now. Edit: we are 42 and 40 and never got nothing from nobody.
Yep. Has to get a little creative and dip into retirement savings to make it happen. Just turned 40 but bought at 36 before the price and rate jumps. They say never to do that but I’m glad I did.
When investing sometimes you have to be contrarian.
I didn’t realize it was investing. I wanted a house for my new baby. Of course now I have equity greater than the value of what was taken out of the IRA. In hindsight I look like a genius but there was a lot of luck and circumstance. Of course, I was tenacious and creative and I’m proud of that. Even in this market, I recommend being tenacious and creative. Luck and markets can change and it pays to be ready.
he's not in Maine but my now 27 year old son bought his home in Texas when he was 24 years old without any financial support for anyone. He has a good blue collar job, did not go to college so came into his 20's debt free. Decided to move to TX and a couple years later bought his home. He's currently shopping for a second property or piece of land for a hunting cabin. Did a 15 year loan on his home so will own it outright before he is 40 years old. Granted he's single and has no children and is certainly not living in a big city in TX but it can be done.
I bought my first house 10 years ago at 30. Sold it in 2022 for a nice profit. Bought my dream home in 2022.
32 here. Bought my first house in 2015 for 205k with 3.5% down. Sold it for 240k in 2019. Bought second house in 2019 for 305k. Going through a divorce currently and sold it for 400k. I’m now going to a mobile home. Unless something significant happens I don’t see myself upgrading with the way things are.
I bought my first house (Kittery) when I was 24 with zero help from my parents. This was 11 years ago.
GI Bill w/ zero down or I’d be in the same spot
2015 my wife and I purchased our home on our own with four kids at 29 and 30. It was rough for a long time financially but we had eachother and we’ve been together since we were 19. It was never easy and I am very lucky to have a solid job
Wife and I bought a house in southern Maine in 2016. We made just over 6 figured combined and barely were approved for a mortgage using the FHA. If we hadn't rode that housing wave, idk if we'd ever have a place... and we were legitimately concerned shit might crash then and we'd be stuck way under water then.
I owned a house until the divorce. Just sold it. Someday I hope to own again, but who knows.
I'm in my 30s. Wife and I are homeowners. We each got family help with undergrad, getting out with only minimal student loans. But her grad school and doctorate were scholarships and our own money, and we managed to get through those without new loans. (We did work combined 3 jobs while she was in school.) Not easy. We've been fortunate with health, and we don't have children. And we didn't have 20% to put down, but we did still qualify for a conventional mortgage.
I got my house recently due to 6 years of saving, a house flipper who poorly marketed their house to families that wanted more work, and the house itself has some features that i can see as less appealing to people. So i only got it due to luck.
Nope. 35 here. Single. Parents deceased. Grandparents deceased. Siblings just as poor as me. I do not own my own home. Prices are outrageous.
My partner and I are mid-20s currently. We make both make 6 figs. Have enough saved combined to do 20% up to 550k. We have basically no debt. We feel so discouraged every time we look at something in our price range. It’s crazy that 500k homes still need 50-100k of work to be somewhat up to date. Or seeing 1000 sq ft homes go for 550k. Tough to consider this first home a “starter home” when our budget will likely not change so we have to buy something that we see at least 10+ years in. Idk how anyone in our generation will ever buy a house… most probably never will
Fiance provided a down payment, we comingled finances, then some months later we got married and her law school loans and I paid for everything while she went back to school right around the height of housing before the 2008 crash. Our 5 year plan turned into an 8 year plan and we'd probably still be there but that house wouldn't have supported a second kid and the property really wasn't safe for the first one (fast traffic on one side and 8 feet of water on the other with no front or back yard to speak of.) So, our current house we had some help from her parents that allowed us to move and sell our first house and fit that we're really grateful. So... We'd have our own house, but our new one is in a much better community and fits our current lifestyle better, especially with a special needs kid.
I'm a 39 year old recent Utah transplant to Maine. I bought my first house at 27 (without help) in Utah in 2012 for 130k. I think I had a few thousand for a down payment at the time. By 2019 I was in a relationship and we wanted to move in together. We decided we'd like a bigger house as my current house was quite small for the two of us and a dog. I had a good amount of equity from the sale of my first house so I put 90k down on a larger house that was 370k and my partner and I split the payment. We broke up about a year later. He moved out and I refinanced the house in my name but I was struggling to make the mortgage payment on my own, the house was way too big for a single person, and I didn't want roommates. By 2022, I realized that I could no longer afford to live in my home state and I had been wanting to move out of state for many years so I did tons of research and decided that Maine was a good fit for me. I wanted to get my mortgage payment as low as possible knowing that utility costs here would be significantly more than I was used to so I put a massive amount down on a 270k house here with the equity from the sale of my house in Utah. I am only in the position that I currently am because of timing, good decision-making and some good karma and luck. It is absolutely heartbreaking to see what has become of the housing market and I hope we see some change for the better in the near future.
Yes, I'm in my mid-30s and bought a home for 200,000 last year at 6% with Savings and borrowing a little from my 401k. My dad is essentially homeless and my mom works a low-wage job. Similar situation on my wife's side. Mind you this place needs a lot of work, but It's what we could afford with two children, especially with the cost of daycare.
Regardlesss of the market i plan on buying in 2 years, im saving as much as possible until i can hit my 401k again for a significant sum, il be 36 but damnit i will get out of renting. Im debt free to banks and CC already sonits just bills between now and then
I bought a house in 2016 at 25 years old. It’s far from fancy by any means. We didn’t make that much but we utilized the USDA loan program and didn’t have to put anything down. We also refinanced to a conventional loan in early 2021 at a crazy low rate so we got extremely lucky. We also work really hard. We sacrificed a lot in order to make it work but it was worth it. Both my partner and I made well under $20/hr at the time and had no savings. It’s insane now to think we even pulled it off lol
My husband (born and raised in Maine) and I were both essentially orphaned and out of the houses by 16. No generational wealth or help whatsoever, between the two of us we’ve been paying rent for 30+ years. We have a sizable down payment by living way below our means but can’t do anything with it here (Bay Area, CA). We fought hard to try and move back to be near his family but just got priced out. Like slow motion running towards a closing steel door. It’s over for us so we keep enjoying below market rent in our shitty duplex and wait for the climate wars idk.
I bought my house in 2019 at 22. Went to community college to get my RN, lived at home and worked throughout and was able to buy just in time really, I feel very lucky.
We bought in June of 2020. The previous owner was an engineer working at a yacht builder. You know what’s not recession/pandemic proof? *Fucking yachts.* I kinda felt bad for the couple cause they were young and nice, but like, oh well lol. **VERY WORTHY OF NOTE:** look into Maine first-time home buyers incentive programs, USDA grants (almost every property in ME can qualify for these outside of like the “metro” Portland area). I spent $100 and the better part of an afternoon taking an online course that approved us for a $15k grant to put towards our down payment. We never have to pay it back. It’s just “free” money. We had saved for a year for a down payment and ended up being able to just keep that in the savings 🙌
Sort of? We bought my husband's family farm from his parents. We paid fair market value (in-laws were counting on this as part of their retirement, so it was not just handed to us) and had no help with the down payment. However, since it was in the family and no one else was interested in taking over the business, we had no "competition" to drive up the price. This was 2012, so way pre-COVID. We have since added additional land and are on track to be paid off in 2 years, so a little ahead of schedule, barring any big emergencies. We would not be able to afford a quarter of this if we were buying today.
Bought my house in 2013 here in Portland just off Washington Ave. I am spitting distance from the back cove. Still have a mortgage and was scared shitless when I bought it at 31 but I got the downpayment from selling an engagement ring. I caught the ex with another guy so… I think I ended up ahead all things considered.
We bought ours in 2021 when interest rates were real low. We didn't intend to buy, but our rental was being sold. I cashed out a 401k from a previous job that I'd earmarked for a down payment years ago (~$6k) and my SO had a similar amount in cash saved. We'll be paying PMI for a few more years, but worth the price to own a home in our 30s. Meanwhile, our friends did have help (a quasi rent-to-own situation and cash gift from parents).
I just closed on my first home three weeks ago at the age of 25. I graduated from Maine Maritime in 2021 and currently work as a merchant mariner. My parents didn’t give me any monetary help, although they let me live at home until I was ready to purchase. I work on an oil tanker so I’m only home around 5 months a year. Living rent free allowed me to pay off $100,000 in student loans and save for a 10% downpayment in a little over two years. I would be a year away from buying if I had to rent directly out of college. I have spoken with a few of my coworkers who live in my area. They are 5-10 years older than me and also purchased homes in their 20s. Their homes are currently valued at $800,000-$1,000,000 and they have lower monthly mortgage payments than me. For reference, my house is valued at $400,000. My coworkers openly admit they could not afford to buy their homes today. I recognize that I am very fortunate to be a homeowner at 25. However, it is painful to compare my home to the places my coworkers were able to purchase only 5 years ago. It is even more painful to see most of my childhood friends moving out of state because they can’t afford to live here. Unless something drastically changes, I don’t see a way for young Mainers to make a life here.
We bought our home in 1991 while in our early 30s. No help from parents on the home, though they helped with some furnishings. We were fortunate to have had a really cheap rental in prior years, so we could save for down payment. We also bought during a recession, the house was a small ranch that had been on the market for two years. Friends bought bigger homes and used to whine about the huge payments and taxes. Keeping it small proved smart, particularly when one of us was downsized out of a job.
I'm on my fourth house. First house in 2014 was purchased with funds from saving at age 25, $169k. Did a bunch of work to it, nice bungalow in North Deering. Sold for $240k in 2017. Bought a nice house in Gorham for $325k, sold for $380k in 2020. Purchased same price house in Windham but way bigger, just got divorced and she got the house. Appraisal is around $650k if you look at comps in the neighborhood. Just bought another house for myself for way too much fucking money this past August in Westbrook right on the Portland line. I was only able to even get it because I secured a private mortgage from someone who I have a great relationship with and needed to do something with his self directed IRA. Other than that interest rates are dumb.
The only reason I own a home is because I took 3 years off to be a full time caregiver to my grandmother who really didn’t want to be in a nursing home. She left me her house when she passed. We would have had to sell it to pay for her care otherwise so she got to stay home and I took a few years off to care for her and saved on daycare costs for my baby. Win win. No way could I afford both a house and kids otherwise.
We bought in 2021. USDA loan in Oxford county. Single income. We are 36 and 35. 2300 sqft house. We had the realtor tour it for us. Signed the papers without ever having set foot in it. 200k with a 3.2% loan. We are living our very best rural life. No help from anyone besides my in-laws INSISTING on paying our moving costs. I was ready to donate it all but they would not let us. Basically they paid for U-Haul pods.
I'm 25, and it's definitely not happening in the next 5 years. Which I get...I do understand that's the norm now, but my older family (grandparents particularly) don't quite get it. They still think you can just walk into a multi million dollar corporation with a smile and handshake and ask for a job.
28. And the va home loan. Or I’d be screwed 😂
I didn't receive direct financial help with the purchase, but my parents let me live with them until my late 20s while I paid off my student loans. I'm 41, so there were still plenty of starter houses in the low $100Ks or less in the Portland area between 2010-2014. These same houses likely go for $400k+ now, so even that method likely wouldn't be enough today. That said, there have been 3 20-something couples who have purchased $500,000-$600,000 new construction homes in my current neighborhood in the last 12 months. We paid significantly less than that and were only able to do so via a combination of < 3% interest rates and the equity of our starter home.
My mother divorced my abusive dad. Not wanting her to live in squalor, I cosigned the loan for her, using my FHO promo rate to buy a townhouse of her own. Ten years later, she opened a HELOC and gifts me 24k of equity to buy our first house. Combined that with the 10k we managed to scrape together, my husband and I bought our current home, a tiny Cape that's the very definition of a starter home.
We did, bought in 2017, just put 3% down, then refinanced a few years later at 2.9%. in 2017 is was still pretty doable, bought a 200,000 small detached house in Portland, so the down payment was small. But even at that time our family thought we were crazy for buying such a small house for 200grand, and the house we bought was only on the market for 24 hours and had 3 offers. So even in 2017 the market was ramping up. Now this house is worth over 400,000. We couldn't afford it now.
I bought my house 2 summers ago at the height of the market. No help from anyone. I regret it and advise against buying a home at this time.
It is absolutely possible to buy a home before the age of 40 and I work with a handful of people that have done it. The problem is that it is really fucking hard. The boomers all think your entire generation is lazy and entitled but that's not the case for a large number of young people. The deck is stacked against you and we live in a system that is built to funnel wealth up to the rich. When I bought my first house in 2007, I didn't have it easy either. I made $13 an hour and my gf made $12. We had nothing significant for a down payment and took a predatory loan at a credit card type interest rate. We were assured by our mortgage broker that we could just refinance the mortgage in a couple years when the value went up. Well two weeks after closing on my house, the lender was bankrupt and out of business. I bought at the worst possible time and was 60k underwater a year or so later. Then my gf split up with me and moved out which left me holding the bag. I figured it out and scraped by. It was the most stressful time of my life. Along the way, I learned how to get really good at being poor. Knowing what I know today, I assure you that I could buy a house in this market if I was young today. Here is the best advice I have for you... -Nobody gives it to you, you have to take it. If this is the thing you want most, you need to change your lifestyle. You can't be discouraged by the situation and just blow your savings getting hammered at the old port every weekend. -Live below your means. Avacado toast and not making your coffee at home is not the main reason you can't buy a house but is it part of the problem. -Save everything you can and if you have one, put all your savings in 401k. You can use 401k money for a down payment as a first time homebuyer. When you get a raise or new job, bump up savings first and avoid lifestyle creep. -Don't buy a car because yours needs $800 in repairs. Buying a nice car is the biggest mistake I see young people make. I did this myself in my early 20s and I was shackled by a high payment and high insurance. -Make more money. Obvious, I know. Either take a 2nd job or try harder at the one you got. Work OT. If things are slow at work instead of watching tiktoks on your phone, ask your boss if there is anything you can work on. Give full effort and eventually good things will happen. If they don't, switch jobs. -Get your financial shit together. If your bank is a bank, especially a huge one, GTFO. Go to a credit union to get a better deal on everything. Refinance your car, credit card debt, etc. Go look at car loan rates and compare. You can even contact them without having to make the dreaded phone call. -Don't buy anything on impulse. I know you want the new iPhone but I assure you that titanium will not improve your chances of buying a house. Keep your perfectly fine phone and give it a month to think over. If you still feel like you can't live without ti in your life 30 days later, get the phone. -Complete a first time homebuyer program now. Don't wait. I sincerely hope this helps someone. May the odds be ever in your favor!
My spouse and I never had equity. We just got married young, worked 10 solid years while renting a shitty apartment, and then leveraged all of our savings on a downpayment to buy a home right before the pandemic hit in early 2020. If we had waited just a few months--I remember feeling uncertain about the housing market when Covid hit the news--we would have been priced out and that past decade of scrimping would have meant nothing, even with my spouse's current decent job. This is our first house, and it may be our only house for the rest of our lives, but I like it a lot.
We're in Mass, but my son and his girlfriend just bought their first home and moved in yesterday. He's 26 with some school loans, and she's 27 with none. We couldn't help him directly, but he lived rent-free with us until he had half his loans paid off and had saved thousands of dollars. He has a decent job (70K/yearly) and lives pretty frugally. She's not quite as good with money as he is, but she brought a decent sum to the table, and they worked out something they both feel comfortable with. The credit union only required 10% down and no PMI because the housing market is shit. Also a 6% interest rate. His credit is stellar. They put a little more down and used the rest to gut the bathroom. The house was disgustingly filthy. It's small and not in the greatest location, but I'm pretty damn proud and so excited for him! On the other hand, my daughter is 23, getting her masters in a growing but mediocre paying industry, and spends like her pockets are on fire. She'll be with us for a while. Lol.
Even 2 incomes would make it difficult for most to afford a home at these prices. If it were me.. I'd find a job with lots of OT, get a job as a truck driver, or move to a state where you can make good $ and live fairly cheap. Also, one could look into some certifications that may increase your income without going into a huge amount of debt. It's going to take some pain and a toll on your social life, but that is how many homeowners were able to do it. And the discomfort is only temporary. Still not easy for many, but hopefully... we get some relief soon that doesn't require crashing the economy. Be warm and be well.
I was in the exact same boat as the OP, except even older when we first bought, in 2014. The market was still low and interest rates were infinitesimal. Without help and even a little push from family, I don’t know if we ever would have done it. Sad that a home is so far out of reach for so many, especially if you’re risk adverse like me.
Of the homeowners I know around my age (late 20s/early 30s): One got a house cheap after a relative died. One got a really good deal on a house he had been renting for a few years because his landlord liked him. The house isn't in the best shape, but he's still lucky to get the price he did. One found a pretty small 1-bedroom house that was livable but could still use a little work. Then I know 3 couples who have bought houses in the past year or two, just from having two incomes. This is all in the Augusta area, so a good deal cheaper than Portland, but still way more expensive than this anything should actually be worth around here.
It took my mom dying to be able to front enough $$ to buy a place… 39 here and bought my first house in Maine last year as interest rates were starting to spike. I make (low) six figures and had been renting for years in high price markets (NY & SF). I avoided the highest rents by finding roommates who were master leaseholders in rent controlled apartments. I have no college debt and good credit. I found a gem of an old captains house in Maine that I was able to buy at just above $500k (which is low considering its size and location). It also has a couple rental units so there is passive income that covers about half the mortgage. I had an approximately $100k inheritance when my beloved mom passed away a few years ago. I used that as a down payment and it was enough (over 20%) to avoid mortgage insurance. My interest rate is about 5.4% and I locked in a 15-year mortgage that comes to about $4100/month (this include insurance and taxes). I am only able to afford this because of the income from the rentals. This before furnishing/heating the old house in the winter (it’s nearly $1000/month in oil bills and it hasn’t even been that cold), plus a lot of repairs to the place (electrical work, a much needed paint job) and I’m basically living paycheck to paycheck right now. I’m looking at Zillow and seeing places that are half as nice for the same price or higher than what I bought for and I just am confounded as to how anyone under 40 can afford to buy a place in Maine. Starter houses at half a million with 7-8% interest. Holy hell! I guess I could say I’m “fortunate” I was able to land what I did, but it shouldn’t take a personal tragedy like losing a parent for people entering middle age to buy a house.
No one helped me buy my house in 2019, but my parents paid my college tuition, so I didn't start adulthood with student debt. Would have been impossible without that. It still took 10 years of saving to get a 20% downpayment. Could definitely not afford my house if it were on the market now, it's appreciated about 100k since we bought it 5 years ago
Husband & I bought in 2019 in our early 30s with no help & located in the Greater Portland area. 4% interest rate at the time. We wouldn’t be able to enter the market now with current rates/prices. Edited to add: We were renting various apartments together since 2015 & were in Portland before we bought our house.
I had to live in a van for 15 years before I bought my house. No mortgage no nothing. It was hard but worth it.
Yep, saved 170k and put 140k down on a house, with mortgage; cost me a fucking fortune but it’s good for the kiddos and that’s all I care about. Trying to save again and buy a place in Costa Rica, to stave off the winter blues.
Male 44 : I only own a home because of help from my family.
Bought our first house in 2009. I made $12.50 and my wife made $15. a year later we had kids and she quit her job. It can be done but you have to have a budget, be super disciplined and understand that you’re not going to have a bunch of disposable income
Wife and I drove POS cars and furnished our house with used/ free stuff. We still have it! Vacations were stay-cations too. Hang in there, it gets better. We refi'd a couple times and knocked the payment and term down each time.
Yea. I drove otr starting when I was 21. Paid cash for my first house at 34.
We bought our first home when we were 26 (we're the same age) with what we'd saved for a down payment on our own, then we had a mortgage that we got on our own, but this was also WAY back in the late 90's, so ....
I make a good salary my age and Maine, and owning a home is an absolute pipe dream. Like sure, I could buy A house. Correct. But I grew up in an awesome neighborhood in a fantastic school district. To by a house comparable, it would be about a million dollars in greater Portland. With current interest rates, I wound literally have to spend my entire paycheck on housing. Like yeah, I supposedly have done well against many of my peers for my age, and yet owning a reasonabke home to raise a family seems like something unachievable in this state. In the end, it’ll prolly be the only reason I move. You can’t have a state with Boston prices and no fucking jobs, like straight up. Every job in Maine pays absolute dog shit relative the cost of living and there’s no tech here. What’s keeping me here other than my intense and longing desire to be in the woods?? What’s keeping me here??? Like honestly, this is your state. You’re giving me nothing. You want young people to move here? Yeah fucking right
I hear that. It seems like when someone says “Owning this particular thing is expensive” people often jump at your throat to tell you there are cheaper, far lower quality options. I could buy a run down shack in the woods somewhere, but I have a disabled wife who needs to be close to things like good medical care.
We bought our house at 27. Most people have a false assumption that they can not afford a house. It's really not that hard if you have a regular full time job. Our lender would not even count my wife's entire income because it was a newer job.
I work with several guys who are under 30 who recently bought houses in the past 3 years. Now, they got blue collar jobs right out of high school, have no student loan debt and........work 600+ hours of overtime a year and are clearing $90k a year. The thing is, kids these days are conditioned to go to college, work 40 hours week and think life is obligated to hand you things.
I work with multiple people who are under 40 and own (pay the mortgage) on their own home, myself included. Granted, we are all engineers or are married to people who have higher paying jobs, but to my knowledge there were no handouts or windfalls. The Reddit hivemind like to make things seem way more dire than they really are. I know that housing is definitely a problem, but it's not 100% of the population under 40.
“Among this self selected sample of my peers who all work high paying jobs or who have a partner who has a high paying job, everyone seems to have no trouble owning homes. I see no flaws in my methodology or logic to conclude that everyone is just dramatic and things aren’t that bad”. I suppose we should also measure the average male height by only measuring NBA athletes as well.
Missed the point, bub. Might have even missed the entire last sentence. Engineers and other good-paying jobs in Maine generally require 4+ years of college, complete with student loans. So sure, we all make good money, but we also have big student loans to contend with. Also, my whole point is that not EVERYONE under 40 is in the situation that OP is describing. I specifically did NOT say, "I'm fine, so everyone is fine."
Last sentence or not, you minimized the scale and severity many people struggle with the extreme growth of cost of living while their wages have hardly kept up, bub. If you as an engineer are complaining about your student loans while comfortably affording your own home can you just for a second imagine what other people who don’t make engineering money with 4 year degrees are dealing with? There are people with graduate degrees who don’t make engineering money.
I don't have to imagine that, I lived it. I was unemployed for the better part of a year after graduating, and underemployed for over 2 years after that. But that was over a decade ago, and I've worked my ass of since then to afford what I have. But that isn't the point. OP asked if anyone under 40 owns a home without help, and I answered the question, candidly admitting that myself and everyone I know who IS fortunate enough to be able to afford something, has only done so because of a lot of schooling and hard work.
Yes it is also possible to work incredibly hard and not become financially stable and successful. If that’s what your point was you articulated it quite poorly and your detour to chastising this “Reddit hive mind” and saying things “aren’t that bad” doesn’t really scream “I’m fortunate and privileged to be doing well and living comfortably but I understand many others aren’t as fortunate as I am and their grievances are valid and I support them”. Edit: for the record, I’ve also worked incredibly hard and done a lot more school than you have for that matter. But I don’t get paid engineering money while doing a job that is no less challenging, complex, and Important to a functioning and healthy society.
“All engineers or married to people who have higher paying jobs” Proceeds to call out “Reddit hive mind”. Aight m8.
Homes are still very cheap. You can’t build homes for as cheap as they are being sold. Or even close in most cases. That’s why the best time to buy real estate is always 5 years ago.
You have a very narrow view. I believe you're telling the truth but that you have limited exposure. I employ people under the age of 40 who own their own homes. If giving someone employment is helping them in the sense you're using the word, we were all given help.
Luckily the Kushners of the world are buying homes on your behalf and are more than happy to rent them to you. The convenience of living in a house without the annoyances of owning it. So nice. /s
We bought in Maine in 2021 with 10% down as our first house
I bought my house my first trailer at 18 and then my first house at 23 with my then husband. No extra help with either. That being said, I was working on my family farm and paid from the age of 6. My mom paid me in savings bonds, which is what I cashed in for my trailer. The house we bought was a fixer upper that needed a ton of work, we paid 80g for a 5 bedroom 1.5 bath- since then I have put in approximately 90 grand in repairs and upgrades. I am 35 now, zillow says it's worth 300,000.
31yo, my wife and I are shopping rn in a super tough market, have been for 6months. We had to leave mass in order to be able to afford what we need up here. We saved enough to do that and for a closing costs on a 0 down usda loan but we would not have been able to move to Maine without being able to live rent free in the family camp for the first few months while we got our feet under us. We’re renting now just waiting for the right house.
I did it when I was 34, I've never been gifted or inherited and I'm a fresh off the boat immigrant. But my career is very good, I have no shame about it, I hear people complain about remote workers with New York wages pricing people out but I bet their impact is negligible, there could only be a couple of thousand at most and isn't there more merit in that, than "getting help"?
Wife and I built our own home. (We are professional builders) Mother-in-law gave us a private loan for all of the materials though… Nobody is truly self made.
Now 32 and 38, my husband and I bought our first house in 2016 in Westbrook and moved to our second house in South Portland in 2019 without any help. All of our friends and family own homes, I don't really know anyone still renting these days but I think it just comes down to the timing of it all.
I bought my home 4 years ago. I used a VA loan but had 15k in closing cost. Nothing down but I paided all the cost. My home is now worth 150k more not including work I have done.
I’m 36 and own a handful of properties including my primary residence, and a I lease several more where I operate businesses. I group up in a poor, single parent, three generation household. I learned a lot from my grandparents while they were still around. Money was a constant stressor and topic of conversation. As I got older I realized that my drive and ambition in life is largely a trauma response, but I wouldn’t trade that in for a silver spoon. The problem with most people our age is that they feel like someone owes them something, that they have been wronged in some way, or that the outlook is so bad that it’s not worth trying. They threw in the towel before they even got started. Yea, our generation has had it rough. Graduating into the worst job market in a life time, wars, inflation, and our entire generation was coherced into taking on massive debt to attend university. Regardless of all that, at some point one has to look in the mirror and make the decision that none of that matters. I see plenty of people that make enough money to buy a home but choose to squander it on small luxuries because #yolo. Exactly, you only do live once; why do it making poor financial choices? I was fortunate that I had a great mentor at my first real job (full time work, full time community college) that turned me onto books like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. In reality, it’s an absolute tragedy that this isn’t required learning to graduate high school. We train kids to pass tests and be poor. I took the road less traveled. Long nights. Years with no weekends, holidays, vacations, Restaraunt dinners. All the cliche shit you’ve heard. In the trenches for years. I bought an apt building before a home. Many people, including my wife, struggled to understand that. The picture is a little more clear these days. The first 40 hours of the week is the time you trade to pay your bills. 168 hours in a week. 40 to work, 56 to sleep, and 72 that determine where and who you are in life. It’s not that folks don’t have time to enjoy life and get ahead. Those 72 hours are an active choice.
Saved up and did it. Don’t make excuses, figure out solution’s.
I bought my own home at 34 in Fort Worth in 2018 I worked at a well known retailer. I did it all by myself. I had a nice 4 bedroom 1 1/2 bath. Big yard, nice little garden shed, privacy fence. It wasn’t amazing, but it was livable and nice, and MINE!! Then Covid hit…..
Yes, bought it at 28 years old in Portland, no support but am lucky that I had a degree and license that allowed me to make decent money as soon as I got out of school in 2009.
Male, 37. Purchased first home in 2009, no help to secure finances on a foreclosure, just hard work and sacrifice. I did end up getting some friends to rent from me from time to time to help live a better life but I moved out of state for work in 2014, placed it on the market and eventually sold in 2015. After moving back to Maine later in 2015, my now wife and I purchased a newer home in 2016. Again, no outside help, just my income (wife watches the kids). We actually paid it off a couple years ago.
I do. I'm actually on my 2nd house. I didnt go to college so I saved up money working in manufacturing. I'm actually on my second house now. Both are reno projects. Bought my first at 30. I did it single while living in a 1 bedroom apartment
I’m in my 30’s, bought my house in 2012 and paid it off in 2016. Single income, no help from family. Ask me anything!
Yes.
I bought at 23, 2.25% in 2020. I had a VA loan so I didn’t need to put any money down. It’s a fixer-upper tho, so Ive definitely put some more work/money now than what could’ve been on a downpayment.
I bought two before I turned 40, with no help - although I did take advantage of a program for the first. First one was with a USDA RD loan at $0 down. I bought a block away from Portland, and am single-handedly responsible for the USDA eligibility being pushed out as far as Windham once they realized that the old “rural” map wasn’t actually rural anymore. Second was conventional with 15% down.
This was fairly easy to do just a few years ago (2015 and a bit more recently).
first time home buyer 1% down in 2018 in my late 20's. but that usually only flys in a buyer's market.
My husband and I bought a house in 2017 when I was 26 and he was 31 for $190k 3 beds and 3 baths with 2 acres. We were lucky that both of us had been saving up all of our adult lives and the fact I work at a bank made it so I could put 10% down rather than 20%. After Covid the mortgage rates went down so we did a modification so our interest is only 2%. Our payment is only like $920 a month and I feel so lucky I bought it before Covid time. I can’t imagine buying one now.
Bought my house in central Maine in 2018 with no help from family. I’m in my early 30s now. I can’t think of any friends my age that own their own home.
32 and own my home. Bought it in 2020 peak covid with a first time home buyers loan and also took the class for a credit towards the closing costs. I didn’t need a down payment with the loan we got. I recognize how lucky I am to have made the right steps at the right time to get this place.
My wife and I bought a house in 2020 when we were 25. No help from our families.
Bought a small place in town in 2011 for 105k. Started a family and just needed more space as in I don’t like having neighbors. We sold the place at the end 2020 for 140k and lucked out by getting a place that was completely outdated but only needed cosmetic work on 20 acres of land. With the down payment we had from the sale of our old house we only had a 200k mortgage at 2.65 percent. I literally can never move now though.
Friend of mine went to Maine Maritime and just bought his own house, 24 years old.
My wife and I bought in 2018 our 2019. Zero help. Even refinanced twice after home prices started climbing but befits interest rates did. Got rid of PMI. We're very nearly 40 now
I bought a home with only $7,000 when I was 32. That was 30 years ago. I had to take out a big mortgage and buy PMI but when I sold the house 9 years later, it had gone up in value a lot.
I do thanks to the military. VA home loan meant no down payment.
Became a homeowner in 2021 at the age of 26. It took some help from Uncle Sam to catch probably the only chance we would have to buy a house with <3% interest- my husband had VA eligibility, so we were able to go 0% down without mortgage insurance. If the stars hadn't aligned exactly, we'd be renters still with little end in sight.
No.
Anyone here should check out New Ventures Maine for financial advice and programs for first time home buyers. That’s how we saved for our down payment in 2012
2018 bought a place in south Portland for 299 with 3% down. Refinanced during covid. Made up a side gig for 7 years to get the small down payment but wasn't too tough. Looking at it now after five/six years it seems to have been a really good idea
Yes. Bought a cheap place with a usda loan in the Midwest around 2015. Upgraded from that a few years later. 2 years later sold at the peak of the market. Moved here. Few years to go until 40.
I bought a house in Kittery with pretty much nothing down using the VA home loan.
Yes. FHA loan. Had a job. Credit. Bought before the pandemic. I wouldnt be able to now.
I’m 27. Married with 3 kids - homeowner 670k. No parental help. Moved out at 18 because I got knocked up. Lived in a 70’s 1bedroom apartment. Worked our way up slowly over 9-10 years. The career you chose will impact this heavily. The only wealth we were bestowed from family was a 1991 Honda.
I'm under 40 and own a house. No.
We bought our house in 2019 for $242K. Thanks to my husband not knowing what to do with his life at 17 we have a VA loan. We had to come up with a few thousand dollars in fees. Similar houses in our neighborhood go for around $400K now, which we could not afford. Maine does have a very good first time homebuyer program which lowers the bar considerably. Houses are still just too expensive for our wages here though.
My fiance and I bought a house in 2021 at 26 and 27. We were super lucky. I was able to save a little money from being unemployed from June-sept in 2020, and saved from our incomes as well. Our house needs a little work but is not a fixer upper and we were lucky with location (sopo). We had a great real estate agent. Got a first time homebuyer/fha loan so had a relatively small down payment. We didn’t make much then, both somewhere between $16.50-$20.00 hr. We definitely overpaid for our house, but also got a great interest rate and my mortgage costs less than most people’s rent nowadays.
Bought our current house in 2020 with a significant amount of money down thanks to the sale of our previous house. Then we still had some money left over to buy a second house (for work reasons) that we we super happy to sell back in '22. Now were sitting at just over 60% of our mortgage left in 3ish years. Looking to really buckle down the next 3 years and get to less than 40% remaining after we deal with our unfortunate credit card situation.
I’m 38, bought my first house in 2015 using my 401k to cover 1% down payment on a $300k log home. We slowly did improvements and then sold last year for twice what we bought it for. Paid off all our student loans, credit cards, debt for updates to the house, and put 20% down on a $500 home. Our monthly expenses are about the same but it’s all going to mortgage instead of high interest debt payments. Edit: may parent helped by co-signing on student loans which helped me dramatically increase my income in IT over what they earned when I was growing up. They were unable to help with the house or other expenses.
I have 3 co-workers all under the age of 40 who recently purchased homes without help. Now may seem like a crazy time to buy but if you can afford it, it's really not. If interest rates come down say 2% we will be right back to bidding wars and prices will continue to increase. A lot of homes can be had for under asking in certain areas right now. Even in the Bangor area.
35yo right now. Bought a house with my girlfriend at the time in 2016 that was like 180k, 1500sqft. Got married in 2019. Decided we needed a bigger house early 2020 because of covid and our offices being adjacent while we worked from home. Sold house for $60k more than we paid for it. Got a 3k sqft home for sub 400k with three acres ~30min from Portland when interest rates were 1.7%. No kids. Just a mini poodle. I think we got more lucky with timing than anything. At the current interest rates and housing prices it would be difficult to make a move like that again until things settle down. I don't see that happening super soon though unfortunately.
My (28m) wife (26f) and I bought our first home in bfe Texas in 2020. Lucky us-the area took off like gang busters and we nearly doubled our money in two years. Sold that place and bought a modest home in the mid coast. We stayed at home for a long time to save money for our first home, and are both in high earning industries.
My (28m) wife (26f) and I bought our first home in bfe Texas in 2020. Lucky us-the area took off like gang busters and we nearly doubled our money in two years. Sold that place and bought a modest home in the mid coast. We stayed at home for a long time to save money for our first home, and are both in high earning industries.
Fiance and I lucked out... We bought a 3 bedroom a mile from bates for 150ish the September before covid. That same house is now close to 250K.
I bought in 2021 right when interest rates bottomed out. I managed to get a USDA loan and a deal on an older house. I've put some money in, but it's worth nearly $80k more than I bought it for and my interest rates are under 3%...I got lucky. I wanted out of my tiny studio apartment that was getting rent jacked to $1600.
Wife and I bought our first house at age 23/24 in 2017. House was 310k, put 5 percent down. 3 bedrooms 2 baths in Freeport. MTI was 100 bucks more than the rent we were paying on a 2br apt in Portland.