I am honestly having a hard time trying to understand how am I supposed to be able to buy a house in a metropolitan city. If I want to be financially independent, eventually I have to have my own...
I am honestly having a hard time trying to understand how am I supposed to be able to buy a house in a metropolitan city. If I want to be financially independent, eventually I have to have my own property and cut down on living costs.
So maybe if I move out of my rented flat and live with 3 roommates, I'd be able to afford a down payment for a 2 room flat somewhere in the outskirts.. in 5 years. And that was before the epidemic, now I don't even know what's going to happen in 6 months. This crap stresses me out.
I would just note that owning property isn't the de facto way of the future everywhere in the world. In Japan, for instance, where property values frequently depreciate rather than appreciate,...
I would just note that owning property isn't the de facto way of the future everywhere in the world. In Japan, for instance, where property values frequently depreciate rather than appreciate, renting is considered equally acceptable long-term.
Also, are you looking for an actual house, or just owned property? Would condos work too?
Renting long-term is just a recurring expense. Monthly mortgage payment for a 2 room apartment would be roughly the same as my current rent for a comparable flat (except the location would be less...
Renting long-term is just a recurring expense. Monthly mortgage payment for a 2 room apartment would be roughly the same as my current rent for a comparable flat (except the location would be less central), except I get to keep the capital in a form of an apartment. Even if it depreciates 50%, I'm still cutting my housing costs by half in the end.
I feel like it only makes sense to invest and acquire a piece real estate to eventually have a place to live for free (well, there would be maintenance costs of course) or rent it out myself.
It depends on property costs in your area. Here's an example calculator: https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/rent-vs-buy-calculator Property can be expensive enough that renting over a normal...
Mortgages in Germany are cheap interest rate wise, but the closing costs are huge, here's an example of my collegue: Apartment price: 420k EU blaze it Closing costs (realtor, registration, bank...
Mortgages in Germany are cheap interest rate wise, but the closing costs are huge, here's an example of my collegue:
Apartment price: 420k EU blaze it Closing costs (realtor, registration, bank fees, notary, taxes): 62k Down payment: 42k Renovation costs: ??? Interest rate: 1.3%
So you need around 25% of the price in hand, over a hundred grand in his case (granted it's a pretty big apartment), otherwise you're most likely getting an awful interest rate. And you have to not empty out your bank account in process, because even 2 months after the deal was closed, he's still waiting for the keys. To top it off, you obviously burn the 62k I've mentioned, they go on top of 420k, since it's just incurred cost of the deal.
That's a big hurdle to clear just to get in, that's why a lot of Germans rent for their whole life.
What's pushing those closing costs so high? Taxes are unavoidable, but it seems as though there could be a business opportunity for streamlining the rest?
What's pushing those closing costs so high? Taxes are unavoidable, but it seems as though there could be a business opportunity for streamlining the rest?
German bureaucracy, I assume. My colleague: "it’s the Makler I am most pissed about, the notary makes sense…the tax is inevitable but that guy who sent 3 emails overall got 30k, 10k per email,...
German bureaucracy, I assume.
My colleague: "it’s the Makler I am most pissed about, the notary makes sense…the tax is inevitable but that guy who sent 3 emails overall got 30k, 10k per email, good effing deal".
Yeah, I'd say there's a good space there for someone to undercut heavily, shake up the market, and make some money for themselves in the process! Estate agents in the UK used to (and sometimes...
Yeah, I'd say there's a good space there for someone to undercut heavily, shake up the market, and make some money for themselves in the process!
Estate agents in the UK used to (and sometimes still do) take 1-3% of the final sale price - people realised that in a disturbingly large number of cases their job just boiled down to "list the property on the online portals, wait for the offers to come in", and really wasn't worth £10k+ in commission, and some new companies popped up that'll handle the listings for a fixed fee of a few hundred. I get the distinct impression that the German market is ready for a similar kick into gear.
That may well be the case, but your calculation is forgetting the risk of debt. If you’re renting, you have the flexibility to move, whatever the circumstances. Wouldn’t it amplify every little...
That may well be the case, but your calculation is forgetting the risk of debt. If you’re renting, you have the flexibility to move, whatever the circumstances. Wouldn’t it amplify every little financial stress in your life? (Look at all the companies now needing bailouts... excerpt will individual home owners get the same?) If you buy a house and the prices drop significant, your down payment just gets wiped out, and worse — you’re on the hook for the original upmarked price.
We did the first 5,000 times but now I think most of us just shrug and learn to ignore the person who said that since they clearly aren't living in the same world as the rest of us.
How other zoomers/millennials don’t get enraged by that kind of tip from personal finance bloggers/YouTubers makes zero sense to me,
We did the first 5,000 times but now I think most of us just shrug and learn to ignore the person who said that since they clearly aren't living in the same world as the rest of us.
In a typical way, we just meme hard about it https://twitter.com/TechnicallyRon/status/1245024864882360320 But it has to be said, ever since this lockdown started and all the restaurants have...
But it has to be said, ever since this lockdown started and all the restaurants have closed, I'm saving a considerable amount of money by eating home-cooked lunch.
Obviously nothing life-changing, but I guess avocado-guy does have some kind of point about unnecessary expenses, just worded in a very pretentious way.
I mean, social security is kinda mathematically fucked right now. Unless there are some overhauls, it's expending far more than it takes in. SS was designed for a world where the expected lifespan...
I mean, social security is kinda mathematically fucked right now. Unless there are some overhauls, it's expending far more than it takes in. SS was designed for a world where the expected lifespan of a adult male was barely above 65.
That's the crux of all of this. Older generations already have nest eggs that they can live off so when something like this happens, they can weather the storm. It's impossible for them to see...
Put it all together, and the Millennials had no chance to build the kind of nest eggs that older generations did—the financial cushions that help people weather catastrophes, provide support to sick or down-on-their luck relatives, start businesses, invest in real estate, or go back to school.
That's the crux of all of this. Older generations already have nest eggs that they can live off so when something like this happens, they can weather the storm. It's impossible for them to see outside of their bubble and see that the younger generation doesn't have that luxury.
"I saved up and built up my nest egg, why can't they?" is a question that gets asked over and over again by older generations. They grew up in a very different economic climate and they don't seem willing or able to understand that.
It really seems to be a running theme. Combine it with the notion that the poor "just don't want to work" – something I've heard more often than I've liked, if not in those exact words – and you...
It really seems to be a running theme. Combine it with the notion that the poor "just don't want to work" – something I've heard more often than I've liked, if not in those exact words – and you can start to guess where all the disdain for social benefit programs might be coming from.
It's something that I wonder might be mostly due to confirmation bias. Especially with such powerful partisan divides going on right now, I wouldn't be at all surprised if viewpoints like this were primarily sourced on what kind of news you consume. I don't know — I'm going to try to debate this with some folks later this year. Hopefully I'll be able to get a better understanding.
Thank you for that. I think it has to do with how much exposure you have to people who are in different situations than you. I've certainly fallen victim to it in the past myself. If you don't...
Thank you for that. I think it has to do with how much exposure you have to people who are in different situations than you. I've certainly fallen victim to it in the past myself. If you don't know something exists, you're less likely to think of it. If it's been pointed out to you, or you see it regularly, it starts to make a lot more sense to you.
Like the idea that it costs more to be poor. It's fairly counterintuitive when you haven't heard the idea before. But once you see it explained, it makes a lot of sense. If you've never missed a rent payment or loan payment, you may have no idea what actually happens in that situation.
The problem isn't "older generations". There are people who can see outside of their bubble and people who can't or don't want to. It happens to the younger generation, too. Please stop with the...
Older generations already have nest eggs that they can live off so when something like this happens, they can weather the storm. It's impossible for them to see outside of their bubble and see that the younger generation doesn't have that luxury.
The problem isn't "older generations". There are people who can see outside of their bubble and people who can't or don't want to. It happens to the younger generation, too. Please stop with the ageism.
Being 14, this doesn't look good. Feels like I was born either in a dying world or a interbellum prelude to a repeat of the 1930s and 40s, but people aren't as willing to die for a cause.
Being 14, this doesn't look good. Feels like I was born either in a dying world or a interbellum prelude to a repeat of the 1930s and 40s, but people aren't as willing to die for a cause.
This was said in the context of life under fascist Italy and a year into the great depression. Despite this that quote feels pretty current with 60s FDResque social democracy+the Bretton woods...
This was said in the context of life under fascist Italy and a year into the great depression. Despite this that quote feels pretty current with 60s FDResque social democracy+the Bretton woods system gradually being broken down and the Internet essentially still going unaddressed by government, along with all the people from that reality. Dreary uncertain times we live in.
I'd say that those systems broke down in the 1970s and 80s- what's breaking down now is the system that replaced them, the post-cold war American hegemonic neoliberalism pioneered by Thatcher and...
Despite this that quote feels pretty current with 60s FDResque social democracy+the Bretton woods system gradually being broken down
I'd say that those systems broke down in the 1970s and 80s- what's breaking down now is the system that replaced them, the post-cold war American hegemonic neoliberalism pioneered by Thatcher and Reagan.
Sure enough. I'd still be hard pressed to imagine a world in which we(?) actually win though. The surveillance and militarization are much more potent now than in Weimar or civil war Russia, IIRC...
Sure enough. I'd still be hard pressed to imagine a world in which we(?) actually win though. The surveillance and militarization are much more potent now than in Weimar or civil war Russia, IIRC some police units can now shut dissent with noise making cars. Before WW2 the United States was free from the nonsense going on in Europe and essentially carried the allies' effort when it joined, saving half of Europe from the nazis and setting the stage for the cold war. Now the US is ground zero for that nonsense and Europe is basically cornered while China makes deals with the rest of the world.
Hey, I know this is off-topic but I've seen you mention your age on at least 3 occasions recently, I see it's in your bio as well, and I wanted to share some random advice. For context, I started...
Hey, I know this is off-topic but I've seen you mention your age on at least 3 occasions recently, I see it's in your bio as well, and I wanted to share some random advice.
For context, I started being active on the internet around the age of 9, and very active on online forums & communities around 11 or so. That was back in ~2002; the web was a lot more anonymous, although Tildes is very old-style and reflects the internet of 15 years ago quite well (which makes sense when you realize Reddit is about the same age and Tildes reflects old-style reddit pretty accurately).
Anyway: Your age doesn't define you. I'm kinda reminded of how I constantly was the youngest person in the room, the forum, the guild, the community, or whatever. I was part of communities that were mainly 22-35+, so I had kept my age private for quite a while; when I stopped, I overcompensated and felt this need to make sure people knew how old I was.
Hindsight: My age never really mattered, and I was a lot more comfortable when I could just be myself without creating an age-based dynamic. Being young without feeling the need to share it was what gave me most of my confidence boosts, and what made me really comfortable learning the most I could. The main gift of "being young in a community of adults" really was the opportunity to grow more; I had more time to learn, evolve, and for the past decade and half I've constantly felt I had a headstart on life because of it.
So in short, it's great to be young in an older community but don't let it define you, just make the best of it. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk about this more.
It's nice having hard numbers to back this up, but FFS I could have told you this in 2004 when most of my peers were saddling on 6-figure debts to pay for college. See also the dot-com bust. These...
It's nice having hard numbers to back this up, but FFS I could have told you this in 2004 when most of my peers were saddling on 6-figure debts to pay for college.
See also the dot-com bust. These are hardly once in a lifetime events...it's cyclical and it needs to stop.
i was around 18 when the dot-com bubble burst. I was 16, making 10 dollars an hour in a cubicle. I did absolutely zero work all day and got to play ultima online. the company was spending money...
i was around 18 when the dot-com bubble burst. I was 16, making 10 dollars an hour in a cubicle. I did absolutely zero work all day and got to play ultima online. the company was spending money because it could. The only work I ever got was the first week I was there, I finished it in 2 days when the guy said it would take me months. I made around 5k that summer. a 16 year old!
I am honestly having a hard time trying to understand how am I supposed to be able to buy a house in a metropolitan city. If I want to be financially independent, eventually I have to have my own property and cut down on living costs.
So maybe if I move out of my rented flat and live with 3 roommates, I'd be able to afford a down payment for a 2 room flat somewhere in the outskirts.. in 5 years. And that was before the epidemic, now I don't even know what's going to happen in 6 months. This crap stresses me out.
Yeah I guess that avocado toast has to go..
I would just note that owning property isn't the de facto way of the future everywhere in the world. In Japan, for instance, where property values frequently depreciate rather than appreciate, renting is considered equally acceptable long-term.
Also, are you looking for an actual house, or just owned property? Would condos work too?
Renting long-term is just a recurring expense. Monthly mortgage payment for a 2 room apartment would be roughly the same as my current rent for a comparable flat (except the location would be less central), except I get to keep the capital in a form of an apartment. Even if it depreciates 50%, I'm still cutting my housing costs by half in the end.
I feel like it only makes sense to invest and acquire a piece real estate to eventually have a place to live for free (well, there would be maintenance costs of course) or rent it out myself.
It depends on property costs in your area. Here's an example calculator: https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/rent-vs-buy-calculator
Property can be expensive enough that renting over a normal lifespan will be cheaper than the mortgage
Then go for it. If it makes financial sense, may as well.
Mortgages in Germany are cheap interest rate wise, but the closing costs are huge, here's an example of my collegue:
Apartment price: 420k EU blaze it
Closing costs (realtor, registration, bank fees, notary, taxes): 62k
Down payment: 42k
Renovation costs: ???
Interest rate: 1.3%
So you need around 25% of the price in hand, over a hundred grand in his case (granted it's a pretty big apartment), otherwise you're most likely getting an awful interest rate. And you have to not empty out your bank account in process, because even 2 months after the deal was closed, he's still waiting for the keys. To top it off, you obviously burn the 62k I've mentioned, they go on top of 420k, since it's just incurred cost of the deal.
That's a big hurdle to clear just to get in, that's why a lot of Germans rent for their whole life.
What's pushing those closing costs so high? Taxes are unavoidable, but it seems as though there could be a business opportunity for streamlining the rest?
German bureaucracy, I assume.
My colleague: "it’s the Makler I am most pissed about, the notary makes sense…the tax is inevitable but that guy who sent 3 emails overall got 30k, 10k per email, good effing deal".
Yeah, I'd say there's a good space there for someone to undercut heavily, shake up the market, and make some money for themselves in the process!
Estate agents in the UK used to (and sometimes still do) take 1-3% of the final sale price - people realised that in a disturbingly large number of cases their job just boiled down to "list the property on the online portals, wait for the offers to come in", and really wasn't worth £10k+ in commission, and some new companies popped up that'll handle the listings for a fixed fee of a few hundred. I get the distinct impression that the German market is ready for a similar kick into gear.
That may well be the case, but your calculation is forgetting the risk of debt. If you’re renting, you have the flexibility to move, whatever the circumstances. Wouldn’t it amplify every little financial stress in your life? (Look at all the companies now needing bailouts... excerpt will individual home owners get the same?) If you buy a house and the prices drop significant, your down payment just gets wiped out, and worse — you’re on the hook for the original upmarked price.
We did the first 5,000 times but now I think most of us just shrug and learn to ignore the person who said that since they clearly aren't living in the same world as the rest of us.
In a typical way, we just meme hard about it https://twitter.com/TechnicallyRon/status/1245024864882360320
But it has to be said, ever since this lockdown started and all the restaurants have closed, I'm saving a considerable amount of money by eating home-cooked lunch.
Obviously nothing life-changing, but I guess avocado-guy does have some kind of point about unnecessary expenses, just worded in a very pretentious way.
I mean, social security is kinda mathematically fucked right now. Unless there are some overhauls, it's expending far more than it takes in. SS was designed for a world where the expected lifespan of a adult male was barely above 65.
I would not recommend relying on it.
That's the crux of all of this. Older generations already have nest eggs that they can live off so when something like this happens, they can weather the storm. It's impossible for them to see outside of their bubble and see that the younger generation doesn't have that luxury.
"I saved up and built up my nest egg, why can't they?" is a question that gets asked over and over again by older generations. They grew up in a very different economic climate and they don't seem willing or able to understand that.
It really seems to be a running theme. Combine it with the notion that the poor "just don't want to work" – something I've heard more often than I've liked, if not in those exact words – and you can start to guess where all the disdain for social benefit programs might be coming from.
It's something that I wonder might be mostly due to confirmation bias. Especially with such powerful partisan divides going on right now, I wouldn't be at all surprised if viewpoints like this were primarily sourced on what kind of news you consume. I don't know — I'm going to try to debate this with some folks later this year. Hopefully I'll be able to get a better understanding.
Thank you for that. I think it has to do with how much exposure you have to people who are in different situations than you. I've certainly fallen victim to it in the past myself. If you don't know something exists, you're less likely to think of it. If it's been pointed out to you, or you see it regularly, it starts to make a lot more sense to you.
Like the idea that it costs more to be poor. It's fairly counterintuitive when you haven't heard the idea before. But once you see it explained, it makes a lot of sense. If you've never missed a rent payment or loan payment, you may have no idea what actually happens in that situation.
The problem isn't "older generations". There are people who can see outside of their bubble and people who can't or don't want to. It happens to the younger generation, too. Please stop with the ageism.
I stand by what I said but maybe that they are more likely to have a nest egg is a better way to put it.
Being 14, this doesn't look good. Feels like I was born either in a dying world or a interbellum prelude to a repeat of the 1930s and 40s, but people aren't as willing to die for a cause.
https://youtu.be/jpn_WvkR-0E
This was said in the context of life under fascist Italy and a year into the great depression. Despite this that quote feels pretty current with 60s FDResque social democracy+the Bretton woods system gradually being broken down and the Internet essentially still going unaddressed by government, along with all the people from that reality. Dreary uncertain times we live in.
I'd say that those systems broke down in the 1970s and 80s- what's breaking down now is the system that replaced them, the post-cold war American hegemonic neoliberalism pioneered by Thatcher and Reagan.
We might see that change, as the choices are increasingly headed towards dying for a cause or simply dying.
Sure enough. I'd still be hard pressed to imagine a world in which we(?) actually win though. The surveillance and militarization are much more potent now than in Weimar or civil war Russia, IIRC some police units can now shut dissent with noise making cars. Before WW2 the United States was free from the nonsense going on in Europe and essentially carried the allies' effort when it joined, saving half of Europe from the nazis and setting the stage for the cold war. Now the US is ground zero for that nonsense and Europe is basically cornered while China makes deals with the rest of the world.
Hey, I know this is off-topic but I've seen you mention your age on at least 3 occasions recently, I see it's in your bio as well, and I wanted to share some random advice.
For context, I started being active on the internet around the age of 9, and very active on online forums & communities around 11 or so. That was back in ~2002; the web was a lot more anonymous, although Tildes is very old-style and reflects the internet of 15 years ago quite well (which makes sense when you realize Reddit is about the same age and Tildes reflects old-style reddit pretty accurately).
Anyway: Your age doesn't define you. I'm kinda reminded of how I constantly was the youngest person in the room, the forum, the guild, the community, or whatever. I was part of communities that were mainly 22-35+, so I had kept my age private for quite a while; when I stopped, I overcompensated and felt this need to make sure people knew how old I was.
Hindsight: My age never really mattered, and I was a lot more comfortable when I could just be myself without creating an age-based dynamic. Being young without feeling the need to share it was what gave me most of my confidence boosts, and what made me really comfortable learning the most I could. The main gift of "being young in a community of adults" really was the opportunity to grow more; I had more time to learn, evolve, and for the past decade and half I've constantly felt I had a headstart on life because of it.
So in short, it's great to be young in an older community but don't let it define you, just make the best of it. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk about this more.
It's nice having hard numbers to back this up, but FFS I could have told you this in 2004 when most of my peers were saddling on 6-figure debts to pay for college.
See also the dot-com bust. These are hardly once in a lifetime events...it's cyclical and it needs to stop.
i was around 18 when the dot-com bubble burst. I was 16, making 10 dollars an hour in a cubicle. I did absolutely zero work all day and got to play ultima online. the company was spending money because it could. The only work I ever got was the first week I was there, I finished it in 2 days when the guy said it would take me months. I made around 5k that summer. a 16 year old!