DawnM Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 Just curious after all the discussion about housing. When I was single, I couldn't have afforded a place without renting out a room or something. I didn't marry until age 29 and I didn't have my first child until 31. We bought our first house after our oldest was born. I was 32. It was in Southern California. We have owned (NOT at the same time) two homes in CA and three homes in NC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScoutTN Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) 31 and single. I did rent to housemates to help with the mortgage, but I could have done it, just. Mississippi is less expensive than many places. Edited January 23 by ScoutTN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) I was 28 and DH was 32. He was the only one bringing in an income at the time. The kids were 1 and 4 when we moved here. It’s in a HCOL area but we used a VA loan. We never moved so we still have a VA loan in the pocket. Edited January 23 by KungFuPanda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlett Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 22 and married. No kids. We are in my 5th house. 2 of those with XH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teachermom2834 Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 We were both 25. Our second child was 7 months old. I can’t remember the details but we were relatively broke. I’m sure it was an FHA loan with very little down and PMI (if that was a thing 24 years ago?). I’m sure we didn’t have an adequate emergency fund and we had no handy skills or any idea what we were doing really. I’m sure it was ill advised all around. And it was not nice. But it got us going. 🤷🏼♀️ That’s why I come down on the side of sometimes you just have to jump even if you don’t meet all the best advice regarding being stable and following all the rules. I understand all the good advice and it is good! But if dh and I hadn’t just leapt a few times we wouldn’t have made it ever, I don’t think. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pawz4me Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 22 and single Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catz Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 I bought a home at age 24 when I was professionally employed and single. I could afford it on my own, though I did have a couple very short term roommates come through while I lived here when they were in a pinch and I charged them minimal rent. I married at 29. My oldest was born a year later. Both my spouse and I owned homes when we married. And we both bought low and sold HIGH. It's part of the reason we are in maybe a bit more desirable neighborhood now. We lived in DH's home for a few years and then moved to this house. Our home is a pretty normal sized 3 bedroom home. But for whatever reason it is worth a bunch of money now. Oh and at this point we don't have a mortgage either. We are both pretty fiscally conservative. But we did also have some luck involved in there. We were able to pay off our mortgage before oldest kid went to college. My oldest kid just turned 23, graduated from college last year and could probably afford a condo or house in a year or 2 if he were so inclined. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) I was 20 and DH was 23. I contributed nothing to it. When we met, I was a college freshman and broke with student loans and he was a senior who had worked and saved since he had a paper route when he was a kid. He paid for it all and also bought me a car so I could go back to school (I dropped out when we got married because he didn't have a job yet and we didn't know where he was going to be). We lived there for 8 years, had three kids, and then rented for a year while our current house was being built. We've lived here for 27 years. ETA - it was a nice house in a nice suburban family neighborhood. We made a good profit on it when we sold, too. Edited January 23 by Kassia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie G Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 I was 24, the year was 1985. House was a three bedroom, unfinished basement, no garage. 1150 square feet. $51,000, new construction and builder’s grade everything. Definitely a starter house. We got a 15 year mortgage, and it was a stretch, but manageable. We were able to get into it for the $5000 we had saved, which included the down payment and closing costs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murphy101 Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) 28. Several months after our 5th baby was born. It was outside the city bc we couldn’t afford anything in town. It was an 1100 sq ft after we added a bedroom by divided the one car garage in half. We lived there 7 years and 3 more children before we moved into our current home, which still seems like a McMansion at 2800sw ft. Especially now that half the kids have moved out. ETA: we pinched every penny and stretched every dollar and prayed hard that the one car we had would last forever. (It didn’t. Lol) We had a first time home owner FHA loan and purposely set our tax refund to be extra high to use towards down payment. No help from family. Edited January 23 by Murphy101 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brittany1116 Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) 22. He is a few years older. We had been married under 2 years, had no other debt, no kids, no help from family. This was during the last recession. Edited January 23 by Brittany1116 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scholastica Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 Dh and I were 25 and 26. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildflowerMom Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 22, married and pregnant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs Tiggywinkle Again Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) I was 28 and DH was 26. We managed to put 50% down and pay the rest off within five years, that being said, the house was $72,500 for a 2400 square foot house and it was early 2010. It’s worth three times that now according to zillow. We wouldn’t be able to afford it in today’s market. Edited January 23 by Mrs Tiggywinkle Again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JennyD Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 39, married with three kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartstrings Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) 21. We bought the house in February, got married in April, I turned 22 in May and we had a baby on the way by July, all very planned. 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1200 sq. ft., garage, fenced yard for $101k. It was the perfect little house. Edited January 23 by Heartstrings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73349 Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) Late 20s, and we'd been married just under 5 years. We couldn't have done it if DH's work paid as little as mine (teaching). Repaying student loans and saving for a house caused us to delay having a child and discouraged having more than we do. Edited April 17 by 73349 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 29, married but my husband was pursuing his phd so my income was used for mortgage payments. It was a 1018sqft leasehold condo for $427k in 2001. Home prices are worse in my country of origin than most HCOL cities in the states. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ali in OR Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 I was 27, dh was 29, married 2 years, 2 incomes, and no kids yet. And we moved out of CA to OR. We had PMI the first year but then the house appraised high enough that we could drop it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alice Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 We bought a condo when we got married. Dh was 34, I was 28. He had previously lived with his parents in an over the garage apartment so had been able to save a fair amount. We bought our first house three years later, after our oldest was born. So Dh was 37, I was 31. It was a weird set of circumstances, we weren't really planning on buying. A coworker of his was killed in a car accident. The sister sold the house to us at the low end of market rate. Neither of us used realtors and she passed on all the savings to us. In exchange, she didn't have to do any updating to the house to sell it and we also cleaned out a good deal of it for her (she took everything sentimental, we did the rest of the cleanup). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 27; DH was just finishing his training, and we were still on one income. I had amazing credit (paid extra on my student loans), and they had first time home buyer programs for people making about what I did. It was just before the housing bubble burst. 10% down with an ARM that could be fixed inexpensively at five years. We did that and then refinanced for really cheap a few years later. We couldn’t save for a down payment now if we had to (medical bills) even though DH makes good money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Indigo Blue Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 22, married 3 years Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bambam Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 First house was an assumable loan - married for 1.5 years, 23?24? years old. We lived there maybe 1.5 years until I graduated from college and got my first professional job, and we moved to be closer to my work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Florida. Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 33 and single. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 Applied for a loan with finance, got everything almost to approval stage then realised my name couldn’t go on a loan because I wasn’t a legal adult. We ended up having to buy purely in DHs name so only just qualified for the loan. Yes, looking back it was ridiculously risky for me to help pay a loan without my name being on the title. I’m not sure why everyone was OK with it, except staying married no matter what was the normal expectation. So technically I only really bought the second house we lived in when I was around 27. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarita Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 30 DH bought a house and proposed a few months later. I paid for a lot of the early remodels. I don't suggest people do what we did. Financially it worked out for us but emotionally it was awful. A bit stressful to plan a wedding, remodel a fixer upper, complete a graduate degree, with both spouses working full-time high pressure jobs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LifeLovePassion Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 22/23, married 1 year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) 32. Living together 6 years. Married 3 years. No kids. Bought a flat. Eta first house - I was 45 and the kids were 8 and 11. Edited January 23 by Laura Corin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmandaVT Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 28, married, no baby yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happypamama Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 23, married two years, no baby at the time. DH had finished school, and we had moved to start his first job. We thought we would rent for a while before buying, but we stumbled upon a little place that needed cosmetic work (which DH is able to do himself), and it was a better deal than renting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Condessa Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 33 and dh was 38. We had been married for 13 years and our first four kids were ages 10, 8, 7, & 5. We used a USDA rural development loan, and still live in the house. It is a 1700 sq ft 3 bedroom. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bookbard Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 Never. My husband was able to buy his house off his parents when they split up when he was in his late 20s, during a time when they were handing out loans to anyone. There's no way he would've got a loan for it nowadays - he was self-employed and earning basically nothing. That small loan is now a very large loan due to interest rates, but the house is now worth a lot more. It's in his name and he pays the mortgage for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 I married at 29 and we bought our house later that year. Dh was 35 and had owned two condos (one at a time) before the house. I rented with a roommate until then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogger Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) 22, married, 1 kid and one on the way. Dh was 24. The little 856 ft bottom floor condo we bought for 140,000. Maybe 5 years ago I let curiousity get to me and checked Zillow and it said said it was like 550,000. 😳 I tried to check again for this thread and alas it looks like it has been turned into apartment buildings. ☹️ Tried to find one nearby the original in like condition (neither fancy nor run down) with similar square footage and the range according to Redfin is 500,000-700,000. ETA husbands age. Edited January 23 by frogger Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustEm Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 I got married at 21 and moved into the house that dh owned then. He was 25 and had two roommates paying his mortgage. But he was able to afford the house without them. It was his second home purchase. I wasn't a part of the buying process until we sold that house and bought our current house in 2019, when I was 33. We stayed in that first house for 2 reasons. 1. Being underwater because of the 2008 recession. 2. Because I was not going to sell it and move until we found our forever home once we were no longer underwater, which wasn't until 2017. Most houses in the area recovered a few years prior but our neighborhood was really low income families and just didn't recover in value because of nicer, larger houses in other neighborhoods being so cheap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogger Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 This might have made a good poll but not sure how to add spouses age which can affect things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tap Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 Married, bought a house and had first child all at 22yo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4kidlets4me Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 We were 34 had been married 12 years and had 4 kids. We had it for 3 years had to sell at a loss and have never been able to buy again. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ananda Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 I was 22 and married. My husband had inherited some savings bonds when his grandpa died. We used them for the down payment. Now I live in the tiny starter home with 3 kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasProud Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 I was 27 and my husband was 29 when we bought our own house. We had no help from family for that. We had been married for a little over 4 years. No children. We had been saving my salary for 3 years and living off of his. (We lived off my salary alone the first year. He was a student.) So that is how we had a downpayment. The year was 1994. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 1 hour ago, frogger said: This might have made a good poll but not sure how to add spouses age which can affect things. The older of the two for age? However, besides spouse, whether parents help a little with down payment and the timing of the purchase also have an effect. When we bought our first home (condo) in the states in 2006, prices were still on the high side but banks were happily approving mortgages even though we don’t have any credit history. During the Great Recession, banks went the other extreme and were willing to lend much less even with good credit history. Even now, banks were not as slack on approving mortgages as before. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasProud Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) Not me, but others I know: My friend's son and his wife bought a house 3 years ago. They were 20 and 19. He works and she did before she had a baby. It is a very small starter home. He has a manufacturing job. They had no help from family buying the home. Another friend's son bought a house about the same time across the street from the other couple. It was definitely a fixer upper, but he is very hands on and likes fixing things and is pretty good at it. He is a firefighter. He was also 20. (The boys graduated together and were friends.) He has since married. His parents did not help him financially at all with the house. However, the dad might have helped the son fix it up some. Edited January 23 by TexasProud 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartstrings Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 2 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said: Applied for a loan with finance, got everything almost to approval stage then realised my name couldn’t go on a loan because I wasn’t a legal adult. We ended up having to buy purely in DHs name so only just qualified for the loan. Yes, looking back it was ridiculously risky for me to help pay a loan without my name being on the title. I’m not sure why everyone was OK with it, except staying married no matter what was the normal expectation. So technically I only really bought the second house we lived in when I was around 27. How risky it was depends on the divorce laws. In some states in the US all property acquired during a marriage belongs to both people regardless of whose name is on what, but some states work differently. I’m not sure about other countries. We’ve done homes both ways, our first was in my name only, the second was in his only and our current one is the first we’re on together. I think we put his name on the title on the first house even though it wasn’t on the loan, I honestly don’t remember on the second house though. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartstrings Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 36 minutes ago, TexasProud said: I was 27 and my husband was 29 when we bought our own house. We had no help from family for that. We had been married for a little over 4 years. No children. We had been saving my salary for 3 years and living off of his. (We lived off my salary alone the first year. He was a student.) So that is how we had a downpayment. The year was 1994. We had no help either, but lucked into 0 down payment with our first house. I thought we’d need 3% but didn’t. Since then we’ve rolled the equity from one house into the down payment on the next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) 11 minutes ago, Heartstrings said: How risky it was depends on the divorce laws. In some states in the US all property acquired during a marriage belongs to both people regardless of whose name is on what, but some states work differently. I’m not sure about other countries. We’ve done homes both ways, our first was in my name only, the second was in his only and our current one is the first we’re on together. I think we put his name on the title on the first house even though it wasn’t on the loan, I honestly don’t remember on the second house though. Yes true … but we bought around six months before we got married too! Anyway… it all worked out ok I should add that DH had an inheritance which helped with the deposit (and I had one that we knew would be available once I turned 21). If we’d waited another five years we would have paid triple the amount we did. Edited January 23 by Ausmumof3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 (edited) I was 24 and single. I found an owner financed place and negotiated a bigger mortgage and lower interest rate than I could have gotten from a bank at the time. It was in a mature neighborhood and conventional wisdom was that it was a poor investment because the area was supposedly topped out. But I thought that this was going to be my home, not just an investment, so I wanted to LIKE it. And it turned out to be a good investment after all. Edited January 23 by Carol in Cal. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogger Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 4 hours ago, Arcadia said: whether parents help a little with down payment and the timing of the purchase also have an effect. I had forgotten that that is a thing. 😂 But that would definitly make a difference. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pawz4me Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 7 hours ago, Arcadia said: Whether parents help a little with down payment and the timing of the purchase also have an effect. When we bought our first home (condo) in the states in 2006, prices were still on the high side but banks were happily approving mortgages even though we don’t have any credit history. During the Great Recession, banks went the other extreme and were willing to lend much less even with good credit history. Even now, banks were not as slack on approving mortgages as before. I bought my first house in 1985. I went in person to a small, local savings and loan and met with a VP/loan officer. As well as I remember the loan application form I had to fill out was less than two pages long. I suppose they at least asked for a W2, but I don't remember. Maybe they called my employer to verify that I was, in fact, employed. As well as I remember the approval process took just a few days. Compared to how things are nowadays my first mortgage experience seems kind of surreal. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-rap Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 My dh and I were 32 when we bought our first home, and I was 7 months pregnant with baby #4. We bought it for $16,000! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted January 23 Share Posted January 23 We were 28, married, 3 kids. I never lived alone as a single person, only as a roommates or significant other. But I don’t advocate for getting pregnant at 20 or getting married at 23, which doesn’t really leave much window for solo living! 😆 We did have a loan from a family member to help with closing costs so that we wouldn’t have to sign another year long lease. To keep it in our price range, dh took on a very, very long commute. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.