If you bought a home 20+ years ago, could you afford it today?

I bought that house in 2001 in another town in my county. Everything here was going up and sold immediately and inventory was better in that town. And because of the work I do, finding another job was easy. Of course I now know they were giving loans to people that did not deserve them.

So I bought that house with 20% down, good income and credit. And it was a very unhappy place. I remember (I think) that my house payment was $553.75. That did not include tax or insurance. I have more in the bank now than the sale price of that house when I bought it and I can't seem to buy a decent manufactured home in a park.

After all that, sorry, the answer is no. I could not afford it.
 
No. We're semi retired and without the equity in our paid-off home that we bought nearly 40 years ago. We couldn't afford the price or monthly mortgage of our home (over $6000/month, assuming 20% down payment and 7% interest).

That said, all three of our children bought homes (2 within the last 5 years), even at the high prices of housing in So Cal. Fortunately, they all have interest rates under 3%.

It's a good thing they're happy with their homes because they're trapped by those great rates. At 7%, they couldn't afford their houses if they wanted to buy them now...
 
Yes I could afford my current home now. Even though I'm no longer pulling a paycheck overall I'm in a much better financial position than twenty years ago. Also I never got caught up in the bigger is better house trend, I built a practical home for an affordable price.
 
Probably, because the extra money from lower monthly expenses would have been invested. It costs a lot to keep a home in good order. If we wanted to move to a bigger city with a higher cost of living, we’d couldn’t do it. Vancouver homes are over a million, so it would be a major downgrade if we moved to be close to family.
 
I could not afford to buy a new home with cash. Given that, at my age, it would not be worth getting a mortgage because the homes are so expensive, the interest rates are up, and I don't think I will live long enough to pay off the mortgage! Not worth it for me.
 


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