did your parents help you buy your first house? or did you help your kids?

[mopinko]

Poll question: did your parents help you buy your first house? or did you help your kids?

seems like the expectation out there from a lot of young adults these days.

[livetohike]

1. No, my parents didn't help me. We bought our first house

when I was 26 years old. We never had kids, so that's why I voted "other".

[brendan120678]

2. Hmm...sort of?

My parents helped us pay for our wedding, which was only a month after we closed on our house.

Knowing that our parents would help with some of the wedding expenses helped us free up enough cash for the down payment and closing costs on the house that we otherwise may not have had available.

Only one kid so far who isn't even two yet, so I don't think he has any plans of moving out yet.

[Arugula Latte]

3. My parents helped us ( they'd come into an inheritance)

but I fear I won't be able to pass on the favor to my kids when it is time. :( That probably won't be for 20 years or so, though, so who knows.

[mopinko]

4. blatant self kick.

[Tikki]

5. Sort of....Our son and grandson lived..

with us rent free for 4 years while he saved to buy a home...and they are
comfortably in a nice home now about a 1/4 mile away from us. :)


The Tikkis

[mopinko]

30. that's worth more than money.

good that they actually saved up. it is easy to just take it easy, and do things and buy things.
got a couple grown kids living with me, and that is how it is.

[El Supremo]

6. An inheritance from my Aunt helped me buy my first house.

[trof]

7. My grandmother lent us $5000 for the down payment on our first house.

The total price was $32,500 for a nice (but smallish) 2 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath home.
We paid her back within 3 years.

Happily, our daughter married a man who has been on the fast track for his entire career from the gitgo.
He is amazingly compensated for the (too) long hours he puts in.
They need no financial help from us.

Au contraire, because we're now retired and on a very limited and fixed income, they insist on paying for airline tickets when we visit them.
Bless them.
:-)

[Broken_Hero]

8. Other:

My mom helped with 4k, without that 4k we couldn't get our home.

I choose other, because we don't have kids that are old enough to be looking for a home.

[hobbit709]

9. Help? Kids? What's that?

[CreekDog]

10. I helped my mom buy her first house when I was in college

:rofl:

I had money in the bank going through college (thank you Union Job at Kaiser Permanente)...more than most college students.

A little bit later, when I bought my car and then went to grad school she paid 1st semester's tuition, and she took over my car payments...she didn't really consider her debt paid off, but I'm sure she more than paid me off in dollar terms. After she bought she was broke and mentioned keeping 2k in an account to keep her life insurance in effect (who would that benefit? --me). I later realized that was there and not needed and started to ask about it, then kicked myself for doing so and never mentioned it again.

My grandfather then came down on me for not working enough going through school saying I should help my mom out more. I pointed out that when she asked him for money to buy a house, he turned her down (when he was rolling in it) while I lent the money, when it was half what I'd saved for grad school. Him and I tangled until a decade later he realized I wasn't quite as bad as he thought.

[nickinSTL]

11. my parents helped me, don't have kids

and if I did, I hardly think they'd be old enough to be buying a house yet.

(ok, it's physically possible, but...not too likely)

If I had kids who needed help, and I could, I would.

[noamnety]

12. Other

My parents loaned me my down payment, I had to pay it back with 7% interest - but on my own timetable (as interest accrued).

My daughter isn't at the point where she wants to buy a house yet. But I would at least loan her the 20% down payment assuming I have it to loan because PMI is just wasted money going to corporations. I'd rather keep that money in the family than give it to them.

In related business - my parents paid for my college, I paid for my daughter's college.

My parents, however - they entered into a mixed-religion marriage when they were very young (17&18) causing both sets of parents to cut them off financially, so they had to make it on their own. It resulted in them both dropping out of college. My mom would have had a scholarship but once she got married the university cancelled it, since - as the university put it - she didn't need to support herself so she didn't need an education.

[femmocrat]

13. Nope. We did it all on our own, and so did our kids.

We bought a "starter" house and worked our way up. They are still in their "starter" home. It builds character! :)

[Generic Brad]

14. Technically they helped me by not helping at all

They discouraged me from going to college, going to grad school, getting married, buying my house. Every time they told me those things were out of reach, I proved them wrong.

My kid is too young for any of this yet, but my wife and I have told her she will appreciate everything she gets if she earns it herself.

[pitohui]

15. i know lots of people of my generation who got help but not me wah wah wah

my parents simply had no disposable income for that kind of gift, my mom didn't inherit until she was past soc. security age and never had anything to give away

i was surprised when i reached the home buying years, just how MANY of my friends who bought houses got the down payment from their folks ... must be nice!!!

i got help from a gov't program that paid thousands in costs and put a new roof on the place before i moved in :-) so i'm certainly not complaining any

[suzbaby]

16. Yes, my folks helped me. No, I don't have any kids. (n/t)

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

17. yes, but I don't have kids myself

They pretty much insisted I stay at home until I could afford to buy a home and they helped with the down payment when the time was right to buy. My parents pretty much ran my life till I was damn near thirty, but I can't complain about where I ended up.

[GreenPartyVoter]

18. Parents paid for college and the wedding, but we won't be able to help our kids out. :^(

[Mugu]

19. Once I turned 18 I paid for everything. n/t

[AsahinaKimi]

20. My parents bought their house..

But sold it. I live in an Apartment, however they bought another house elsewhere. I suspect some day I will inherit it and sell it and then maybe I can live in my own house. But right now, I am just a poor student, who has a part time job, trying to scrape by.

[quakerboy]

21. Other. Reverse flow

No help from the parents. No kids to help. Last year I got the only inheritance I expect to get. From a relative I never knew. We ended up using the money to buy my mother in law a home. Hope she will manage to keep it.

[Withywindle]

22. House? Kids?

I'm 40 and I have neither.


My parents own their house outright and they bought it through their respective government jobs in the early 80s when I was in 6th grade (in the 60s and 70s - no mortgage, they paid CASH and that reflected a lot of years of living on peanut butter) Their gift to me is making sure it's paid outright so I have some kind of inheritance when they're gone.

I don't really want the house - I never want to live in that town again, I sacrificed everything to get the fuck out of there at 17 - but I understand what it means to them and their pride to have something substantial to leave to me.

Since I have no children and no spouse and no siblings, I'm really just waiting for the years I'll spend taking care of my parents (they changed MY diapers, I owe it to them to change theirs! I hope that's a long way off, they're in their 60s and very healthy still), and then, when I have no family left, I'll feel free to check myself out when my own aging process gets too unpleasant.

I know that sounds cold and hopeless to outsiders, but I don't really feel that way personally.

[hippywife]

23. You know, I can't remember if my parents helped me.

It seems like I didn't need the help but I'll be damned if I can remember. :shrug:

[mopinko]

25. omg woman.

you must be even older than me!

[hippywife]

26. I dunno about that. It may just be Old Hippie's Disease.

I bought my house in Ohio about 16 years ago. Now the house I live in down here, we definitely had help from my husband's parents but that was for the land. He built the house a few years before we were married 13 years ago.

See, I even forgot about all of that. I was only thinking of my house and my parents. :rofl:

[mopinko]

27. i think i could go

toe to toe with you on that old hippie thing. i will, however, never forget what a b&%$# my MIL was when we finally scraped together enough money for an fha downpayment. or so we thought.
it was a nightmare.

[NewJeffCT]

24. I had a temporary loan from my parents once, but it was an odd situation

We were selling one house and buying another and were supposed to close the same day, using the profit from the sale of the first house as a good part of the down payment on the house we were buying.

Well, the buyer of the house we were selling decided to back out at the last minute, so my parents loaned us the money to make the 20% down payment on the house we were buying, while we carried two mortgages for about a month until we could sell the original house and pay my parents the money back. But, it was not a small amount they loaned to us, as it was a new house in Connecticut.

[distantearlywarning]

28. Sort of.

Husband and I had scraped the money together to do it ourselves, and were halfway through the closing process when my parents surprised us with a fairly hefty check, out of the blue. We had neither asked for their help nor expected it, but they decided to help anyway, which was really nice. We used some of it for the down payment, and the rest to refinish the original (1925) oak floors and for a new dining room table before we moved in. I still love our floors with a fierce passion, we have really made an effort to keep them beautiful over the years, and am *so* glad that we spent some of that check making them gorgeous!

My in-laws helped us several years later, after I had a period of unemployment due to health issues followed by a major operation + attendant medical bills that wiped out our savings (even with "good" health insurance, this kind of crisis costs a *lot* of money). We managed to pay the medical bills on our own plus keep ourselves afloat without my income, but then three weeks later we had a major gas line break in a place that wasn't covered by the gas company OR our home insurance (the worst damn luck ever), and it cost several thousand dollars to repair, which we didn't have at all. We called them shamefacedly and asked for a loan, and they were so nice about it - sent us a check the next day via FedEx for the gas repair plus a few hundred extra and told us never to speak of it again, that they didn't want the money back or any discussion about it.

Both of us are really lucky in that we have such loving and supportive families, and that we both get along well with both sets of parents. It's been a real blessing.

[mopinko]

29. great story, thanks for sharing it. and

i love your sig.

[Skittles]

31. no

[mopinko]

32. thanks for all the stories. very interesting. the reason for the poll-

my grown daughter is trying to go back to college, and is living with me. she has brought quite a bit of drama. she has decided that the way for her to make it through college is for us to buy a condo for her to live in until she is done, then we sell it. as in, pull the money out our ass to pay cash, or make her payments for how ever many years it takes her to finish school. i hear the weather is great on her planet.
after next year it is possible that all 5 of my kids will be in college. tuition and books will be enough of a burden, even with loans. that part we will take care of. room and board they need to do themselves. they are all welcome to live with us. 4 of them do. (plus a girlfriend.)
down payments, we can help out. payments, no.

this child has always been :eyes: