A Boston Foundation report out today paints a grim picture of a housing market with prices spiraling out of control - in which condo prices are reaching parity with single-family home prices, triple deckers are being snapped up by investors and families are struggling to stay afloat.
What has really exploded in price are the iconic "triple-deckers" in Greater Boston. Built for the most part between 1870 and 1920 when massive immigration tripled the city’s population, the median price of a single unit in a triple-decker was $244,172 in 2009. By mid-2015, the median sales price had shot up to $477,057 - an increase of 95 percent in the span of just six years. The demand for units in such buildings - driven in large part by undergraduate and graduate students, medical interns and residents and other young professionals who can pair up, triple up, and quadruple up to pay mushrooming rents - has made such housing an investment bonanza. Rental unit vacancy rates have fallen to 2.6 percent in Greater Boston, less than half the 5.5 percent that research shows is needed to stabilize rents so they rise no faster than normal inflation. Landlords compete aggressively to purchase such buildings and in doing so have pushed prices up to astounding levels.
The report says 25% of Boston-area renters now pay more than 50% of their monthly income just for housing.
Note that between 2010 and 2014, the total number of permits issued in the region was 40,735, far below the more than 67,000 new households added to the region during that same period. However, only 15,000 units of housing were actually built.
What's to blame? Land prices, especially in the suburbs, have rocketed, in part due to snob zoning, or as the report puts it, "a strong focus on preserving 'community character.'" Construction costs have gone up as well, although not as much as land costs.
What if we do nothing? Eventually our economy suffers as people who can't afford to live here go elsewhere for jobs.
The only slight glimmer of hope? Single-family homes could start coming on the market as baby boomers move away or die.
The report calls for looking at innovative ways to build housing - such as using modular construction of components built in factories - increasing state funding on affordable housing and convincing towns to donate land for new housing, and somehow, in some amazing stroke of incredible salesmanship, convincing suburban towns to allow the sort of denser multi-family development that would help families stay and attract the young workers the economy will need to survive.
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Comments
is it too late for me to not
By neguy
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 8:49am
is it too late for me to not finish high school and have a few kids i can't afford?
Can 40B be strengthened or
By Verbal
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:08am
Can 40B be strengthened or expanded, do you think?
40b is the issue for working families
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:28am
In Boston you're either to poor to afford but not poor enough to qualify.
Now that you mention it
By jmaddenmass
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:29am
Please call your state legislators and beg support for H.1111, An Act relative to housing production, and H.1080, An Act to address equal access to housing through local zoning. See info here http://www.chapa.org/sites/default/files/Testimony...
Don't know who your elected officials are? Check here http://www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/MyElectionInfo.aspx
Transit, too
By alkali
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:10am
I would add that in addition to land prices and construction costs, the failure to build new public transit is a significant driver of housing costs. It has been decades since the T was meaningfully extended. To pick just one example, if the Green Line Extension were in place, there would be additional housing options in Somerville and Medford for people who work in Boston.
It is frequently pointed out that extending the T would be expensive. In the past, T lines were presumably built for free by friendly giants and no one ever had to pay taxes. That was a sweet deal.
T access is huge. Every new T
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:45am
T access is huge. Every new T stop has a ripple effect with the walkable distances, plus a new station would get new connecting routes w busses which expands that reach.... Even ONLY expanding more bus lines would open up housing options at this point.
Somerville, at least, is
By zz
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:51am
Somerville, at least, is getting PLENTY expensive even without the green line extension - it's already a housing option for lots of people in Boston - who can still afford it.
That said, the T should absolutely be funded enough to expand.
TBF
By anon²
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 10:41am
People snatched up properties along the green line extension over a decade ago knowing it would balloon land values in Somerville and Medford. Current values in those corridors are already factoring it in quite a bit.
TBF
By anon²
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 10:41am
People snatched up properties along the green line extension over a decade ago knowing it would balloon land values in Somerville and Medford. Current values in those corridors are already factoring it in quite a bit.
I honestly do not see the issue with this.
By SoBo-Yuppie
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:26am
...the worst thing is people with lower incomes will have longer commutes. OH NO!
Here are some positives:
1. lower crime.
2. people that bought houses can cash out and retire (these are working class people).
3. better schools
4. better restaurants
5. more intelligent residents (i know, sounds elitist but it is true). which means higher paying jobs.
6. force public transit to improve (more ppl will be commuting from farther away).
7. ...and the best one: Less cranky townies that don't evolve.
Did you miss the part about...
By BGM617
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:42am
the very poor? It's not becoming a city of rich people, it's becoming a city of rich people and the very poor that the rich subsidize to live here. Middle income people are not the one's committing crimes, generally either... so uh, crime might be down, but it's not going away.
Not to sound evil
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:46am
But why do the poor and the unemployed need to live in the city? So a working class family who pays taxes is subsidizing a deadbeat to live in an area they can't even afford.
Ya that make perfect scenes.
Well, where are they going to live?
By adamg
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 10:06am
One of the interesting things (at least for me) about this report is that it looks at the entire metropolitan area, not just the city of Boston. The entire area is becoming Manhattanized, in the sense of it becoming too expensive for virtually everybody, leaving room only for the very rich and the very poor who are eligible for housing projects.
Let's pretend you're one of those people who just don't give a damn about poor people, would be just as happy as if you never had to hear about them again (not saying you are, I have no clue who you are). In this 1% utopia, where are your baristas, your maids, your nannies, your garbage collectors, your checkout people, your firefighters going to come from? They don't need to live downtown? Only rich people like me deserve the finer things in life? Let 'em live in Dorchester or Everett! Only now they can't, because all the triple deckers in Dorchester and Everett have been converted into $1M condos with granite countertops.
Strictly from a purely heartless, mercenary, utilitarian vantage, the sort that so many anonymous commenters here seem to hold (or maybe it's just one really bitter old curmudgeon who can type really fast), if the entire region is too expensive, your lower classes are finally going to just pack up their stuff and move to another state. And then the 1% will have nobody to draw their drinks for them.
File photo
By erik g
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 10:11am
[img]http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif[/img]
Brockton?
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 10:40am
Lawrence? Lowell?
adam, youve tried to use this
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 11:21am
adam, youve tried to use this logic before
you say Boston (and eventually surrounding communities) are becoming 'Manhattanized'. and if that happens where will all the workers come from. Well, where do all the workers come from in Manhattan? Manhattan does not have a problem with staffing Starbucks, or getting hotels cleaned, or having the garbage picked up.
Lets take fire fighters. its well known that historically NYFD fire fighters live in Rockaway. thats over 20 miles from midtown manhattan. or a commute by subway of over an hour. so yes, baristas, and maids, and garbage collectors will have to commute. Its a shame anybody has to have a long commute, by why do middle class people have a right to a shorter commute than people with more money?
Its reality. The only anomaly here is that people in the US with money have chosen to commute for the last 50 years.
that question
By cybah
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 11:47am
Are you for real?
Then tell me. why do the rich have a right to a shorter commute than the much larger middle class?
(see how that works.. that question can be used against you)
I do see how that works. Its
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 12:01pm
I do see how that works. Its called capitalism. Supply and demand.
Capitalism may not be a great system, but it is a better system than anything else man has come up with so far in the last few thousand years.
Ask a capitalist friend of yours
By Sally
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 2:44pm
who actually runs a business--say a retail store or a restaurant--and ask them where their employees live and whether they've been having any trouble recently finding people who can afford to live nearby OR a car so they can commute in town to wash dishes, clean office buildings, pour coffee, etc.
if it were really a problem....
By SoBo-Yuppie
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 4:03pm
....Boston would see restaurants closing.
instead we see more opening up.
Um
By boo_urns
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 4:48pm
Plenty of restaurants close down every single month. You're just not paying attention to them. There's a local blog that keeps track of all of this on a monthly basis, in fact.
What you're also missing on is that these restaurants would rather have consistent employees than see higher turnover rates because simply getting into work is difficult.
Where do you see capitalism?
By cinnamngrl
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 5:30pm
Because what I see is if you are rich enough, you pay lawmakers to create laws that make you richer. Rich companies need tax breaks to bribe them to make jobs. Don't like taxes? Not only can you pay politician to keep them low, but you underfund the IRS to the point where you can pretend that the taxes are systemically incompetent and corrupt.
Calling the US economic system capitalist is like saying Stalinist Russia was communist. It's fake.
Not the anon, but I would
By bgl
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 1:57pm
Not the anon, but I would think that's actually kind of easy to answer - we live in a capitalist economy and the rich have more money and thus can afford to live in more expensive/desirably places. If you change our economy to something else, then maybe the majority wins - but even our government is set as a democratic republic to limit the majority in an attempt to prevent mobocracy.
Bad career to use as a
By Dot net
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 12:01pm
Bad career to use as a comparison. Firefighters generally live and work at their firehouse for a week on and a week off, or other long, 24 hour minimum shifts. Cuts down on that commute a lot.
Rockaway?
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 1:54pm
Also Massapequa and Wantagh, and assorted other South Shore of Long Island towns, a good 90 minute commute to Manhattan and worse for the outerboroughs.
Manhattan
By JP Resident
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 2:33pm
The last time I was in Manhattan I had a conversation with a bartender and a few younger customers sitting near me. The bartender lives in Trenton, NJ (just outside Philadelphia). She took a train into midtown and the subway to lower Manhattan. 1.5 hours each way. But, the job paid more than anything she could get in Philly or NJ.
The young patrons were tech workers. The manager among them just was able to sublet an apartment in a lesser desirable area in Manhattan and the others lived in Jersey City. They all said the goal was to live in Manhattan but even making nearly six figures they couldn't afford it, even sharing rent. None of these people have car expenses mind you.
I'm not saying this is a problem. What it actually leads to is that the cities before more expensive for services so service workers can get paid more so the city can compete against the suburbs and exurbs where the service workers live for their labor. When you think about it, actually it shows why an elevated minimum wage in the city is unnecessary--wages will adjust to the labor demand.
Just an observation based on one person's small world.
Actually, there are plenty of great homes available in Everett..
By Murphy1983
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 11:22am
and they are very affordable (for now at least). Everett is what Somerville was 15 years ago. Get in while you can!
https://www.coldwellbankerhomes.com/ma/everett/kvc...
Commute time
By SwirlyGrrl
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 6:04pm
Everett has long commute times by bus, and people with economic limitations won't commute into the city by car with $20/day parking.
Know what else? The schools suck because the citizens won't oust a crooked school committee or superintendent that spends special ed money on homecoming parties and uses school workers to install school-bought AC units in his home.
A very large number of people
By anon
Wed, 11/18/2015 - 12:22pm
A very large number of people in the current generation are living single well into adulthood and are not having children. The schools are irrelevant to them.
C'mon, People!
By Div2Supt
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 1:07pm
Fritz Lang devised a solution for this problem nearly 90 years ago!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0NzALRJifI
Is it too late to start building the New Tower of Babel in Midtown?
I think the bigger problem is
By cinnamngrl
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 5:43pm
I think the bigger problem is that rich people desire a walkable neighborhood, but poor people need walk-ability to survive. Its not whether some who is poor is willing to move to find an affordable home, it is dangerous for them in obvious and subtle ways.
If you don't have a car and transit costs of $2-3 are difficult for you, then you need to be able to walk to the health center, grocery store and school.
There are lot of older apartment buildings in suburbs and smaller cities around the country that located next to highways and designed for commuters. These places are becoming more affordable, but there are no services in walking distance. There is a highway outside of Atlanta where people are being hit by cars as they walk by highways not safe to have pedestrians nearby.
You just described Manhattan.
By Heather
Tue, 11/17/2015 - 9:59am
You just described Manhattan.
who just described manhatten?
By cinnamngrl
Tue, 11/17/2015 - 12:23pm
not offended, just confused
duh...
By Marco
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 10:18am
ever try begging for change in the suburbs? Can't even clear $20k in tax -free dollars doin that. The city is where the begging scene is AT.
Hey, Burzum
By SwirlyGrrl
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 6:04pm
How ya been?
When did folks who are poor become deadbeats, anon?
By whyaduck
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 1:46pm
You have heard of the "working poor" right?
It would be akin to me calling all anon posters "assholes".
What makes some one poor?
By scauma
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 3:19pm
Poor is a relative term. You can have a perfectly fine job making 40k a year but try to find a decent 1br that you can afford on that income. Your essentially poor in that respect.
Why do the rich need to live here?
By Felicity
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 8:30pm
A lot of us poor "deadbeats" are disabled, and live here to be near the good hospitals and other social services.
Other poor "deadbeats" probably have friends and family here, and want to maintain their social networks. Maybe they can't afford a car and stay here for public transportation. Maybe they're poor and putting themselves through school. Maybe they want access to cultural events, museums, schools, libraries. Maybe they just enjoy the rhythm of living in a city.
Why does anyone need to live here?
The number one positive?
By Nick L
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:44am
The best thing about it is that the horrendous negative consequences of Boston's housing situation don't affect SoBo-Yuppie directly, or that of anyone he knows, except a few troglodytic "townies." I mean, sure, maybe a few disabled people and single-parent families will get swept away, but you gotta break a few other people's eggs to make an omelette tailored to SoBo-Yuppie's specifications.
Plus the riffraff bring crime to Boston! Clearly the best way to address that is by making them desperate about their rent!
8.
By relaxyapsycho
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:44am
More cunts like yourself
#3
By zz
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:53am
NOT better schools. See: Cambridge. If middle class families (like my parents) can't buy in the city anymore, the public schools will start to become only poor kids (not a bad thing on its own, but probably comes with parents who have less free time to be involved in school stuff) and all the rich kids will go to private schools. It's already happening.
"start to become only poor kids"
By Anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 10:05am
That ship sailed a long time ago, unless you include BLA & BL.
And Boston Arts Academy ...
By adamg
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 10:22am
And some of those charters that are funded with public money.
It's possibly hard for folks who remember the 1970s to fathom, but many people who move into the city actually want their kids to go to a public school. There was even that time a group of parents offered to buy some building in the Back Bay and give it to the city for use as a school (only to get turned down by Menino).
At the exam/charter level
By bgl
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 2:12pm
At the exam/charter level sure (basically High School). The 1-6 in the BPS is still terrible and still causes people to leave (if they can't afford private/parochial). BPS kindegarden is pretty good though.
No
By adamg
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 2:35pm
There are good BPS elementary schools.
Snob
By Tom Baldiarri
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 1:31pm
You're the definition of a rich snob....I see your comments on every gentrification-related post and you seem to be the only person who wants Boston's identity to virtually disappear into a "strictly-yuppie" city. Move out to the suburbs already because you're clearly not a true Bostonian.
Ok, is anyone reading the actual article...
By whyaduck
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 2:40pm
the problem is that folks who are working (and notice the word "working", very important), at, as you say, "lower incomes" but not making six figure salaries (or enough to afford the average cost of a two bedroom apartment in Boston, $2,600 a month) can't afford to live and work in the city or even near the city. Or, to give another example, the days when I could live, in Boston, within walking distance to BU and afford a simple studio in line with my salary are going and gone. The issue is that working folks, like myself, have to keep moving out and out to afford housing and that, in my opinion, is wrong as well as not beneficial for our society in the long run.
Contradictions
By Lunchbox
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:36am
Our national housing policy is an exercise in contradictions. On one hand, we pay lip service to affordable housing. On the other hand, we massively distort the market via the mortgage deduction and the capital gains write-off for real estate,* both of which tend to inflate the price of housing. Throw in exclusionary zoning and it's a recipe for housing shortages.
* As a beneficiary of said market distortions, I'll be damned if anyone takes them away
Market distortion for sure
By issacg
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:59am
The mortgage interest deduction is certainly a distortion. The theoretical economist in me says that it should be eliminated. The practical economist (and realpoliticker) in me realizes that unless it is phased out over a very long (i.e., mortgage length) period of time, eliminating it would cause a housing crisis that would make the subprime thing look easy to handle. Nearly everyone who bought a house with a mortgage in (at least) the last 10 years would be immediately plunged underwater for a good long time.
[Sidenote: Apropos a comment I made on another thread (about a small generation being a dangerous place to be), it does make me a little nervous as a Gen Xer. I can envision an unholy alliance (in the form of aligned interests, not actual conspiracy) between Boomers who have already cleaned up on the sale of the big suburban houses now wanting more tax revenue (generated by the elimination of the mortgage interest deduction) to shore up medicare/SS and the so-called "Millennials" who want the price of housing to come down so that they can get on the ladder.]
Exclusionary zoning is certainly an issue, but I think it is very much less so than your other point....
Lack of acceptable/usable transit. There is plenty of good and relatively inexpensive EXISTING housing stock in many smaller cities in and around Boston, but there is just no way to get to or from said housing to the areas where the jobs are in a realistic amount of time. 90-120 minute commutes each way are just not feasible for the overwhelming majority of the population. As many others have said, we might have a housing problem, but a very big part of it is a transportation problem.
There probably needs to be a
By Dot net
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 4:42pm
There probably needs to be a limit on the mortgage deduction. There's no need to subsidize the full deduction for multi-million dollar homes or second homes. Especially when the mortgage deduction costs taxpayers 4x or more the amount they spend on affordable and low-income housing programs.
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/04/the-us-spen...
There already is a limit and
By Southside Georgie
Sat, 11/14/2015 - 12:40am
There already is a limit and has been for a long time. The mortgage interest deduction has been limited to total mortgages of no more that $1M for nearly thirty years. Argue that the deduction should be more limited or abolished, but don't pontificate when you don't even know what the rules actually are.
--gpm
Thanks for the info. I'm not
By Dot net
Sat, 11/14/2015 - 10:51pm
Thanks for the info, though your condescending tone is unnecessary. I'm not trying to pontificate, I'm trying to learn things on the fly, when they get brought up.
I still don't think it's defensible to allow for mortgage interest deduction on second homes.
I think it should be about the number
By cinnamngrl
Sun, 11/15/2015 - 7:00pm
Just the fact that a person owns a 2nd property isn't enough. I know a lot of people that own their parents homes, or an apartment where their kid attends college. pick a fair number to tax. Maybe a million is too high. But I can't knock people for front loading their expenses and turn them into investments. Income properties are different. This would be a better place to make changes.
and for the record I don't memorize the tax code either.
Upzone
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:38am
Want more housing for the middle class? Upzone, especially in transit rich and/or mixed use areas. And, of course, by increasing the amount of transit rich and/or mixed use areas, you create more places where you can upzone.
As more units are built, prices will cool a bit.
Want more housing for families? Allow development of microapartments with no parking -- and watch as the 20-somethings decide they've had enough of their 3 roommates and move into their own 600 square foot pad. For every three or four microapartments built, you'll "free up" one more apartment suited for a family.
Want more housing for families? Work with the universities to build more student housing. Every student living on university housing is a student not living in a market-rate apartment.
Want more housing for families? Build it on the Blue Line. It's the subway least crowded, and there isn't the density of higher ed on the north side of the Boston Main Channel, so there's less direct competition with college kids.
If BRA can figure out a way to allow developers to build less parking in exchange for building more middle class units, the median housing price will stabilize a bit.
Microapartments only work if
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:49am
Microapartments only work if the price for the little unit is equivalent (or, ideally, since we WANT people to move into them, less) than your 1 bedroom's worth of rent. The ones that were being proposed by the water were like 80-100% of the cost of a whole triple decker floor. Which, sure, you have to share with roomates, but at least there's more square footage.
You're comparing a triple decker to a new waterfront apartment
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 10:13am
A floor in a triple decker and a new waterfront apartment are both fine and reasonable places to live. They're not the same though -- the triple decker has more space, but it doesn't have the view. It has old interesting architecture, cranky radiators, a little garden, and a six block walk to the bus stop. The microunit has high end but tiny appliances, is conveniently located but doesn't allow for car ownership. Etc.
It's a numbers game. If microapartments get built, it results in less pressure on other forms of housing because some potential renters/owners shop in both markets, ultimately choosing one and thereby not choosing the other.
If these microapartments were
By 2
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 10:33am
If these microapartments were actually affordable for the majority of millenials working in this metro, and not the small share working in Kendall Sq and Fort Point, then we'd move from triple deckers en masse.
I honestly don't care about all of these luxury amenities like a coffee bar or a pool or giant game rooms that developers keep trying to throw at us. Just build simple studios that are relatively close to transit and see how quickly they'll get snatched off the market. I love my roommate, but she and I have joked that we'd be perfect neighbors -- if we could afford it.
600 sq ft pad
By downtown-anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 10:48am
What the hell are you talking about?
My 550sq ft place requires, at current market prices, a $100,000+ downpayment to make the 20% for a mortgage. And it is not in the best shape. The same unit would have required a $25,000 downpayment 20 years ago.
600sq ft is a luxury sized place for a 20 something on anything near a average salary.
Also, the microapartments
By 2
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 11:14am
Also, the microapartments being built in this city average at about 350 sq.ft. 600 sq.ft is indeed a luxury.
600 sq ft is bigger than most
By bgl
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 2:14pm
600 sq ft is bigger than most studios - definitely not a micro apartment.
This is a great big giant...
By BGM617
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:40am
DUH! Glad they had to pay for a study to come up with this conclusion. Aaaaand what is going to be done about it? Not much.......It works out great for the people in power and people with money, so who really cares? Only the people being displaced, apparently. Politicians love to talk about the "housing crisis", but no drastic measures are being taken. A crisis calls for drastic measures. Duh. I love Boston and work my butt off to be able to afford to live here, but I know I will not have the energy to do that forever. I'm already pretty much planning to be out in a couple years because rent keeps going up, pay stays pretty stagnant, and it's all but impossible for a single person to save up 20% down payment unless you live with your parents or something.
Stop getting Starbucks every
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 9:49am
Stop getting Starbucks every day.
Idiot
By anon²
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 11:06am
Sure, that $1640/yr is really going to put a dent in a down payment.
Just think, after 40 years of forgoing Starbucks, you can put a down payment on micro studio in South Boston at the nice old age of 60!
Well
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 11:21am
Two lattes a day is $3650. $150 worth of partying/boozing every weekend is $7800. That's a down payment on a $300K condo in less than five years if you invest that money instead of flushing it down the drain.
You said
By anon²
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 3:20pm
Starbucks, I said that's not an issue nor possible as to the reason people can't afford housing.
How much other spending should we include to stuff the strawman that poor people are poor because they're not thrifty?
I read the posts, I never
By Patricia
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 4:07pm
I read the posts, I never read anyone mention anything about poor people being poor due to indulgences.
What I'm reading, if you're trying to save for a down payment (20%) - it's not impossible for many people. Budgeting, not spending on things that aren't a necessity, etc... An example being Starbucks would be one of those things in life that aren't really necessary.
This sensitivity to criticism is really tiresome. And talk about strawmen arguments!
Every little bit counts. When
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 11:23am
Every little bit counts. When did $1600 a year become something to scoff at?
Do something to reduce your cable/internet bill and your cell bill and toss in the electric bill too and that downpayment isn't hard to manage at all.
but, but, but
By bosguy22
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 11:51am
It's not FAIR that some people can afford lattes everyday and I can't!
Fabulous assumptions, guys.
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 12:46pm
Starbucks was not mentioned in the original response whatsoever. But good job making stuff up! Such vivid imaginations!
It's irrelevent what
By anon
Fri, 11/13/2015 - 2:30pm
It's irrelevent what expensive coffee you drink every morning. The important thing is the attitude of the person who replied. There's nothing impossible about saving for a down payment.
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