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wordplayM and I (and many other DC area residents, I imagine) have spent part of the morning talking about this article in this morning's Washington Post.
The mind boggles. The average household income in the US is around $46k. And the average household income in our county is just over $82k. Will someone please explain to me, then, how it is that we can't break into the housing market here for under $500k, and really need to go past $600k for something our family of four can live in longterm? What kind of insane financing deals must people be getting themselves into? And what ARE the guidelines for financing property right now? My personal comfort zone was that I never wanted to buy a house that was more than twice our annual income, but I'm starting to think that was way, way too conservative. Is there a ballpark for this?
And look at the numbers of people without health insurance - it's disgusting. I've spent all year bitching to anybody who would listen about how our health insurance over the last year (COBRA coverage, since M. is self-employed - best part of me going to work for the state is that we don't have to carry our own insurance anymore, yay!) ran us over $1100 per month. That's over $13k per year, or almost 30% of that $46k that the average American household is bringing in. Absolutely absurd, and well past shameful.
Aren't we all so glad that this administration wants to repeal the estate tax? What a difference that will make to most American households! < /sarcasm>
The mind boggles. The average household income in the US is around $46k. And the average household income in our county is just over $82k. Will someone please explain to me, then, how it is that we can't break into the housing market here for under $500k, and really need to go past $600k for something our family of four can live in longterm? What kind of insane financing deals must people be getting themselves into? And what ARE the guidelines for financing property right now? My personal comfort zone was that I never wanted to buy a house that was more than twice our annual income, but I'm starting to think that was way, way too conservative. Is there a ballpark for this?
And look at the numbers of people without health insurance - it's disgusting. I've spent all year bitching to anybody who would listen about how our health insurance over the last year (COBRA coverage, since M. is self-employed - best part of me going to work for the state is that we don't have to carry our own insurance anymore, yay!) ran us over $1100 per month. That's over $13k per year, or almost 30% of that $46k that the average American household is bringing in. Absolutely absurd, and well past shameful.
Aren't we all so glad that this administration wants to repeal the estate tax? What a difference that will make to most American households! < /sarcasm>
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no subject
on 2006-08-30 04:03 pm (UTC)As for health insurance, I just despair about what we can do. That seems to be the tactic -- wear people down, make them think that nothing can change so why bother trying.
no subject
on 2006-08-31 03:32 pm (UTC)Yes, this is exactly it - trying to fold my old-fashioned ideas about finance into the new model of property mortgaging. To be honest, I'm not even sure that buying property is even worthwhile in the current market - it's certainly beginning to slow down and stagnate here, and the rental market is still very workable, and I'm starting to think I need to throw off ALL of the conventional wisdom and stay in a rental and invest all of that extra income that would go toward a house payment into an IRA or something. I think it's possible that the housing market is so upside down that its value as an investment is pretty limited, but it makes me very anxious.