The house you grew up in...

[coup]

My parents built their house in 1969. They took out a loan for $10,000. The house is a 3 BR, 1 1/2 bath on a full basement. I'd guess 1800-1900 square feet.

Here's the kicker...when they went to the bank to secure the loan, the bank officer asked them waht they wanted to pay per month! My mom said $65 per month...because she still needed to buy groceries the week she made the house payment. Dad brought home about $100 per week at the time.

Oh, and they forgot to add the cost of a furnace into the bank loan, so Dad's employer granted them a loan for an additional $1000!

I think that is a great little story!

[Darlene]

I think it was in 1962 after my grandpa died and my dad bought it from the estate. Not sure how much Dad paid or made but I know it wasn't much. All I know is he had it was tough with 5 kids, mortgage and working 2 jobs. By the time I was old enough to ask these kinds of questions he died. Never asked my mother & now she's gone too.
It was a nice house on a big corner lot, wrap around porch and nice gardens my Mom grew. It was a 3 bedroome made into 4 with a very small kitchen, living room, parlor back porch and 1 small bathroom. I had to laugh at someone's comment about having all those people use one bathroom since that's the way I've always lived. Our 1st home & this one too has only one bath. Yes, it can be done, lol.

We bought our first home in 1984 for 45k and sold it at 85k in 1993 then we bought this house for 99k and not sure what it's worth on todays market.

[chettasmom]

My parents bought our house when I was 3..(1965)..it was on 6 city lots, with a peach orchard, 5 very old large apple trees, plum trees, apricot trees, a 65 foot grapevine (very full), and 3 pear trees..there was horseradish, and rhubarb growing from the previous original owners, and they planted garlic that had been growing since 1920 from cloves my grandfather brought over from Italy..they paid 4500 dollars for the house..my parents got divorced when I was 4 but we stayed in the house with my mom (all 6 of us kids) ..she was a nurse and made a decent salary..she got remarried about 26 years ago and sold the house for 57,000...she got robbed..the land alone was worth much more than that, and the house consisted of 4 bedrooms, living room dining room,den, full kitchen, bathroom, numerous walk in closets, fireplaces in the bedrooms (it was an old house but updated with a new furnace and heating system, and electrical system)..a huge finished cellar, a long entry hall, and a building out back that held our wine presses in...I miss that old place. (which btw was haunted!)

[janis362529]

My parents bought their house in 1987 for in their words dirt cheap. It was then a 200 yr old tear down 2 family home. By the time they divorced in 2004 the house was remorgaged at 300,000 and in 2007 my mom remorgaged it to covert it back to a 2 family and now has a 450,000 morgage that she can not afford. When they 1st bought the house my mom was a SAHM and my Dad was working I think as a post man and was making around 35,000 a year. When they divorced my mom ran a daycare and made 35,000 and my Dad made over 100,000 with the IRS.
Its funny looking at my parents my Dad use to be big on apperences and hated having no money but once he started making 100,000+ he became super frugal and is living the Dave Ramsey life to the extreme. My mom who always worried about the money and making ends meet now blows every dime she makes.

[HisDaisy]

My parents bought their first house in 1978(I was 3 years old) for $26,000. My mom was a SAHM at the time and my dad was only a few years into his career as a physical therapist. I do know that my dad sold his corvette to buy the house.
They sold that house in 1986 for $46,000. Then they bought their second home for $68,000. My mom was still SAHM, but we had inherited some money from my grandparents.
Just this week, they sold that home for $250,000. My dad just retired from his job at the hospital after 31 years. They are now moving 150 miles to where they want to retire. He has taken another job as a physical therapist and they are now living in a rental house until they can find the house they want.

My DH and I would love to own a home, but we have moved so much. I am still finishing school and my Dh's field is not the highest paying field, so it will be a while before we own a home. I want to make sure we can afford it first. Renting is not all that bad.

[Laura2]

My parents never owned a home. They rented from my mom's parents since I was born to the time I was 18.

[qtkitty]

This is pretty bad .. everyone seems to know all this information .. my family on the other hand is very close lipped about how much they make and what they spent on high ticket items.

I know my mother bought our first home when i was a teen for $63K and she is a school teacher... what its worth now i haven't a clue however i do know the first year the taxes on it were changed 3 times because of renovations to the outside.

When i was little though we lived in my grandparents house which they( sort of a family project ) built in the 70's when my grandfather was a State Park Ranger and my grandmother was an accountant (more like book keeper) for a local trucking buisness. The land that it was built on was given to my grandfather by his father. Later on grandfather sectioned off the land and gave a peice to my uncle to build his monument company building on and eventually a large home as well. But my grandfather still has almost 2 acres of land.

I hope that some day i have a good enough job to purchase my grandparents home from them.. because that would mean it would stay in the family which is important to me. Even though its in town limits and you can't have live stock ( chickens and things ).

[Marie78]

My parents bought their 3 bedroom, one bathroom, one car garage home together when I was 3 years old (in 1981). My mom was a SAHM and my dad made around $8/hr working in a factory. They had one car and I believe the house cost around $15,000. Life seemed so simple then, their monthly mortgage payment was less than a 1/4 of what my fiance and I pay in rent each month for a 2 bedroom one bath apt. only 40 minutes from my parents house. It's amazing to consider because, I only make $12/hr and my fiance is currently a student making $10/hr. We hope after my fiance completes his graduate degree he will make much more per hour, but who knows these days..... At this point in our life there is no way I could be a SAHM while my fiance makes $10/hr. Even if we only had one car, unless prices for everything: rent, gasoline, groceries, etc... came down to where they were over 20 years ago.

[foxxyroxie]

My parents bought their 3 bedroom, one bathroom, one car garage home together when I was 3 years old (in 1981). My mom was a SAHM and my dad made around $8/hr working in a factory. They had one car and I believe the house cost around $15,000. Life seemed so simple then, their monthly mortgage payment was less than a 1/4 of what my fiance and I pay in rent each month for a 2 bedroom one bath apt. ......

My childhood was similar. Life was so much simpler back then.

My parents bought their home in 1969, when I turned 5 years old, for $11,000 (it's funny I was just looking at the paperwork the other day since I have it packed away in a box in the closet...LOL). Dad worked at a GM plant making I would think about $10 an hour. Mom was a SAHM. The house was a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath two story, about 50 years old... in a half-way decent neighborhood and 1.5 blocks from the elementary school so I could walk to school. Dad died in 1981 and I remember the mortgage payment mom made was like $175 a month, which included taxes and insurance.

My sister and I inherited the house after mom died in 1998 and due to finances, I couldn't financially keep up with taxes and maintenance and since I was living there, sister refused to help so we lost the house in 2005 due to back taxes.

My first home purchase was a mobile home (about 15 years ago) The worst investment, in my opinion, a person can make Unless they are on land, they depreciate too fast to make the investment worthwhile.

[TheRootedNomad]

~I've been pondering how it seems to take so much longer for my generation to get ahead and a big roadblock is housing inflation. So just for comparison can we discuss the homes we grew up in?
When did your parents buy it?

How much was the purchase price?

What was their income at the time?
~

My parents didn't buy a house until 3 of the 4 of were long since gone (had bought houses ourselves) and all 4 of us were technically adults. We grew up in a mother/duaghter (actually father/son) house on Long Island. My grandparents bought it in the 50's when it first started developing. They either paid 2 or 4 thousand dollars for the 4 bedroom corner lot new cape cod. I can never remember if it was 2 or 4. My father was a teenager at the time and often talks about what the area looked like back then. It was always very hard for me to picture. The housing market in that area is one of the oddest in the country. It is known as one of the few areas where real estate prices REALLY swing. My father and uncle did a huge dormer and extension on it when we were living there adding about 1200 sq ft of living space. I would guess it about doubled the size of the house. In 1989 the house was appraised for $260,000. In the early 90's when my father and his brother were trying to sell it there was not a bite above $150,000. In 2000ish they sold for about $230,000. Almost directly after they sold the market boomed and the houses in the area were selling for low $400,000's. Currently Zillow has it listed at $428,000 but the houses in the area are actually SELLING for under $200,000. (As an aside this makes me really wonder about zillow)

[TheRootedNomad]

oops. Forgot to post what grandpa made. When he bought the house he made $8 a week according to family lore.

[WV_mom_of2]

I lived in 9 different houses as a kid LOL. My dad is a college graduate who holds down really good jobs, but he gets restless and shuffles jobs alot, even now.

I couldn't tell you how much my parents ever paid for anything or how much my dad made/makes at any job. They don't believe in sharing info like that with their kids. If we asked a question like that as a child we were told it was none of our business. Money was a non-talked about subject when I was a kid and now I just don't bother to ask them things.