[cjrp]

Saving $10k/year is $833.3/month going in to savings (so $1600 left to live with). Doable if your rent is cheap.

[factsarelolz]

Yeah just live at home with mom and dad or have room mates for 15 years.

[akgerber]

Rent in a city like Appleton, WI (a random small Midwestern industrial city) averages $659 for a 1br: https://appleton.craigslist.org/search/apa?min_price=&max_pr...

Sharing a 2br is even cheaper. And this is only if one wants to buy a house all-cash.

Another traditional route to homeownership in Midwestern cities is purchasing a 2-family house. The tenant's rent generally covers the house's mortgage, even at today's interest rates: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/701-Broad-St-Menasha-WI-5...?

[notch656a]

There's a certain segment of people with a smug self superiority that think because they earn six figures in places like Seattle or San Francisco that the simple forklift driver in bumfuck, WI has even less chance of buying a home than they have.

They couldn't be more wrong.

While the forklift driver is slowly saving 10k a year for a 150k house, the SF bro is saving 50k a year for a similar house for $1M. Guess who gets to the target first.

[akgerber]

Nowadays one can also work remotely for an SF/Seattle firm and live in Appleton & buy a very nice house & talk about Bucks games at the bar rather than website capitalism.

[notch656a]

It's a valid point but if your remote employee can live in Appleton they may also be able to live in Bangalore.

[akgerber]

Probably gonna be true for drone-forklift operators too before long.

[cjrp]

Or have room mates for a few years, and then move in with a partner and split the rent on a cheap 1 bed. It's doable without being miserable, most of the country lives like that.