Also, interest rates were insanely high in the early 80’s. Like prime rate was 20%.
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Records I found said somewhere between 10-15%
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Mander, they were higher than that. 18-20%
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16.63% was the highest fixed rate, but my friends who were buying houses at that time had variable rate mortgages which started lower and then were up to 20% and up.
Yuck - somehow that makes it feel even worse.
I sold a house in 1981 and carried a second mortgage for five years at 15%, buyer assumed the primary mortgage. The cash down payment was pretty large.
Yes, I know. I was setting that aside for the purposes of using the numbers provided. Presumably they also did not finance 100% as the average down payment on a home in 1980 was 28%. FHA didn’t start backing low down payment loans until the mid-80s. If they borrowed 23k, that means they actually spent a little over $33k and put over $9k down - which would be equivalent to a purchase price of just over $96k today with a down payment of $26,920 - which is a heck of a lot more than most people put down today.
I mean, my grandparents house was $12k from the sears catalog in 1961. That really doesn’t have anything to do with home prices today, beyond that if I compared it to that value in today’s dollars I’d be spending $112k and change for the same thing in terms of the purchasing power of $1.
That is so interesting. When I moved to this state, I specifically contacted the state bar, told them my situation, and asked if I needed to license in this state as well as the state my employer lives in. They gave me a letter saying it was unnecessary. It’s strange I wouldn’t need a bar license but would need some other sort of license?
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I handled it by having investment horses. Everything was for sale. The goal was to at least break even.
Eventually my best one sold for more than a house. I used the money to buy a rental property and start a rental property portfolio. Now I have 3 (including the double I live in), and on the first of the month my housing, car, car insurance, and board and farrier are paid, with about $2k left over to throw at my credit cards.
All thanks to my investment horse who I sold for a large windfall that got me over the hump to property #1.
(I can tell you it it is 1000x easier to have the houses pay for the horse than have the horses pay for the house.)
In the end, horses are expensive enough that they are almost impossible to pay for with time based income. Unless you are exceptionally well compensated, there aren’t enough hours in the week to pay for the horse, everything else you need to pay for, and also sleep. It mathematically does not work.
You need asset based income and passive income streams to break free from the hamster wheel.
People ask me “Isn’t being a landlord a pain in the ass?” Sure, but not as big a pain in the ass as having to show up in an office 14 hours a day making money for someone else.
If you don’t have a spare property laying around, perhaps you have a spare bedroom. I airbnbed my second bedroom in my apartment in Buffalo and despite the fact that I have two dogs, no TV and no airconditioning it still brought in $750 a month. Money’s there you just have to be willing to have roommates.
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This is a very good point but there is a problem with wage stagnation in the US. Wages of the working class has hardly increased where housing costs have skyrocketed. The average salary in the US has increased less than 50% since the 1960s.
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Not only have wages stagnated but the introduction of the 401k allowing companies to push the burden of investment risk for retirement by taking employee’s earnings to fund retirement has vastly eroded the power of a dollar earned for a job worked.
If you increased wages to account for what the employees now have to fund themselves, wage stagnation is much worse than most people realize.
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I am self employed so I am not sure if this applies to your situation, but I pay state taxes to the state where I did the work. I do not pay state taxes in my home state if I made that money in a different state.
I think if you have taxes withheld in one state, you get a credit on the taxes in a different state. Two different states cannot tax the same money.
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Interesting - I think each state bar has its own take on it. I know that I had to get admitted to the Virginia Bar as corporate counsel in order to work out of my Virginia home - my DC Bar membership was not sufficient.
I had an in-house counsel co-worker a few years ago who was admitted to the Connecticut bar but worked remotely from her home in another state. She ended up getting an angry letter from the bar of that state and had to relocate temporarily to Connecticut and live in corporate housing near our offices in Connecticut until she had the bar situation straightened out.
Sears stopped selling home kits in the early 1940s
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I think this is very bar-specific and that the rules may be changing even as we speak due to telework/the pandemic.
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Would you be open to private messaging me how your making it work? I’m having to pivot from a previous business plan, trying to keep it afloat 
Sure, you can PM me. Some of it might be region dependent, but happy to help where I can.
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Perhaps it was another similar catalog, though my grandfather will insist up and down that it was Sears.
Either way the point was the same. It has nothing to do with what a house costs to build to code today.
Wow.
I bet the Connecticut bar had no problems taking her active membership fees from the other state…
If you make around 100k and need to pay no horse bills as well, try to show in special classes that give more prize money- I get a lot back from the Green Incentive Stake classes- usually pays for my stall- And if you have a bad show, skip the next one to make up for it- I do my own shipping, training. grooming (no braiding my own anymore cuz they aren’t what they used to be)- try to split a hotel room with a friend and maybe ship a second horse with you and at least split the gas- Buy tack and clothes on Ebay (great prices)- Stay as local as possible and do daily ship ins when u can -
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