Do people buy houses because it truly makes financial sense, or because they feel pressure to buy and manage to squeeze it into their budget? I have over $100k saved for a down payment and earn $140k, but I still don’t feel comfortable going above a $425k home without really stretching. That price point is hard to find in the greater Lakewood area. I also feel like I’m doing better financially than many people my age and stage (mid‑20s, with a husband in Kollel), yet everyone around me seems to be buying.

Most people buy because they want to, not because it makes financial sense. That's why I offer a service to help people figure that out 😊

Totally agree with @mysterious-tomato-10057, I am unfortunately meeting many that cannot afford the house they bought because others are doing it. Live your life with your numbers and what makes sense for you and you will be happier.

We bought a house because it made financial sense (based on our cheshbon, maybe more savvy people would have disagreed with our calcs) and we wanted to. We only spent what we could afford on the house - we didn't buy a bigger house even though that would have been, well, bigger and nicer.

I personally bought a house I could afford, which a very quick guide is, can you afford 1% a year in purchase price on maintenance a year, can you afford a random 10k expense, and can you afford to keep maxing out two IRAs. This is all if any only if the mortgage payment is higher than rent. If the rent and mortgage are similar enough, just go for it without the IRA concern (but still the maintenance cost concern)

imho people keep hearing from everyone around them how the price of housing keeps going up, so there's a strong incentive to just buy asap to avoid getting stuck paying more later. Also the fact that rent money is going "nowhere" vs. mortgage money building equity. Also the "how does everyone in the frum world afford a house?" conversation comes up all the time and it's the 8th wonder of the world imho

In a similar position in the Lakewood area. Very curious to hear people's thoughts! My guess is that not everyone you're seeing jumping in in this position really has the numbers 100% figured out, they're potentially relying on family to come thru on tight months etc.

The rate houses are going up and have been going up is still far less than the stock market so just stay invested and you'll still be doing better by renting. If shown in many threads already how much money is thrown away on buying a house and it's definitely worse than the money thrown away on rent. Rent and invest the difference as long as possible until you find something that is within ones reach.

The link below gives a understanding of the actual numbers buy/rent. Click on show advanced options to put in all your assumptions and get a much better idea if you should buy a house vs rent one. https://www.realtor.com/mortgage/tools/rent-or-buy-calculator/

There are also two separate discussions: 1. Is a family ready to buy a house 2. Do they live in a location where purchasing a house is even financially sensible? In this thread we have focused on question 1, but for question 2, we have this thread https://frumfinance.slack.com/archives/C04E9F1HAJK/p1761263568985089

In Lakewood especially, there's a lot of peer pressure to buy a house once you start growing out of your basement apartment. Some familes feel pressured because they are tired of "basement life" (with everything that means in the lakewood context 🙃 ) while others because their same-stage neighbors are gradually moving out (common in some areas where the basements are usually young couples with <2 kids and the upstairs houses are older families, so if you stay past 3+ kids you're not having much common ground with neighbors)

Your friend circle dictates so much about your finances. Important to live in places where making good decisions is easy IMO, especially if someone finds that they are susceptible to peer pressure.

just stay invested and you'll still be doing better by renting

This may be true from a pure financial perspective, but there's more to life than pure finance. There are a lot of factors that go into emotional decisions, and owning a home has strong emotional attachment that can just be hand-waved away. People like the stability of owning, and don't want the risk of being forced to move on a landlord's whims.

The thread was asking if things "truly make financial sense". Yes, economics is what happens when you take finance and include the human condition, which I wasn't commenting on.

tangent/soap box warning! > not to mention asking for tzedaka from the community in the form of tuition discounts to support those decisions I personally disagree with this characterization. If your housing budget needs to account for with paying full tuition, most people will never be able to buy. IMHO tuition discounts are more in the nature of communally shared responsibilities. Our community has decided collectively that private school (which the entire rest of the world considers a luxury that you only opt in to if you can afford it) is a communal priority that is necessary to ensure the continuity and heath of our community. And it's on the broader community to make sure that that can happen. What the exact burden sharing looks like varies by community. To me, its similar to something like Bonei Olam or similar. I don't think anyone would say that someone who is struggling with infertility or similar should only buy a house after accounting for the full costs of fertility treatments so that they don't need to take grants or assistance from Bonei Olam! Our community places a value on having children and as a community supports those efforts whether or not the couple would be able to fund the expensive treatments independently Thank you for coming to my TED talk (Is the above a rationalization to support being Ok with not foreseeing a future where I will ever be able to pay full tuition -- which for the coming year is in the range of 115k? Very possibly)

It's more nuanced than a slack thread, I'm working on an article with a few rabonim on the topic. It's not black and white. There are a few asterisks to my statement. The most important one being that if you live in a community where tuition is charged above cost to teach because they're trying to intentionally redistribute the costs, then yes my statement is not a correct categorization. But taking tzedaka money for paying your bills is tzedaka whether or not you want to feel like it is. The relationship in the contract really defines whether or not it's tzedaka. But there are real halachic implications here not subject to people's feelings on the subject, like whether or not you can give maiser elsewhere while receiving tuition discounts.

Sure, in the same way that taking money from Bonei Olam is taking tzedakah money. That doesn't mean you need to reorganize other major decisions in your life around being able to pay in full for fertility treatments IMO. Similarly, while taking money from any non-profit is technically tzedakah money, it doesnt mean your major goal has to be to avoid that

What if the tuition discount is based on your bills, so you purposely buy a nicer & larger house than you need, so that your mortgage is larger, thereby shrinking your tuition bill smart

That's exactly my point. If it's not tzedaka I could abuse the system like crazy.

that is why I really do not envy the decisions that tuition boards have to make

... It sounds like you recognize the problem but are telling yourself a different story to not have to deal with the reality...

I'm not sure if this is what's being said. But I do think that a person should organize their financial decisions with the goal of being able to pay full tuition

More like I just file tuition under "things klal yisroel has to deal with in galus that make no logical sense and have no easy solution" and try not to think about it too much

I have a solution for it and I hope to be piloting it soon

... It sounds like you recognize the problem but are telling yourself a different story to not have to deal with the reality...

Recognizing that people can play games does not change the fact that I think its a communal responsibility that everyone has to share meaningfully in, rather than the parents responsibilty

Essentially, Monte Carlo based models for tuition discounts.

But I do think that a person should organize their financial decisions with the goal of being able to pay full tuition

I'm not sure. When we were picking a community, we would have definitely ended somewhere that was less ideal for our family in pretty major ways if we had to come up with a budget that included paying 115k in tuition. Would that have been the right thing to do? Personally I don't think so

If we were serious about tuition as a community, we would have the rabonim tell everyone that they will not accept money for yeshivos, shuls, hatzalah, etc. until everyone has paid every dollar of their tuition "obligation". I think everyone knows that the "obligation" is a bit of a 😉 yeah just give us what you can. etc. There are real halachic ramifications of a chiyuv vs. a donation, and maaser / tzedaka have rules as well.

https://frumfinance.slack.com/archives/C04E9F1HAJK/p1772833532919369?thread_ts=1772807348.727369&amp;cid=C04E9F1HAJK While this is the ideal, this is absolutely not the world we live in. Schools threaten to not give grades if they don't pay. Many schools don't even give discounts, especially at the masivta or seminary or yeshiva level. This is clearly the dream but it's not the reality we live in and therefore it doesn't dictate a contractual relationship between the institution and the family.

I'm seriously getting distracted from my other responsibilities, namely getting shabbos ready 🙂 I'm gonna bow out for now and pick back up mtzsh

yeah same here 😆

Lol same

I'm not sure. When we were picking a community, we would have definitely ended somewhere that was less ideal for our family in pretty major ways if we had to come up with a budget that included paying 115k in tuition. Would that have been the right thing to do? Personally I don't think so

It's hard. But I did say financial decisions explicitly because of things like this :) and I know they get intertwined all over the place. It sounds like the decision you made wasn't purely financial so not necessarily a good example here. But "we can spend x more money on wants and not needs because we can continue to take the tuition discount" is the kind of example I meant, which I think is not the correct way of handling tuition discounts.

. You are comfortable with someone taking a tuition discount and giving significant money to {fill in organization here}? (I'm not talking about giving $36 to a campaign) Why is that different from someone getting food from tomchei Shabbos so they can give to Hatzalah? Someone in the school is going to have to raise the money for that discount from tzedaka to cover the budget.

Can we all agree that utilizing community resources exists on a spectrum of financial urgency? So, utilizing something like tomchei shabbos, is an emergency financial situation. If you are in that situation, you should not be spending money on almost anythign except absolute essentials. You are probably not ever going out to eat, buying kids birthday presents, having cleaning help, sending kids to camp, splurging on anything at all On the opposite end of the spectrum, utilizing something like Bonei Olam or Chai Lifeline or similar (which at least partially fund their operations through tzedakah money too), is not a financial emergency. It is something that as a community we want you to feel you can lean on during your time of need, and don't have to cut other expenditures to avoid doing so. IMO (and this is the part that's subjective, so I'm sure some of you will disagree!) tuition is somewhere in the middle. If you have the funds to pay for it, you should! but if you don't, you pay what you can and that's fine too, and you don't have to treat it as a financial emergency that urgently needs to be resolved

the psychological feeling of not being bound to a landlord is very powerful

I think @thankful-angle-58448 brings up a good point, introducing the spectrum. I think that is exactly why I am proposing shifting to a model where it’s more based on family’s decisions that can’t be tuition arbitraged. My frustration is around how easy it is to get basically as big a discount as you want by making poor decisions. I think if we can fix the system by instead incentivizing better financial decisions, where those better decisions lead to larger discounts as opposed to the opposite. Essentially, pushing it to be more like bonei olam where it is clear its not the family’s decisions and we can get rid of this gray area.

Is this tuition discount conversation specific to buying vs renting? Is everyone okay with taking a discount while maximizing IRA, HSA, 401K, etc?

1. No. 2. Utilizing? Yes. Maximizing? Depends

> Someone in the school is going to have to raise the money for that discount from tzedaka to cover the budget. > > Not sure why that changes anything. Plenty of communal resources that are utilized all the time regardless of finances(Like, an organization that sends cleaning help to new mothers. Bikkur cholim organizations, etc etc etc) raise their funds through tzedaka. > A school is not a chesed organization. It's a service that requires payment. There are those who take upon themselves to raise money to help people who can't afford it. What right does someone have to take an extra $1000 of financial aid to donate $1000 to Hatzalah? Unless they were told this was okay by the school.

> It's a service that requires payment @nutritious-raincoat-28876 To me that implies a model of "if you can't afford it, don't get it". Like, a cleaning lady. or a landscaping guy. Its a service, if you can pay for it, do so. If you can't, skip. Which is obviously not how we treat tuition in our community. So I don't think its as black and white as you're making it sound > A school is not a chesed organization To me, that kinda sounds like an arbitrary designation. Its true, its not a chessed organization, so what? Its also not a kiruv organization, or a political organization. All of which take money from tzedaka (like maaser) and use it to pay for things for people who are not aniyim

To me that implies a model of "if you can't afford it, don't get it". Like, a cleaning lady. or a landscaping guy. Its a service, if you can pay for it, do so. If you can't, skip. Which is obviously not how we treat tuition in our community. So I don't think its as black and white as you're making it sound

I have seen many families denied schooling for inability to pay in the frum community. As I described above, I don't think the world works the way it does in your description and therefore we are arriving at different conclusions.

I was referring to your above description of "asking the community for tzedakah in the form of tuition discounts". That makes it sound you are talking about being categorized as an Ani. I'm saying utilizing community resources that are funded from tzedakah is not really relevant to the status of aniyus, or "taking tzedakah" The mentality of our community is obviously not "private school is a service/luxury . If you can't afford for it, don't do it". Please don't tell me you're contesting this. (No talking about the angle of the school's responsibility in all of this. )

Its not a luxury, but it is a service being provided at a cost. If someone can't pay their bills, we as a frum community will fundraise for that Ani.

Not maskim 🤷‍♀️

It doesn't absolve the obligation to pay the price for the service rendered.

go back to bonei olam parallel to see why

It's really needs to be properly halachically hashed out, not in a slack thread, but with poskim, which is something that I am working on

one sec are you saying there's a distinction if fees are published prior to fundraising , vs after? Like, as another example. PCS career training courses. They are heavily subsidized if I'm not mistaken. That money is coming from, you guessed it, "tzedakah". So if you enroll in a subsidized class, are you an Ani? Or only if they publish the full fees and then you enroll and then they subidize after the fact?

The halachic distinction is whether or not the mosid is expecting the client to pay, correct. Subsidized pricing would not make one a halachic ani, since its available to all.

that honestly sounds like a distinction without a difference to me. but let me sit on that for a bit

This is why we work closely with Rabonim on each case, because these small nuances matter.

Imho Frum Schooling is more comparable to the Healthcare industry in that 1. You need the service to survive (religiously) and it will be provided to all that need it (at least out of town afaik) 2. You will (officially) get the same service regardless of how much you pay 3. The price for services is (assumed by many to be) inflated to help pay for others who can't pay Over the years, this has led to a mindset shift around paying for healthcare, people have been realizing that if you will get good service regardless of payment, you can just not pay. There are charitable organizations that work with hospitals to pay down medical debt, governments have started paying down medical debt, and many are simply opting out of paying. The CFPB is actively trying to remove Medical debt from credit reporting. TLDR: if you are required to pay for something that is overly expensive and you will get the same service if you don't pay, people will not view it as a thing they want to pay for and you will have to squeeze the money out of them.

@jolly-carpet-61872 totally agreed

In my kids' school, if every parent paid full, they would almost cover the budget. Certainly no one is paying extra

There is actually a halachic distinction between schools that charge above or below the cost to educate the child.