Helping Children Buy A Home

by Jim the Realtor | Oct 9, 2019 | Boomers, Jim's Take on the Market, Thinking of Buying?

Let’s also note that mortgage guidelines allow for parents to contribute the entire 20% down payment. Hat tip to SM for sending in this article on the Bank of Mom & Dad! 

Buying a home is increasingly a multigenerational family affair. Four in 10 parents recently surveyed said they expect to help their children buy a home. That’s more than double the percentage of parents who themselves got help from their parents when they bought their first home.

Home prices that have been rising faster than wages, combined with burdensome levels of student debt, are fueling this trend. Moreover, helping with home ownership is a here-and-now assist that can transform a child’s financial life, rather than waiting to bequeath money down the line.

Whether you are the Bank of Mom and Dad or the adult child eager to buy, a successful intra-family deal requires careful consideration of the various options:

Can you afford it? OK, parents, it is hereby stipulated that you, of course, want to help. Now the hard question: Can you cope with the long-term ramifications?

A $10,000 gift you make at age 65 would be worth more than $26,000 at age 85 if it kept growing at a 5% annualized rate. A $50,000 housing stake today would be worth more than $130,000 at age 85. If you have any inkling you could use that extra cushion in retirement, you probably shouldn’t be gifting money today. You could consider making it a loan – more on this below – but also keep in mind that if you intend to pull the money out of a traditional 401(k) or IRA, you not only will owe taxes, but a large withdrawal could bump you into a higher tax bracket for the year.

Got a boomeranger at home? Help them save for a down payment. According to the Pew Research Center, about 15% of today’s millennials are living at home, nearly double the rate when their parents were in their 20s and 30s. Making it a financial free ride does nothing to help your child build adulting muscles. If they’re focused on paying off student loans, great. But if they have ample cash flow and want to eventually buy a home, now’s the time they should start to save. You should insist that they set up a separate savings account and have automatic monthly deposits zapped into it from their checking account. A $500 monthly contribution is a down payment fund of more than $6,000 in just one year. That can be more than enough to qualify for a low down payment mortgage in many regions of the U.S.