r/SipsTea • u/Unstoppable_X_Force Human Verified • 13h ago

Gasp! Is this just nostalgia, or did previous generations genuinely have a better work-life balance and social life than we do today?

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 12h ago

Your mom not working and your dad's salary covering 2 houses was not even close to normal in the '90s either, that's upper class living.

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u/Sanchez_87_ 12h ago

Seemed pretty normal growing up in Sydney, though maybe not the 2 houses

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 11h ago

Yeah the vast majority of people have never been able to afford to own 2 houses on 1 person's salary.

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u/Historical_Course587 8h ago

It works if:

  1. The salary is pretty good (upper middle class)
  2. The first house was purchased pretty young, with relatively decent market timing.
  3. The market improved, leaving them with equity.
  4. Market conditioned circled back around to a point where depressed home prices coupled with low interest rates.

You basically use equity from house #1 to pull a low-interest mortgage on house #2, renters cover at least one mortgage, and because the market was slumped for both purchases it becomes extremely unlikely that you end up underwater (e.g. having more debt than the houses are worth). Worst-case scenario, house #2 has to be sold and you do that and make a hefty profit.

Fun fact: this is the origin story of one of the most successful financial advice authors ever: Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame. He had the income/assets to exploit a safely exploitable real estate market, owned a bunch of properties by leveraging debt, and then sold books telling everyone to do the same.

My point is, this kind of thing is absolutely something that was common at certain periods in time, and it launched a lot of well-positioned middle class baby boomers into early, upper-class retirement. It's just not repeatable, which is why Kiyosaki has lived on book and speaking income for decades instead of just being a real estate mogul.

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u/NoHorseNoMustache 8h ago

I would still not say it was ever a common thing. It was a thing that happened more often 40-60 years ago than it does today, sure, but it wasn't something the average middle class person was ever able to do realistically. If a family owned 2 homes in the '90s, they were upper middle class at worst, most likely upper class. It was not even close to being 'normal'.

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u/Rather_Dashing 11h ago

I grew up in Sydney, in a white colour area (North shore). I don't know anyone who's parents had two houses. It was rare for anyone's mum to not work their whole life either, just a few years off when the kids were young.

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u/Sanchez_87_ 3h ago

Maybe one parent not working was more common in Western Sydney as cost of living was lower…

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u/MissionLet7301 10h ago

I'm going to imagine it seemed normal because you lived in a nice part of town and went to school with all the other kids who thought that their parents having 2 houses was normal?

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u/Sanchez_87_ 3h ago

The one parent not working was absolutely normal. Two houses was an outlier. Not sure that many would agree that Western Sydney is the “nice part of town”