https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Fri, 24 Apr 2026 09:51:39 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/3#post-2181275 Mon, 18 May 2015 01:48:01 +0000 QBbride 2181275@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>DH and I have bought/sold a few condos and never asked or received help for these. However, my Dad suddenly passed away two years ago leaving me and my sisters with a significant inheritance (my parents are divorced) so DH and I used the money we had made from our previous sales plus my inheritance for our down payment on our current home. So yes, we did receive help in the form of an inheritance but it is honestly not what I wanted (would obviously rather have my Dad here than own our house). </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/3#post-2181253 Sun, 17 May 2015 23:02:21 +0000 BabyTsMom 2181253@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <br /> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/3#post-2181252 Sun, 17 May 2015 22:56:32 +0000 LovelyPlum 2181252@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My parents offered to either pay for our wedding or give us that money as a down payment. We chose the wedding, which made more sense for us at the time. When it comes time to buy, we will see, but I doubt they would be in a position to do so. I wouldn't count on it, in any event. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/3#post-2180875 Sun, 17 May 2015 12:23:56 +0000 2littlepumpkins 2180875@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We haven't bought yet but will be using money from DH's grandma who passed away. It has also helped pay continuing education and some medical bills. We'll buy when lo2 is here and I start working again, ft. The real estate market is crazy here and honestly the people I know who have bought have either had a VA loan or help (eta at least not "recent" college grads, recent meaning 2008+.) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/3#post-2180829 Sun, 17 May 2015 10:31:39 +0000 blackbird 2180829@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Yes...my parents gave us the money that would've been my brother's college fund. It was right after he passed away. I have mixed feelings about it. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/3#post-2180821 Sun, 17 May 2015 10:16:26 +0000 doodlepoodle 2180821@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We were very lucky that my MIL gifted us part of DHs inheritance early. Since he's a student she figured we would benefit more from it now than in the future. So technically it was 'his money' just an early payout. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/3#post-2180676 Sat, 16 May 2015 22:56:10 +0000 mrsjyw 2180676@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Nope, no help w either of our houses. Dh paid the down payment on our house w his savings from bachelor/single days and we both saved for the down payment on our investment property.</p> <p>We've been gifted so much more through furniture, work on the houses, etc from both of our parents esp fil that surpasses any $20k+ cash gift they could've given us. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/3#post-2180343 Sat, 16 May 2015 09:08:21 +0000 snowjewelz 2180343@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Both our parents helped; they offered and we accepted. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/3#post-2180199 Sat, 16 May 2015 00:50:54 +0000 GoGoSnoGirl 2180199@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I never received any help buying either place I owned while single &amp; I don't think DH's parents helped him either. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/3#post-2180192 Fri, 15 May 2015 23:45:11 +0000 gingerbebe 2180192@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>No. My mom would have given me the coat off her back, but my folks have never had any money.</p> <p>DH's folks would never give us that kind of money - they are very pull yourself up by the bootstraps type people. </p> <p>We're almost done paying off my law school loans, and hopefully we'll pay off DH's in the next year or two. We put off buying a house for the last few years to really knock as much of those loans out as possible and don't have much other debt other than a credit card we pay off monthly.</p> <p>We just closed on our first house and we're footing the whole thing, plus renovations, on our own - and it feels amazing! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/3#post-2180191 Fri, 15 May 2015 23:25:45 +0000 78h2o 2180191@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I voted no, but in fact my parents temporarily "gifted" us the max amount allowed tax free so that we could afford to buy our new house first, before selling our townhouse. As soon as we closed on the new house, we put the townhouse on the market. It sold within 3 weeks or so and then we paid my parents back, I think with a small amount of interest. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2180179 Fri, 15 May 2015 22:54:11 +0000 plantains 2180179@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Well we live in NYC so we needed 150k for the down payment and another 46k for closing costs and transfer taxes. MIL gave us 100k. Without that we wouldn't have been able to buy for the longest time. She was a senior exec wth Big Pharma her whole life though so she ended up doing pretty well and is in a position to help us. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2180090 Fri, 15 May 2015 19:41:49 +0000 cat620 2180090@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We don't own a house yet, but I cannot imagine either of our families offering financial help. They barely gave us any money for our wedding and tend to be very frugal. So I'm going to guess that the money will be $0 </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179974 Fri, 15 May 2015 16:20:25 +0000 JennyLayneAZ 2179974@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>No...my parents gave me my portion of the down payment. It was my choice for them to help me with that over helping me with the wedding (which they helped with anyway, but we got married in our backyard so it was a low budget wedding). But, it was no where near 20k. Not even close. lol </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179682 Fri, 15 May 2015 12:43:53 +0000 Foodnerd81 2179682@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Shizaz: you could argue that living rent free at home IS help- the majority of DH and my expenses since graduating college have been rent payments. If we didn't pay rent for three years that would add up to a lot of money- certainly enough for a down payment in most markets. But I am Not trying to down play how much you worked towards savings or anything like that- I know plenty of people who lived at home and spent freely since they weren't pay rent. And you made the choice to live home instead of paying rent on purpose im sure! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179665 Fri, 15 May 2015 12:32:43 +0000 su9su9 2179665@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Nope. And I wouldn't want help either. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179636 Fri, 15 May 2015 12:20:05 +0000 mrsrain 2179636@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Per your description, no. But actually, yes. My parents gifted us $10,000 towards our down-payment. We have great credit and some savings, but without their gift we would not have been able to buy a house for a long, long time. My in-laws gifted us some money as well, but it was more of a "house warming" gift, received after the fact. It helped us replenish what we had taken out of savings.</p> <p>ETA: As someone else mentioned, they were unable to contribute to my college education, so I will be paying off my student loans for a while yet. They are in a better financial place now and wanted to help now since they couldn't before. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179632 Fri, 15 May 2015 12:18:36 +0000 Greentea 2179632@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Oh hell no. Most everyone I know that owns had help, and to me even under 20K is significant. I am a diy-for-lifer. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179630 Fri, 15 May 2015 12:15:46 +0000 mrs. wagon 2179630@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Yes. My parents gave both my brother and I the down payments for both of our first condo homes (we've both since sold). My in-laws chipped in a little as well. As a result they have no retirement savings and will never pay off their own mortgage. Not really the way I might go about it in the future, but this is the way they wanted to do it. That all being said, I received little to no help with college-- I will be paying off my loan until I'm 50!</p> <p>ETA: reading the comments, I realize people may not realize that even if you don't have 20k+ "lying around", you can pull it from the assets you do have, which is what my parents did. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179628 Fri, 15 May 2015 12:14:03 +0000 BananaPancakes 2179628@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I didn't think the numbers would be so high, either! I know very few parents of friends with $20K + lying around to begin with. We're in a lower-income area (semi-rural south hit horribly by the recession), so that might have some to do with it, but I only know one person who had significant help from parents. And that's because they have parents who loooove to have attached strings, so that was a major factor in the gifting. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179619 Fri, 15 May 2015 12:03:51 +0000 Ajsmommy 2179619@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>No help for us. However, I'd say about 50% of my friends did have substantial help. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179616 Fri, 15 May 2015 12:01:35 +0000 MOMTOLITTLEB 2179616@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We are buying a house next month and will not have help. We saved for a long time to be able to afford the house- we live in an expensive area! However, my in laws have let us know they are giving us a generous gift that we can use for the downpayment. They did the same for my SIL. Since it would be more helpful to us after closing on the house, with updating and furnishing, they will give us the gift then. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179612 Fri, 15 May 2015 11:58:16 +0000 yellowbird 2179612@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>No help at all </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179607 Fri, 15 May 2015 11:55:49 +0000 MrsTiz 2179607@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>No help with down-payment or money. They did help us with some remodeling work because the company they run does the stuff that we needed fixed, so they did that at no cost but it was less than 2k </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179531 Fri, 15 May 2015 10:44:37 +0000 Dandelion 2179531@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>DH's father only helped because we got an inheritance after he passed away. No living parents contributed to it. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179528 Fri, 15 May 2015 10:43:00 +0000 Alivoo01 2179528@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Nope. Zero help. I saved like crazy in high school and made good money during my internship so all that savings went to the down payment of our first house minus a few thousand that was leftover. I felt proud of myself for being able to afford it. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179519 Fri, 15 May 2015 10:35:28 +0000 .twist. 2179519@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Yes. However, we were not intending to buy at all. There were some interesting events leading up to the purchase of our house... it was very unexpected. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179490 Fri, 15 May 2015 10:18:26 +0000 Umbreon 2179490@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>No, we had absolutely no help. We had a lot saved up since we were both still living at home. We had started looking for a house when we got good jobs (so we could afford to move out) and it took about 7 months to find a house and get possession. In that time, every penny we made we were saving for the down payment. Because we were fortunate like this, we could afford our forever home.</p> <p>We have friends who we've heard have talked behind our backs about how our parents must have bought us the house and it drives me nuts. Is it really such a stretch to think we could have saved up some money ourselves?</p> <p>Anyway, we've been living there for 3 years and that still bothers me haha. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179476 Fri, 15 May 2015 10:04:53 +0000 MrsSCB 2179476@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We haven't bought a house yet, but I seriously doubt we will have help when we do. I don't really picture either of our parents offering, and we would never, ever ask. We've been working hard to save and we'll get there--hopefully in the not-to-distant future :-) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/did-your-or-your-sos-parents-or-grandparents-provide-significant-help-with-your-home-purchase/page/2#post-2179474 Fri, 15 May 2015 10:03:08 +0000 kgbee 2179474@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My parents own our mortgage, so we pay them each month instead of a bank. We're in the process of refinancing with a traditional lender this year, though, since (after 5.5 years) my parents would like to free up that money for other investments. </p>