Man Stops Visiting His Parents Because The Down Payment They Gave Him Only Covers A House In His Hometown
They all have unrealistic expectations that could have been fixed by simply communicating.
FatCamera / Getty Images Signature / Canva With times as tough as they are nowadays, especially when it comes to housing, getting help from mom and dad with buying a house is a godsend. But as always with money, it also comes with the potential for drama.
Case in point: a man on Reddit who is now embroiled in conflict with his parents over a down payment he seems to feel entitled to, which they seem to be using for manipulation.
The man is angry his parents gave him a down payment that only covers a house in his hometown.
Unsurprisingly, given the state of the economy and housing market, more and more young people are relying on their loved ones for help buying a house.
Twelve percent of homebuyers in 2024 have relied on down payment help, and 25% of those aged 25-33 have. Both of those numbers are up substantially from 2023.
Of course, most people's parents can't afford to help them buy a house, so to get such help is a huge stroke of luck. Accordingly, this Redditor said he and his now-wife were "thrilled" when his dad said he'd help them with a down payment once they were married and ready to settle. "We would be able to afford a good starter home with his help," he wrote, "and we scrimped and saved to add to it."
But there's just one problem — his dad had a very specific type of house and down payment in mind, namely one in the cheaper market of his hometown instead of Colorado, where he and his wife actually live and work.
His dad said he should 'be smart enough' to move to a cheaper city. But, of course, it's not that simple.
The conflict between this man and his dad, in some ways, buts up against a familiar disconnect between boomers and their Millennial and Gen Z children — the world is simply hideously expensive nowadays, in every way, and neither our pay nor our comparatively low interest rates even come close to making up the difference.
Such is the case for this guy and his wife. He wrote that it now turns out his dad never had any intention of giving him a down payment for a house in Colorado, where he and his wife have established their lives and careers.
"He said he thought I would be 'smart enough' to realize that we’d need to move somewhere with a lower [cost of living] than Colorado," he wrote.
Which is easy enough to say but incredibly reductive. People need to move where the jobs are, for starters, and that often knocks out most if not all of the affordable parts of the country.
And once you've established your life in a place, simply picking up and moving it is no small feat. As the Redditor put it, "Our lives are here. Our friends, our jobs, our hobbies. You can’t exactly leave your house and be up on top of a 14,000ft peak in 6 hours where my family is."
He's now cut out trips home to visit his parents in order to keep saving for a house, and his dad is furious.
After trying to get his dad to understand that he has no desire or intention of moving, his dad simply said, "So be it," and gave him the money for a down payment back home.
Since that won't remotely cut it in Colorado, the man and his wife have stopped traveling altogether in order to keep scrimping and saving for a house.
Syda Productions / Canva Pro
"We have had to make a lot of changes to save up the rest of the money," he wrote. "We have had to cut out vacations, birthday gifts, holidays, etc. We won’t be traveling home for a few years."
Now his dad is angry, especially with their yearly summer trip home canceled. He invited his parents to visit him instead, but they contend that it's his job as the child to visit them, not the other way around.
"[He] told me that I was being a selfish, entitled brat because I hadn’t gotten my way," he wrote. "That I was essentially punishing the rest of the family because we 'assumed' what his gift would be."
People on Reddit sided with his dad and felt the son was looking a gift horse in the mouth.
This is one of those situations where both parties are simultaneously rightfully angry and totally unreasonable.
"Just move home" is not a solution when someone has established a life and career elsewhere and traffics in the "pick yourself up by the bootstraps" rhetoric boomers love but which bears little resemblance to the realities of modern life. His anger over his son cutting out travel for a while to continue saving is also unreasonable.
And the son's frustration with all of this is valid. But saying his dad "screwed him over," as he put it in the title of his post, because he won't pony up the money he wants is, well, "selfish, entitled brat" behavior. Any response other than "thank you" when being handed tens of thousands of dollars, no matter how inadequate, is absurd.
As one Redditor put it, "Your dad 'screwed' you and your wife … by giving you money? But less than you had hoped for?... Yikes." More to the point, another sarcastically wrote, "I would love it if my family screwed me over by giving me money."
Monkey Business Images / Canva Pro
The real bottom line here? This whole thing could have been avoided with better communication. Clearly laying out the parameters and expectations could have avoided this entire conflict.
As one Redditor succinctly put it, "They didn't communicate, so they're both pissed. Use your words, people."
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.