How much do you pay for rent/mortgage?

[Dakota]

Well of course I know they get their freebies from the govt - but didn't think even that would be enough to cut it out there.

There are an endless number of programs and welfare benefits in California.

Someone's brother-in-law or wife chairs the program at a 3 figure salary for twice a month meeting. The board members are your friends and family. you distribute the money and give the extra to one of your assemblyman friends to get reelected to give you more money next year. Money laundering perfected. Just like the teachers union.

[MR. BMJ]

Fraud is huge.

When families go and apply for medi-cal, the program asks if they are married, most people state they aren't, and MC does not do an investigation on it. Most families where the man and woman are not married, they do not ask for the man/father's income if the mom states they are not together. Some of this also depends on how they report their taxes...if that's off, then they may do an investigation, but this really did not start being applied until the last 3 years.

Let's take a program like WIC. Same thing. WIC is at least a nutrition program, but it's still a supplemental program paid for by your tax dollars...both State and Federally funded. If they start losing participants coming in, and their caseload drops, they drop their income requirements to bring it back up. The more people they have on their caseload, the more funding they get from the state and feds taken from your taxes. This also applies to medi-cal services. Let's say you have a family come in, same thing, the mom can state she is not married and that qualifies the family if she is a stay at hiome mother, or an income of 1 in the family....the more kids in the family, the easier it is to qualify...so lying goes on there too. WIC vouchers for the month adds up to around $170 per person on the plan. WIC does give good breastfeeding help, which drops the cost of taxes going into paying for the infant, but most moms who BF, will state they do not breastfeed so they can get their 9-10 cans of formula per month...paid for by you. They also get breast pumps if they do it even 1-2 times per day...paid for by you. So the thing with this program is that they ask for how many people are in the household, and the guestimate of the household income. Here's the thing....if the family lied to medi-cal, and let's say they make a lot of money, and get services....WIC will not ask the family to prove income if the medi-cal is active. They type in the medi-cal CIN# into their system, and if it shows that it is active, the family does not have to show proof of income....they could make 10 grand per month, and as long as they show active medi-cal, they will get wic services.

These supplemental programs, their funding comes from caseload...wic, medi-cal, etc, etc.....so if they start getting less funding, then they will get desperate and just start twisting their rules to add people back on (ie dropping their income guidelines, take participants for their word without proof, etc). If their funding goes down, they fire people. I can tell you out here in California, if they drop employees, it will usually be white and black and Asian workers because they almost demand that the employee speaks Spanish. Also, if they don't want to show proof of income, the mom can claim she is homeless and has no income...all they do it have her sign a form, but they do not investigate it, nor do they care as long as they get their caseload up. Illegals get free everything too, they sign a form stating they are migrants with no income, and that's it...nothing to show proof of income or address, and then they get referred to medi-cal for health care...and thus the chain begins.

In the case for WIC, they have fraud cases all the time where Hispanic women come in with babies that are not there own, or with 2-4 kids with fake Guatemalan or Honduran or Mexican or El Salvador Birth Certificates. Most WIC workers are not going to know how to authenticate a fake from a real certificate, so they just let them join. The workers are not allowed to "investigate" or ask questions because it may be offending. The directors of the program, if they are more liberal, they will get mad at the workers below them...because by not allowing them, it effects the caseload. Most go under the radar, but if the fraudulent participants get on the worker's radar, it is reported to the state wic department. Most wic offices are part of an agency that has multiple offices in their area....so they'll get 'moms' come in to multiple of their offices and it gets detected. BNowever, the State department doesn't do anything when it is reported because they "fear for the family's lives." Yea...you heard it right. They fear that the family may be forced to do this by cartels, which can be true, but nothing is done and it just continues to go under the radar.....paid for by your tax dollars. They have mom's going to 20+ offices getting wic. If they are illegals or came in illegally or through a work visa etc, they get off easy because of the whole "safety" issue. If they are American, they get the hammer thrown on them if their funding is secure....if they are desperate for family for funding, nothing is done.

This goes for all the other supplemental programs paid for by your tax dollars. You can add in school lunch programs, Food Stamps, programs to pay for gasoline, programs for extra groceries, programs to help with lower rent or lower house payments....etc.

There's a reason why the border and loopholes coming into the country are a huge issue right now by the current President. I'll stop there because the California officials, who are all dems, allow it to happen to get votes.

If you don't have to pay for health care, much in food, much in rent, much in transportation, much in infant formula or diapers or pumps, much in housing, getting preferred for jobs because you speak a certain language, Food Stamps, etc....you can get by as long as you don't go overboard....here in Cali.

[Dakota]

There is a huge WIC fraud ring just for baby formula. Can you believe it? Baby formula. The stuff is expensive. You get it for free from WIC and you sell it to you neighbor or on craigslist. Women can make hundreds of dollars per month. I remember there was a huge sting a couple years ago on craigslist but it would not surprise me if it is strong again.

Yep, just typed in a couple major cities. Shit tons of baby formula for sale.....

[Jester3378]

Damn you have a great job obviously but I'd buy. Mortgage is cheaper but I'm sure you're aware

Nah, we rent from the owner and they bought this place for $1.2 million 2 years ago. It's NYC so ppl buy investment places and take a loss just so they can sell them years later. It is one of the places where it is almost always cheaper to rent. Plus, I can't imagine dropping 200k on a down payment and then having the housing market collapse again (we lost a boatload of money in the last recession and lost our house so I am still gun-shy)

[Chooch]

Housing in Pittsburgh isn’t too bad compared to a lot of areas. We spend about 2k a month on our 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house. You can definitely go more, but you can go a LOT lower too. There’s areas around here where you can find a small, decent, livable home for prob 125k

[Bigpapapumpaf]

Our current 3200 SF home is paid for. I paid $355,000 cash for it 3 or 4 years ago. We live on the East Coast of Florida about due East of Orlando. Taxes are $3700 a year and insurance about $2500. Its probably worth $410,000 ish now.

We are building another house, upwards of $2.2M. The math gets a little crazy at that amount as does the interest rates. I'm dumping some 1031 exchange money into it and initially considering it an investment property. I have a construction perm loan on it now but when it is finished it will go to a conventional loan at about 3.35%. When all is said and done I should have a mortgage amount around $730-$750. Taxes will be close to $10,000 per year and no clue on insurance right now. I think we're in a huge real estate bubble right now that will burst next year, depending on the elections. I will have a moderately to high priced home in the neighborhood on the best lot in the community so I'm not too worried about it. I may even flip it as it gets closer to completion. I've already had offers above $2.5M.

Wish me luck

BPP

[Roughrydr]

I agree. Not being political here at all, just common sense, if Trump is defeated by a Democrat expect the market's, housing gdp, everything to crash.

[Joe0690]

Up in Toronto you can buy a tear down house (house that can’t be lived in)for about 700-800 that’s a moderate area there are areas way more expensive and areas that are lightly cheaper . Anyways u can do the math on mortgage payments

[Joe0690]

By 700-800 I mean 700,000-800,000

[Dakota]

Canada is a leading example of what NOT to do. I take it Eastern Canada dictates to Western Canada what the policies are. California is like that two cities dictate to the balance of the state. Urban vs Rural.