When Joe Riggs started selling his home for nearly $500,000 in 2015, he wasn’t sure what kind of home he wanted.
He’d never lived in one before and he’d never been in one.
Then he thought of the price tag.
«It just sort of hit me,» Riggs said.
«I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is crazy.'»
Riggs, whose real name is John, wanted a home with a nice view, a yard and a spacious living area.
So, after years of selling homes, he bought his first.
It was a big step for Riggs.
Today, he owns a three-bedroom home in a quiet suburban community in the Atlanta suburb of Fulton County, Georgia, for $525,000.
Riggs has been selling houses for more than 10 years, but he said he never really thought he’d be making more than $500 per month.
Rigs is the first home buyer in the U.S. to make more than the median salary of $100,000, according to the American Association of Realtors.
But even Riggs and his peers in the market are making less.
The average median home price in the country in 2018 was $250,000 — a $300 increase from the year before, according an analysis of data from the National Association of Home Builders.
In 2019, the median home was $231,000 and in 2020, it jumped to $270,000 with a jump in the median income from $60,000 to $100.
Riggs said his wife is a certified real estate broker and he has the financial means to do more work and get paid more.
«When I started selling, I wasn’t making $250 or $300 a month,» he said.
Rigges said he’s made more than twice as much as he ever thought he would be in his career.RIGGS’ STORYThe home he purchased for $250 million in 2019, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was listed for $300,000 by the Atlanta real estate website Trulia.
It was the highest price for a single home in the city.
It also had an appraised value of more than half a million dollars.
Riggs says he had to borrow money to finance the purchase.
After he bought the home, he took it off the market.
«I did not feel comfortable putting it on the market,» he explained.RISK RisksIf you buy a home, you’re most likely paying more than you should be.
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, a national study of real estate markets, median home prices have increased more than 30 percent in the past five years, with some homes going up more than 20 percent.
Ricks has been making $180,000 a year, or about $32,000 per month, as the home sells.
He’s also been making money.
He sold the home on May 17 and received more than three months of rent.
He says the house was worth $600,000 when it sold.RIVING THE ROADRiggs said the money he earned through his work as a broker was enough to pay for college and a house, including an $80,000 down payment.
But he said his family, which includes two kids, are struggling financially.
«There’s a lot of anxiety going on,» Rigges explained.
«People are like, what am I going to do?
I don’t have the savings, so what amI going to pay my mortgage?»
In February, Riggs was forced to sell the home.
He said the home was in foreclosure, but that it was going to be repaired and that he could get the mortgage serviced.RIVES’ ROADHOUSE RIGGS HAS CHANGED HIS LIFERiggs is still paying the mortgage, but has a new lease on life.
«My wife and I have done everything we could,» he told NBC News.
«We’ve had our kids, we’ve got a house and a dog.»
He says he’s learned to live on his own.
«If I had been on the street, I would have had a life in which I had to make a lot more money to survive,» he added.
The next step for home buyers in the United States is to become homeowners themselves.
In the next 10 years the number of Americans who are homeowners will nearly triple from 5.1 million to 10 million, according the U
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