The postwar buyer

The war was over and, with more than one million returning soldiers, everyone was starting families and buying homes. Hyman Chudnovsky, now 92, was no different. And like some buyers today, the only way he could scrape together enough for a down payment was with help from the Bank of Mom and Dad. “I had come back from overseas. I was back for two years when I got married in 1947. I was 24 and we had a baby. I had grown up poor. Very, very poor. I wanted to to catch up after the war, but it was a tough grind staying even after buying a home.

“I had always lived in rental buildings. Even if it wasn’t consciously my goal, owning a home is something that we all want. It’s a sense of having something, instead of nothing. I think all the immigrants thought that way. What else do strive for? A good family — and part of that is living well.

“We were basically evicted so we had to buy. We had a baby and it cried too loudly so they asked us to move. How did we do it? My in-laws helped with part of the down payment. My parents helped. And we had mortgages. We paid $12,000 for our first home and my mother lived with us. When we finally sold, we sold for $1,000 less after about four years. I think we’re the only ones who ever lost money on real estate but we bought another house for $18,000 with a tremendously large mortgage. I took two jobs and my wife went to work, too.

“All the economists say it’s best to rent and it was for us too, but there is the theory you will make the landlord rich by paying off his property when you could be paying off your own. We fell for the propaganda.

“House prices can go down. I’ve gone through a period where people bought their house and lost their homes, a lot of them. We see it now, prices are going up and jobs are going down. Sometimes something can give. But it worked out for us. Our last condo we were able to sell and that allowed us to come into a retirement place.”

HOUSE PRICES CAN GO DOWN

Hyman Chudnovsky