Your mom and dad love you. They want the best for you. And when you tell them you're thinking about buying a house, they will absolutely, without hesitation, start giving you advice that could cost you tens of thousands of dollars.
That's not because they're bad people. It's because they bought a house in a world that no longer exists.
The Market They Remember Is Gone
Think about what the housing market looked like in 2004. Your parents probably walked into a bank, talked to a guy named Steve in a short sleeve button down, got pre-approved in a conversation that lasted twenty minutes, and locked in a mortgage rate that would make you weep with envy. Down payment? They might've put 10% down and nobody blinked. The house they bought for $180,000 is now worth $420,000, and they look at that number and think they're real estate geniuses.
They're not geniuses. They just bought before the floor fell out and then held on long enough for the recovery and the insane post-pandemic boom to do all the work for them. That's not strategy. That's timing and survival.
In 2026, the game is completely different. Interest rates have been on a rollercoaster that would make your stomach drop. Inventory is still painfully tight in most markets. Prices haven't meaningfully corrected even though rates went up, because people who locked in at 3% are refusing to sell and give up that rate. You're competing against cash offers, institutional investors, and other first time buyers who are just as desperate and confused as you are.
When your dad says "just offer under asking, they'll come down," he's remembering a buyer's market that hasn't existed in most of the country for over a decade.
"Just Put 20% Down" and Other Relics
Here's one that drives me crazy. Your parents will tell you that you need 20% down or you shouldn't buy. They'll say it with absolute conviction, like it's a law of physics. And sure, putting 20% down means you avoid PMI, which is great. But telling a first time buyer in 2026 that they need to save $70,000 to $100,000 before they can even think about homeownership? That's not advice. That's a prison sentence.
There are loan programs specifically designed for first time buyers that let you put down 3% or 3.5%. FHA loans exist for a reason. Some state programs offer down payment assistance that your parents have never heard of because those programs didn't exist when they bought. The landscape of financing options has exploded, and your parents only know the one path they walked.
This doesn't mean you should buy a house you can't afford with no money down. It means the rigid rules your parents learned don't map onto your reality, and following them blindly means you might spend five extra years renting and saving for a down payment threshold that was never actually required.
Technology Changed Everything (And They Don't Know That Either)
Your parents found their house through a real estate agent who drove them around in a sedan for six weekends. The agent had access to the MLS, and your parents had access to the agent. That was the deal. Information was locked behind a professional gatekeeper, and you paid a hefty percentage of the purchase price for the privilege of someone else knowing what was on the market.
That world is over. You can see every listing in your target area on your phone while you're sitting on the toilet. You can pull comparable sales, neighborhood data, school ratings, crime stats, flood zone maps, and property tax history without ever talking to another human being. The information asymmetry that gave real estate agents their power has collapsed, and the industry is still pretending it hasn't.
Your parents don't understand this because they haven't had to. They bought once, maybe twice, decades ago. They didn't keep up with the changes because why would they? But when they tell you "you need a good agent" with no further nuance, they're operating from a model where the agent was the only way to access information. That's simply not true anymore.
Does that mean you should go it completely alone with zero guidance? No. But it means the kind of guidance you need looks nothing like what your parents had, and the tools available to you would've seemed like science fiction to them.
The Emotional Advice Is Just as Outdated
It's not just the financial and logistical stuff. The emotional framework your parents bring is also from another era. "Buy the biggest house you can afford because you'll grow into it." "Real estate always goes up." "Renting is throwing money away." These sound reasonable on the surface. They're also the exact kind of thinking that led millions of people into foreclosure in 2008.
Renting is not throwing money away. Renting is paying for flexibility, and sometimes flexibility is worth more than equity. Buying the biggest house you can afford means you're one job loss or one medical bill away from being house poor. And real estate does not always go up. Ask anyone who bought in Phoenix in 2006.
Your parents mean these things lovingly. They want you to build wealth, to have stability, to own a piece of something. Those are beautiful intentions wrapped in advice that could genuinely wreck your finances if you follow it without questioning it.
So What Do You Actually Do?
You love your parents. You thank them for caring. And then you go get your information from sources that are actually current.
You learn what today's rates actually look like and what that means for your monthly payment at different price points. You research the specific loan programs available in your state for first time buyers. You figure out what your actual budget is based on your actual income, your actual debts, and your actual comfort level. Not some formula your dad heard from his buddy at work in 2003.
You use the technology that's available to you. You look at real data, real comps, real market conditions in the specific neighborhoods you're considering. You don't rely on vibes and memories from someone who last went through this process when flip phones were cutting edge.
And most importantly, you give yourself permission to do this differently than they did. Because you have to. The world they bought a house in doesn't exist anymore, and pretending it does is the most expensive mistake you can make.
Love your parents. Hug your parents. Call them on Sundays.
Just don't let them be your real estate advisors.