Young people (late 20’s/early 30’s) own homes at the same rate as people did 40 years ago. There’s a lot of misconception about home ownership. It’s similarly accessible as it has been for decades. At the same age millennials own homes at a rate higher than Genx
If you look at home prices and can’t believe the prices it’s because you’re looking for homes you can’t afford.
According to the article ~20% of people under 20 years old own a home? And that percentage decrease for a few years and then increases again?
> A 25-year-old’s median monthly mortgage payment was $1,013 in 2021
The median price for a home owned by 25 year olds is 235k, and 30% of 25 year olds own a home. Doesn’t really seem like that passes the sniff test, unless like 100% of rural 25 year olds purchased homes.
Interesting. Milliennials are a bit behind but it's essentially rounding errors. Did not expect that. It's another example of narratives the media pushes being different from reality. However I wonder if there's any good data on a milliennial's PPP vs. their parents. That definitely has to be the real difference especially since there's plenty of data on how the average income hasn't scaled with productivity for ~50 years.
I'm now 45, and couldn't buy a house until I was well into thirties, and even then it was damned difficult. About a third of my friends still haven't managed it. Difference with us is that we just accept life being difficult and don't bitch about it.
This doesn't fit the narrative that gen-zedders are being fed, and so they downvote your statistics and move on, because somehow their internet points change reality.
I get it, it's easier to blame the world than admit life's just hard for everyone, but I cringe when I think this generation is going to be in charge of everything soon. The only thing I trust them to run, is us into the ground.
To the extent that is partially true (your link explains that it's not completely true), young people homeownership is largely driven by gifts and inheritance from wealthy parents.
Do your “studies” take into account that nearly everything you buy and consume today is significantly cheaper? A high end video game in the 1980’s was $75. It is today too. The list goes on.
Houses are the same when you factor in interest rates outside of certain regions that have concentrated wealth due to the expanding professional class.
Medical care is more expensive but not for young people that rarely need it.
Education is a real problem. I’d agree we need to figure that out. It’s a scam today. Kids are left with massive
debt and brainwashing.
But by and large people are wealthier than they’ve ever been overall. There’s never been a better time to be alive and opportunity is everywhere. The question is will it last?
Consumer goods are cheaper. The basics needed to participate in society are not, both individually and because there are more of them (education inflation, etc).
Ok I'll explain. When all the jobs that pay enough for housing require at least a bachelors degree then you must pay for that education.
Similarly we are "richer" because we have nice cars, but also you can't do almost anything in the US without a car (outside of a few cities). So the cost of the car is not a luxury, it's a basic requirement to participate in society.
In other words, in 1940 you might have been able to opt out of a car and post high-school education and have a normal life. In 2023, you arguably can't.
In 1940 there was a good chance you lived in a dirt floor structure with outdoor plumbing, no electricity, or climate control. You probably has a lot of people sharing a bedroom and maybe didn’t have much of a kitchen.
In the city you had a good chance of living in a tenement building under cramped conditions with other families. You were desperately afraid your kids would acquire polio or that everyone else would acquire TB.
Regardless, your building was probably rundown and in need of renovation that wasn’t possible since the depression and WW2 made materials impossible to get or afford. Meanwhile the cost to live in the city was still relatively high, hence why so many people cramped together.
People moved to the suburbs in the 50’s to escape this. (Moving to flee blacks is more of a myth.) We has breakthroughs in manufacturing houses (which only wealthy people could really afford prior) in terms of materials and methods and the automobile and road network became viable.
You could stay in a cramped, expensive, outdated, and dirty city or you could get a plot of land and a spacious (for the time, average home sizes are twice as large today) home and a new car. This is what people did because it’s a much better way to raise a family.
You can live in a small place and work a job that doesn’t require an education. Tons of people do today. You’ll still have better conditions than people back then.
I don't buy that life was as bad as you are describing, that's still besides the point of the basic cost of living increasing.
> You can live in a small place and work a job that doesn’t require an education
Indeed, you can get by with a little bit of training post high school, but even those jobs are drying up. Notice they are already at the margins of society. Previously high school was a significant achievement. You didn't address the car example.
I can tell this isn't going to go anywhere. Good luck.
If you look at home prices and can’t believe the prices it’s because you’re looking for homes you can’t afford.
https://www.redfin.com/news/gen-z-millennial-homeownership-r...