An affordability crisis is making some young Americans give up on ever owning a home
Americans are living through the toughest housing market in a generation and, for some young people, the quintessential dream of owning a home is slipping away.
Mortgage rates surged in recent years, hitting the highest levels in more than two decades last fall. While rates have come down slightly since then, home prices remain painfully elevated and a limited inventory of housing is still failing to keep up with demand. Such conditions mean that housing has become woefully unaffordable.
Falling mortgage rates in recent weeks have helped, but home prices could remain sticky, according to economists. It’s still a cruddy time to be hunting for a home, but it’s even worse for young, first-time buyers who need to save up for a down payment and build up their credit score during a time when Baby Boomers are refusing to part with their big houses.
The situation isn’t a whole lot better for renters, with rents barely coming down from record highs and half of tenants in that market saying they can’t even afford their payments.
The uneasiness over America’s affordability crisis is captured clearly in surveys and polls, but data that outlines the sentiment specifically among young people is limited.
People can’t move for a variety of reasons. Job. Family. Plus it costs a shit ton to move sometimes, especially if you’re moving far away. Seems like you’re the one being entitled. ‘Just move!’ has big ‘if they don’t like the country, they should just leave!’ energy.
Also, often there’s a lot of availability and cheap houses in certain places because the local economy is shit and so there aren’t any jobs.
The sheer "entitlement" of
The "just move" crowd is so weird to me.
They're not weird they're spoiled as fuck
Why should you get access to things you can't afford while other people do not?
The whole point is that "just move" is certainly not a silver bullet, it should not be a thing at all, and it can be literally impossible for some people. What we need is rules against people being extortet out of their money via rent. Because that is what "not being able to afford" a place that you could afford previously is.
Well, good luck waiting for that to happen.
Well with that attitude nothing is ever gonna get better
It doesn't matter what attitude we have unless there is a massive cultural shift.
And you think sitting back and letting everything just happen is going to cause that cultural shift?
No, why would you think that?
My point from the very beginning has been to take matters into your own hands. Don't sit around and wait for other people to solve your problems for you.
No your point was to "just move" and being less "entitled". This is obviously a solution with a lot of flaws for a problem that is very much man made. Telling people to "just move" ignores this and dismisses the need for an actual solution, where the actual solution can only be implemented by banding together and not by individuals.
Can you think of another way to take matters into your own hands?
Right now it looks like you're just waiting for other people to solve your problems for you.
A few actually, None of them currently legal.
Do you know why they aren't legal? Because the whole deal with representative democracy is, in the end, to wait for the people that I elect to solve my problems. Because it is tedious and time-consuming if I have to fight every battle on my own. It's also unfair because most of my problems exist because of unfairly distributed wealth, which makes the fights I'd have to take quite unbalanced. Acknowledging this has nothing to do with being lazy or cowardly it's just a reality. A reality that you can run away from by "taking it into your own hands and move into less desirable regions" or you can try to change the rules that allow the problem to exist in the first place.
And that shows how deeply flawed representative democracy is and how much of a failure it is at protecting people's best interests.
Next society we build should be a network of direct democracies.
I mean, you support the disparity in wealth when you think you deserve more before others who have less.
If living in cheaper areas isn't good enough for you, why should you get more before the people who live in these places? You already have more than them, but you think you deserve even more without being able to afford it.
That's textbook entitlement and hypocrisy. This is why you people get mad whenever I suggest moving to cheaper areas. You don't want to acknowledge your own contribution to the problems.
Why should landlords and corporations?
You're just assuming that the only viable solutions are easy ones.
Then how do people live there? You clearly don't know what you're talking about.
Um, most don’t? That’s why housing is plentiful and cheap? Because most people there can’t afford it? Or have left for places that actually have jobs?
Seems you’re assuming that moving is the easy solution. And again, no, that’s not always true. Why is that so hard for you to accept?
No, you just assume that the only viable solutions are easy ones.
Keep waiting around for other people to solve your problems for you.