Why can’t today’s young adults leave the nest? Blame high housing costs
These days, housing affordability is a struggle for nearly everyone.
But for young adults just starting out, soaring home prices and sky-high rents have become one of the greatest obstacles to making it on their own.
Nearly one-third, or 31%, of Generation Z adults live at home with parents because they can’t afford to buy or rent their own space, according to a recent report by Intuit Credit Karma that polled 1,249 people age 18 and older. Gen Z is generally defined as those born between 1996 and 2012, including a cohort of teens and tweens.
“The current housing market has many Americans making adjustments to their living situations, including relocating to less-expensive cities and even moving back in with their families,” said Courtney Alev, Intuit Credit Karma’s consumer financial advocate.
Overall, the number of households with two or more adult generations has been on the rise for years, according to a Pew Research Center report. Now, 25% of young adults live in a multigenerational household, up from just 9% five decades ago.
Housing prices are stupid. My house went up 150,000 since 2020 and the only "improvement" that occurred was me breaking the garage door.
Try breaking some more things and thank me later.
Get a second garage door. Break that. Instant profit.
No shit.
Story Time: Right before the Covid lockdown there were dozens of condos for sale in my area for under $200k. Today, the only available condos are $596k (800sqft).
I remember when they were saying the same thing about Millennials a few years ago.
Yeah, but it has gotten worse.
Especially since Id wager near a majority of those Millennials are still looking for houses too.
And we're only getting started!
This country Is such a fucking joke. My small family of three will be homeless in a month because we can't afford to pay for food and our mortgage. We make to much got any government assistance but to little to live....My daughter already lost her asthma medication because insurance doesn't cover it. I had to get rid of my insurance for myself because we couldn't afford it and it wasn't covering anything for me. I'd kill myself but the slim chance I'd live it would just bring on more fucking bills. Why even bother trying any more.
Just out of curiosity, how much did your home cost?
We bought it for $222,222.00 with a $1,600 fixed rate. At that time we had a grace of 20% of our income for savings and such. Had to change jobs and kiddo got some medical issues. We are now at a loss of about 5% each month. Food and insurance is $2k a month alone now and that's after cutting everything we can.
Oh dang.
That's like, almost 4x how much my house cost lol.
Woah. Ever think you might be living outside of your means?
I'm sorry, do you think food and insurance are things you can just cut?
Insurance for what?
Food is something that the vast majority of people can be spending less on. I can't tell you how many people I come across that use delivery apps almost daily yet still find ways to complain about not having enough money.
Something tells me the guy who spends >$200k on his house isn't eating too many bologna and cheese sandwiches from Walmart.
In my neighborhood a house just burned down. Just the concrete parts are left. It's listed for 250k. You can't find a starter home for 250k in my city. Just saying.
I'm assuming he means health insurance, which for a family can be very expensive, and isn't really negotiable if you have kids
Then move to a different city...
My house was $60k and 1,200 sqft. No burning down to speak of, lol.
There was an article recently about Vienna, I think, and they made progress on the housing crisis by just having the state own the houses. Nationalize housing.
edit: Found the article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-social-housing-secret-how-vienna-became-the-worlds-most-livable-city
while that is a valid point, i do not trust any government to manage them properly.
and also something something individual freedom to buy property and rent it out to have a little passive income.
In the US, the republican party would 100% try to sabotage any government program because they're ideologically opposed to government. It would be difficult to run any program while they're around waiting to sabotage it.
Also passive income from renting property is not really idealistic or healthy.
Anyway, I found the article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-social-housing-secret-how-vienna-became-the-worlds-most-livable-city
The GOP is not ideologically opposed to government, they believe the government's sole purpose is punishment, keeping people "in their place", and engaging in grafting / racketeering. They have no issue stealing our tax dollars for the purpose of giving them to the police, military, and business subsidies.
They're ideologically opposed to anything but their government. Ftfy, they've shown that they love government. But only when they can use it as a weapon.
This is a good point. They want to use the government for stuff like banning queer books.
I thought for sure the housing crisis was over because the fed raised the rates. I mean lowered the rates! One of those two I forget which one makes the average house go from 800k to 250k where it's more affordable. More as in affordable.
My plan was to leave the HCOL area I'm in for a number of LCOL places. Kept waiting for the official OK from my job to move as I work remote. By the time they gave me that OK, housing prices doubled in every place I was looking, and the rates got jacked through the roof. It's not even that much cheaper to live out there. I feel stuck renting my slightly under market small 2 bedroom duplex unit. I light $3k on fire every month to do so. I hate it, and wish I could move back in with my Mom.
They really shouldn't be including people who aren't even in their twenties in this statistic. It's been the norm for a while now for kids to not move out until they're in their twenties.
But yeah, we all know. No one can afford homes anymore and that will always affect those with the weakest incomes the most, which is largely the youngest group of adults.
We already knew this. It's good to have data, but everybody already knew this.
The United States just refuses to allow any new construction of houses. It's wild
What are you talking about?
They're talking about why we're in this situation, supply and demand. New homes are not being built at the rate of population growth and have been trending down for quite some time. But yes hyperbole doesn't help.
Restrictive zoning laws that force expensive space inefficient single family homes on large lots.
In the case of my household, the 2 young adults can't even find a job that pays whatever a "living wage" is these days.
No chance of moving out if you can't find an adequate income or even full time hours..
The lack of a liveable minimum wage in this country is one of the top 3 or so issues that need drastic attention and just does not seem to get it.
Young adults can't afford home because this country votes for Republicans who make sure they don't make enough money to live a decent lifestyle. Young people can change that IF they would vote.