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.
I did the math and it would take me roughly 90 years to pay off a 2 bedroom fixer-upper.
Surprise twist, said fixer-upper is the place I rent currently.
Double surprise twist, I pay more in rent then the mortgage for this place, but don't qualify to buy my own.
I'm stuck in the renters purgatory.
There are more twists still, but those are too personal.
I'm not sure where you live and how it works, but around here, mortgages can be significantly cheaper than rent. By several hundred dollars. Admittedly, this is not a desirable place to live, but you're talking $1000/mo mortgage vs. $1300-1500/mo rent of a house the same size.
Where?
Explain how the rent is more than a mortgage if it would take you 90 years to pay it off
I'd still have to pay rent while saving for a down payment. That's an easy $2500-$3400 a month with other cost of living expenses, retirement/savings, all while trying to save up to $120,000. Small homes start around $1M here.
If you don't make 6-figures here, the city will drain your bank and spit you out.
I live in a 1,200 sqft 2-bedroom house and it cost me $60k at the height of the market. It's not even a fixer-upper.
You just think you're entitled to live in places you can't afford.
That's awesome. Mine is a 1,400 sqft 2-bedroom valued at $1.2M. My landlord hasn't raised rent in 7 years so I'm paying under market. (Don't tell them)
Our city has a real big problem over here with homelessness. Downsizing isn't the solution it used to be when single/studios are roughly equal or more expensive than 70yo homes.
Have you considered moving somewhere where demand is lower and supply is higher?
These would result in cheaper prices, but you'll have to get over your entitlement.
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?
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.
That's just about everywhere nowadays buddy.
I've been looking and looking to leave, but I don't have the proper education to get a WFH job so I have to live where the jobs are, and places as cheap as yours aren't where the jobs are...
Yeah... there are no jobs in my city of 80,000 people.
Lol.
So where is it? I'm not just here to argue, a city with 60k houses at peak hot markets with jobs that a (previously mentioned uneducated) person could actually find a job in? I'm sold. Where am I looking?
Brit here. I’m 43, earning more than I ever have and have basically no hope of ever owning a home.
It's "amusing"[^1] to me that millennials are still considered "the youth" even though the oldest of them are in their 40's. I mean I knew I wasn't ever going to be able to afford a home by the early 2000's.
[^1]: Not amusing at all, really.
I thought about this recently and realized -
Alot of it is because retirement is effectively a thing of the past. People are working longer and longer, many until they pass. Pushing-40 millennials are still "the youth" because the people calling us that are used to their parents retiring at 55-65 even though they're that age now and NOWHERE close.
Plus, many of us can't "move up" in our careers BECAUSE those older folk aren't retiring anymore and giving up the "good" jobs (those that aren't being eliminated entirely of course.) They call us kids for not having big baller positions that we can't get cause they've held it for 25+ years. Same with housing - we're kids for not buying, but they won't sell and move on like they used to anymore while they fight new development tooth and nail.
TLDR they see 30-40 year Olds as "kids" because they see themselves as 30-40 when comparing their progress to that of their parents generation.
That's odd, i bought a house in 2001, sold it in 2005, went kinda transient for 15 years, here there and everywhere, and bought another house 2 years ago. This is probably because i didn't give up in the early 2000s.
And Canada has been struggling with this for something like a decade. I am not Canadian, just adding to what you are saying in how this is not a problem that is limited to the USA.
Australia has it ridiculously rough right now, too, when it comes to housing. Maybe, just maybe, making it an investment instrument instead of a place to live was a bad idea.
The trolly problem is designed to teach us that no matter what lies in front of us, we have to make choices. So whatever THEY did then, what will WE do now?
The answer ofc is that the USA will elect Donald Trump a second time. I wish I was kidding but... we are starting to see that there's a good chance of that at this point. We might have to find out whether a President can run the country from a jail cell, or if that acts as a "I can get away with rape" card, or what. We've got some tough choices coming our way...
One thing I've been expecting for awhile now to start seeing - just b/c it has happened before, therefore is inevitable to happen again - is corporations making some living arrangements as a "perk" of doing business. Some places do this already, but as the competition drives towards making that an option, corporations could buy out a building for that purpose, then offer an "optional" subsidized living arrangement (as in technically you could turn it down, assuming you had somewhere else to go). That way we, focusing on those in the USA for a moment, would have all of salary, medical care (possibly including preexisting conditions), and then living arrangements all tied up in your workplace. Thus if the boss says suck my... whatever, you do it, b/c you cannot afford to become literally homeless - especially with the pandemic (almost plural at this point) of the unvaccinated greatly increasing the chances of actual death. So that's slavery in the good ole USA, but also a step towards that elsewhere in the rest of the "Western" world as well (and the Eastern world already offers that iirc).
the trolley problem is designed to teach us the nature and limits of our moral framework. the first iteration tests for consequentialism. each iteration after that tests the limits of that consequentialism.
Ah yes, the REAL (meta-)reason for it - yeah I just said it super poorly there, as in it "is often used for the purpose of illustrating that".
Lmfao "we all have choices, and here's why Trump is gonna be the next president" welly welly well
Correction: Parts of Canada. It's a big country with a lot of places in between Vancouver and the GTA.
I would presume that it would occur mostly in or near the cities, being easier to control that way - is that right?
We have the same problem as the US. Vote team red team or team blue. We have a team orange in Canada, however they're seemingly unable to find strong leadership.
In the USA we get the option to allow the rich to mostly ignore us while they increase their profits, or for them to flat-out enslave us while they increase their profits. Truly the worst time-line:-(.
German here. Same shit with house prices here. Unbelievable expensive. Netherlands, Denmark, Swiss, France all the same. All out of the cheap money/ interests thanks to Lehmans & broker bros.
The only country where housing is affordable is China. They built way too many apartment buildings. Entire ghost towns. People are fucked there as well though. Standard people lost a lot of money. Crazy world.
Yup. Globalization and automation are radically altering the state of our world. Worse, most people just ignore that entirely, probably b/c they simply don't know what to do. e.g., Bezos has his cash from destroying many brick-and-morter enterprises, but he has his rocket so he don't seem to care?
The one beacon of hope is ironically perhaps from the EU, maybe especially Germany? But if even you guys cannot - or really I mean will not - do anything about the housing crisis, then I am not sure that it will ever be done.
Meanwhile, people in the USA are just fucked no matter what, especially with Orange Julius (Caesar) coming back for his second term.
We don't have a team orange anymore, they joined team red.
Because they lack strong leadership
Same. 40 yo, nearing the top of my industry in salary, and every time I look at the housing market, it doubles.
I was lucky enough to purchase my home before it doubled in value just under 6 years ago. And at a 2 and a quarter % rate. And now I’m locked into this house now because there’s no way I’m jumping out of a rate this low.
~8 years ago here, the numbers didn't work out for me to drop my rate over covid but I found a house at $75k at 4.125 on a va loan, I recently bumped my payment to pay it off at 50 but my base mortgage is under $500. I'm not going anywhere.
Homeownership is dead, it's time to build community land trusts instead
Have 4.7 acres of commercial property how could I turn that into affordable housing?
Talk to a real estate lawyer
if it's zoned for commercial use you cant easily convert it into residential use, nor can it be done cheaply. not worth the time and effort.
I don't want to convert it but can't you build apartments on it our something?
You'll need to talk to your city zoning reps. It's possible, sometimes, but it depends on the location.
You're also going to need a massive starting investment to build apartments, fair warning. You could try and sell the land to a development company but that seems counterproductive to what you're trying to accomplish.
I also find it incredibly frustrating that mortgages can't be taken out to have a home built... There's land for sale where I am that can be residential, but I don't have the money to build and the only people that do are the developers that build McMansions when we need starter homes...
That would be converting it to residential then.
Look into Habitat for Humanity. Pick up the phone, call and inquire. Just do it.
Attend the first meeting where they give a general outline of the program and put in your application.
5 of the 13 homes on my block were built by Habitat, and none of us would have got a mortgage without them.
Be glad to answer general questions, but the program rules vary by area.
Um, dumb question: I thought they only built very, very low-income homes. Which is fine, but as bad as the housing market is, I don't want to take a house out from under a needy family, for example. I'll survive, I always do...
Just looking at my local housing market, low income is where the housing is needed most. but what that means in dollar figures differs from area to area. Where I am, if you’re making $70k+ there are plenty of houses on the market you can afford (figuring a 2 to 4 times gross wages budget), but the median income in Alabama was something like $35k last I looked. Not much available those folks can afford.
lol No shit CNN. What story is next, Water is wet, or maybe, Don’t stare at the sun?
Um.... It's perfectly fine to look at the sun with your naked eye. Ask our last president.
I was going to post a similar sentiment. Maybe I’m being overly critical, but I remember when news was “new”. A version of this article comes out every other day.
I am 53 and live in DC. I bought just as the pandemic was starting when nobody knew what was going to happen and the rates were low. The market has since exploded and I could never have afforded the home I am in.
Honestly I gave up a long time ago
Just gonna skip the sunset years myself and am gonna retire on a .38
BuT tHe EcOnOMy iS GrEaT rIgHt NoW, EvEN FOx NeWS HaD To AGrEe.
That's how you know they are conspiring.
I'm considered young again! \o/
And the majority of those who haven't given up yet are simply delusional.
Some? Lol
Wait, I heard this one before.....
Look into Habitat for Humanity. Pick up the phone, call and inquire. Just do it.
Attend the first meeting where they give a general outline of the program and put in your application.
5 of the 13 homes on my block were built by Habitat, and none of us would have got a mortgage without them.
Be glad to answer general questions, but the program rules vary by area.
In Canada, the average person working full time makes about $37k a year. The average house price in Canada is something like ~$900k. We're all super fucked.
Is there any hope that it might get better in a few years, like downswings & upswings kind of a thing?
High time we break out the guillotines.
Some?
I’ve gave up. Now it’s just racing the clock to make sure I get something for my kids to live in. Even if it’s a bit of a commute.
i do know a young, unmarried couple that bought a house last year. but it's an old house, a bit run down, and in a dinky little town an hour away from just about everything but walmart (20 minutes away). is cheaper to live there than it is to pay rent in the larger town (that hour away) where his job is. they did that for the year before that. they were 19 and 20 when they closed on it, and they did it on their own.
I never dreamt about owning a home. For me, living in the same place for decades is boring. I want to live spontaneous and free. If I would get something for free, i could rent it to someone else after moving? I'm no wannabe landlord.
You can sell your house before the mortgage is paid off. The longest I've ever lived anywhere is ten years and I've owned three houses.
Synonyms for capitalism:
Not really, but go off queen?
I wish I were wrong.
You can still buy a house in rural America. A simple ranch house is still $150k in many small towns here in Kansas. Jobs do not pay as much, and there are few amenities, but normal people buy a house, get married, and have kids.
What are you saying right now lol
My mother is rich. Not filthy rich, but rich enough that I will inherit a decent sum of money and a gigantic house and my daughter will get a trust. If my mother dies before my daughter is out of school (a distinct possibility since my daughter is 13 and my mother is in her 80s), we all want to move to the town where she lives because we all like it there a lot. And if we sell her house, we'll likely be able to afford to.
As far as her trust, it will likely cover her college education if that's the route she wants to go down, but probably not enough to get a house for herself.
Please don't think I'm being selfish here. She wants to move to that town with us as much as we want to move there. It's where both of her grandparents and much of her mother's family lives, it's where both her mom and I were born and went to college, and it is, for now, where she says she would like to go to college. She has never lived there and every time we visit she talks about how much she wishes she did.
From what I can tell, if she doesn't use that money for college, she would use it to travel over using it to buy a house. And frankly, I'm fine if she wants to live with us indefinitely once she's out of high school. We have the room.