Few milestones in life mean as much to the American Dream as owning a home. And millennials have encountered the kind of trouble totally befitting their generation, which largely graduated into the teeth of the disastrous post-2008 job market. Just as they entered peak homebuying and household formation age, housing affordability is at 40-year lows, and mortgage rates are near 40-year highs.
The anxiety this generation feels about the prospect of never owning their own home affects their entire perception of their finances and the economy, says Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi.
“If they feel like they’re locked out of owning a home it colors their perceptions about everything else going on in their financial lives,” Zandi says.
Millennials have long been dogged by a brutal housing market. They faced not one, but two, cataclysmic economic events—the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 and the pandemic in 2020. Both of which left them reeling financially and struggling to afford a home. The Great Recession decimated the real estate market as the economy nearly collapsed under the weight of tenuous mortgage backed securities. While the pandemic brought with it a remote work boom that caused millions of citydwellers to flee to the suburbs, sending housing prices soaring.
Don’t need a professional expert to acertain whether the market is sour. Where I am the cost of renting a one bedroom apartment is around $1800 a month plus utilities on the low end. Mind you I am in a city but is you drive an hour and a half away to the farthest “commutable” burbs you are still looking at rents that are $1400 for essentially a one bedroom basement suite.
There are a lot of people my age I know who are working proper professional jobs double income no kids situations who are never able to save up enough for the initial down payment for a house. Why would they when they face so much precarity? Whatever money they are able to sock aside for a rainy day might only cover a car repair or some time off work if they have a life altering event like a parent dying and paying down chunks of student loan.
They wouldn’t be able to handle paying for repairs and maintenance for an actual property while still paying high mortgage. Practically every early millenial I know who didn’t start making their nest egg through a job in trades right out of high school and instead spent time in the post secondary system getting a degree got bit.
So a suite halfway between the two for ~1100 probably exists 45 minutes away, which sounds completely workable and average.
That only sounds marginally worse than pre2020 when it was closer to ~1000.
That sounds pretty normal mate and not that unaffordable.
Hour and a half commute, each day, not counting when there’s a bad accident at rush hour? Kill me instead, I’d rather not live life in rush hour traffic
Are you familiar with the term “sold out”? Supply is not unlimited, and you shouldn’t spread a hypothetical like it’s a fact. That’s exactly the thing you complained about in your original post.
I’ve yet to see an example city I couldn’t find plenty of options, even Toronto of all places.
When push comes to shove this convo always boils down to this:
Me: okay fine what city?
Them : (city)
Me: (proceeds to link 4-5 solid options I found in a couple minutes)
Them: noon those don’t count because (arbitrary reasons)
Me: ah so it’s not a housing problem… you are just picky and don’t want a solution, you just wanna be mad
Every. Single. Time.
“Alright, I know they didn’t have toilets…”
Usually it’s more like, “yeah but it’s west facing” or some shit.
Things that didn’t happen for $1000, Alex.