As a GenX this narrative that Millenialls aren’t buying homes is weird.
Of the people born in 1970 about 41% of them owned a home by the time they were 30. Of the people born in 1990 some 43% of them owned a home by the time they were 30. Millenialls are actually slightly ahead of where GenX was at the same age!
GenZ shouldn’t really be a discussion as most of them simply haven’t reached “home buying” age yet.
It’s a distribution thing. In rural and lower populated areas, hone ownership by younger persons is probably higher than 1989 (i remember when, in my home area, a house could be had for ten grand but that was a unimaginable amount of money then and there, more there being the issue than then I guess), but also that large groups of young people concentrated in cities can’t afford anything.
Actually this does make sense, because remember reading articles about how Millennials and gen Z we’re not buying groceries or eating out, which led to some article writers wondering if younger Generations even ate food.
The boomers are believing their own PR department about how lazy we are, they think that if we just walking to an office somewhere, shake the manager’s hand, and just cut back on whatever it is that brings us joy, that this surplus of cash will just come flowing in and we can buy a house.
Like they really don’t get it, I remember watching an old video where they were interviewing Generation X and Baby Boomers about why they thought Millennials were broke all the time, and the answers were just ridiculous. One guy who I just could not get out of my head, gave the answer that we were all lazy and trying too hard to get noticed on YouTube because being a pretend celebrity mattered to us more.
Even though at the time becoming a YouTuber was one of the fastest growing and well-paying careers. Like it never occurred to him that maybe YouTube actually was a job for some people. And it was around that time that Youtube Partnerships were a thing so yeah…
Yeah millennials got over a decade of news headlines like “Millennials are killing X! Millennials dont like Y! MILLENNIALS MAKING FINANCIALLY POOR DECISIONS BY BUYING EXPENSIVE LATE’S AND AVOCADO TOAST!” . I think some of it is pandering “kids these days” clickbait but a lot of it is also disconnect from how things have changed as well as people not understanding how to read data.
The funny thing is the articles didnt stop they just realized that elder millennials are in their 40s and shifted to gen z.
A weird trend I noticed that targets us now is gen Z making fun of millennials. That makes sense they changed what IT is and millennials are no longer with it and some elder millennials may even be their parents. So like yeah young people making fun of the on the way out trends and fashion is par for the course and they arent part of the same generation block so they can just target millennials all at once now. The thing that gets me is Im noticing gen X-ers coming in to join the shitting on millennials and thats just uncool.
Some think “younger people” shun the responsibility property brings with it. And obviously that we spend our money on traveling, Netflix and expensive gadgets instead.
Obligatory douchebag wealthy boomer remark about “avocado toast” and the outrage over man buns. They’re out of touch and their perspective of having afforded a house means they cannot understand a world in which they ruined opportunity for future generations.
This, I actually went to a program called Step Up that tried to help people out of work find employment in town, the program did not last long and I stopped seeing adverts for it very shortly after I graduated the program.
As I thought they were going to set me up with resources, or maybe there were some businesses in the area that worked with the program and directly hired from them, but no, they were just a bunch of Boomers from the big cities offering their practical advice and where to get yokels like me back to work.
Basically none of their advice was practical, and they kept getting the phone numbers and URLs we were supposed to call or click on in order to go to the next class mixed up, causing me to miss a few. They actually threatened to kick me out of the program over it, until I pointed out with screen caps that they legitimately did give me wrong urls.
So what was the advice that their needlessly complicated program offered? Well they kept asking me to show up at random businesses and just ask to talk to people, and if I was unwilling to do that I could just make a bunch of cold calls. I told them that I was not comfortable doing that and if they had any other help they could give me I would take
Eventually they threatened to drop me if I wasn’t going to take their advice, so I made cold calls. To pretty much every business I was qualified to work for, because oh yeah degree inflation has been a thing since these people were in the marketplace.
And exactly what I thought was going to happen happened, a lot of really annoyed customers sales representatives told me to never call them again unless I was buying something or had a question about store operation.
These people still think it works like it does in black and white movies, were you just go into a local mechanic shop, talk about how you know what a wrench is, and shake hands with the guy who runs the place.
These people believe that it’s a wonderful life, a movie where a 20,000 a year dollar salary is more money than George Bailey can imagine, and a house worth $5,000 is just this amazingly extravagant property, is an accurate representation of the modern Marketplace.
Ever wonder why baby boomers are so stingy even when they’re rich, to the point where they’ll throw a fit upon being expected to pay average price for things? They don’t have much of a concept of change, to them spending a dollar on a candy bar is highway robbery.
They are so stuck in their ways that they are constantly baffled when a nickel can’t get them a Coke.
That analogy is really a big deal, and you would think the inflation that they lived through during the Carter and Reagan years would’ve made them as a whole, more sympathetic. We’re dealing with prohibitively expensive medical costs, and home ownership being a pipe dream, to where we try to explain to them that a $400k mortgage on a $70k wage/salary doesn’t equate to what they had available to them.
There are some who get it, but anecdotally they seem obscure and silent in comparison to those who pulled the “nOboDy wAnTS tO wOrK AnyMOre” card.
I really wish it could be highlighted how shitty people are treated when they’re trying to get employment. Between getting ghosted or some of the bullshit hiring managers have in their minds, I’m seeing that people who eventually do find a role are very well justified in just sticking to the job’s expectations, and “going above and beyond” is an uncommon practice.
Ending hustle culture is one of the best things I’ve seen over the past year.
Honestly the only time I go above and beyond is when I have a few hours left on the clock, and I need to find something to do outside of sitting down.
Going above and beyond is something that only makes sense, if your boss is a sociopath and you really need a job, or you live in 1970 whatever and getting promoted up the corporate ladder is realistic.
At this point I barely even try to save up, because I know that the outcome is going to be the same either way. I will still be thousands away from ever realistically owning my own home. So what is even the point of trying to save beyond what I need for rent bills and a little bit for the occasional emergency? There isn’t, the only reason I stop buying junk food just because I couldn’t afford it anymore with inflation, and I stop by and games on Steam because I basically own every game on Steam. There is nothing for me to spend money on. I can’t make down payments on a house because the money I have to work with is nowhere near what they would even entertain as such a Down payment. If there are four digits in my bank account at the end of the month, I consider that a fucking miracle. And this is even after I stop spending because there’s nothing to spend on. I feel like the richest poor person in the goddamn world
This, you have to remember this is the same generation that thought we were being antisocial by staring at our phones all day. Ignoring the fact that we are actually talking to people all across the world while we do so, and that we were not in fact just staring blindly at a screen.
In my case I really am antisocial. I only ever message my family and the one guy I used to hang out with would phone me and talk for hours mostly by himself.
The obvious answer is that she’s wrong. By the numbers Millenialls born in 1990 have a slightly higher rate of home ownership (43%) than GenXs born in 1970 (41%). Most of GenZ simply isn’t old enough to purchase a home. If we define them as being born 1997 to 2012 then the very oldest of them are 27 with the youngest still being in Middle School! The vast majority of GenZ is somewhere in the middle around 18-24 years old. They either about to graduate High School or College but either way they’re not at home buying age yet.
This is one of my favorite genres of journalism. See also: why is everyone so mad about the economy? Meanwhile, the economy: 3 chicken wings, a carrot, and a 1/2 lb of lentils is $37.
Seems the ultra rich are doing quit well in this economy by sticking it to the not-so-rich. It’s not the economy, it’s the money & power that controls the price of everything, including wages, but go ahead and vote for the billionaire guy who says he alone can fix things while planing to rule you with an iron fist. If systemic change is what you want start by running folks at the ground level elections - it takes about ten years to really change things…
Unfortunately, we are being ruled by people who insist on getting blood from a stone, and if the stone won’t bleed obviously is the stone that is being too lazy to rapidly evolve having veins or any organic components at all
Seriously, we are also seeing record high inflation, used to 20 bucks could get me a bunch of drinks, a few microwavable meals to take to work, and some butter flavored Crisco to make my popcorn.
Now it might cover the butter flavored Crisco to make my popcorn and maybe one thing of drinks if it’s on special offer. And that wasn’t me comparing growing up to now, that’s me comparing two years ago to now
What I really don’t understand is all the people who in the next post tomorrow will mock China’s oversupply of homes. “Haha, stupid dictators who oversupplied the market. Their investors are all screwed because the homes didn’t go up in value.”
A ponzi scheme is where you collect investments and pay out the first investors high interest with the early money collected to make it appear you are legitimate and thereby trick more into giving you money.
Buying real estate which goes down in value because the government makes more homes isn’t a ponzi scheme. It’s no different than losing money investing in wheat futures by betting against the US subsidizing farmers. (which creates a surplus.)
Yes it is a Ponzi scheme. People are putting money into something they aren’t getting. So the answer is no, you haven’t heard of Evergrande. If you think Evergrande is simply an “overbuild” situation then it’s clear you don’t know shit.
Dude that has nothing to do with liking or not liking China, nothing even to do with whether you think an over- vs. under-supply of housing is a better outcome. You just don’t understand what a Ponzi scheme is.
So you agree that it has nothing to do the subsidiaries on building/buying housing nor realizing Profit but everything with a market that overbuilt housing to the point where there were way too many homes than people looking for a home.
You could subside the first house. You could make no Profit and finish the building projects. You just can’t build way too many housing and expect the market to not collapse.
Knock that shit off. Millennials wrote the story, for starters. That journalism degree had to go somewhere.
They probably wrote a perfectly reasonable story about people not buying homes for obvious reasons, and then, like always, some editor with a Master’s Degree in Being A Cunt put a clickbait title on it so we’d end up talking about the stupid thing and oh look is that the CNBC brand all over the place? It is. OP even typed it into the title, how helpful.
The last time I chased down one of these shitty meme stories, you know, the ones about too many avocado is why you can’t pay rent, I came to the sort of realization you don’t have because you just jump in here and have an emotional squirt about the meme.
Namely, the reason so many of these stories seem so fucking absurd is because the “young people” in the news story are specifically the adult children of the wealthy, the actual 1%. So yes, those assholes, all spending daddy’s money, are real bad at holding onto a buck and legitimately need scolding.
The target audience for ALL these articles is “daddy”, the holder of 1% wealth. Everyone else is too poor and the ad rates are abysmal for that demo.
If the article is in Forbes, WSJ, or Bloomberg then this is absolutely the case. They are talking to genuinely wealthy people about their own wasteful children and THAT is why they always seem to have absurd ideas about how much money the “millennials” have to spend. Their children really do have a lot of money to waste, that’s why they can’t stop paying $8 for a coffee. I guess CNBC wants a piece of the action, too.
And that’s the thing. None of this is about you. None of this is about most of the people reading the article or making stupid Tweets about it.
The typical millennial online has a fairly middle-class upbringing with a college degree for better or worse. Many of them have boss jobs, either holding positions of authority, or just working in the office, and not in the factory, which is a boss job enough.
So they get delusional. The floor monkeys at the factory know that they’re “the help”, but the college-educated types? They struggle. They delude themselves into thinking this is about them, that they are part of the conversation.
Nope. You’re “the help”. You may as well be one of the Filipinos in the sweatshop making underwear, you basically do not exist in this conversation, at all. It’s a tough pill to swallow as a Westerner with a degree.
So that’s why the articles are so “clueless”. The people writing them, for the intended audience of wealthy old people, mostly men still, are ignoring you as completely as you ignore the janitor at the mall. You might as well be a water cooler or some furniture to them.
They know why you’re poor. They employ you and control your access to money. They have all the records and it was them who made you poor. That’s not news. They know why you can’t buy a house because they made sure you wouldn’t have the funds. Instead, they bought 12 properties to rent this year and decided to lay off 500 people to tighten up the ship. They know why you’re fucked, because they’re fucking you.
But why their own kids, the wealthy babies of the 1%, are acting all stupid? That is a mystery to them, so they’re liable to read news articles about it. They don’t think of you as a child of concern, any more than you think of the eggs a housefly lays. You? You just come with the building. You’re the help.
Once you grasp that these news articles are aimed way, way, way over even your college-educated, “knowledge worker” head, then a lot of stupidity suddenly makes more sense.
I love Mr. Robot. Reminds me a little about it. Not a cup of tea for everyone, but there was a lot to love about that show, from acting, dear gods the editing and some of the shots are just amazing, to being able to resonate with each and every character in one way or another.
Anyway, I send you virtual hugs because we are all fucked and sometimes we just need a damn hug in-between the horror show we dance to. And if you don’t want to be touched, then that is ok too.
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Children of the wealthy don’t need to “get smarter” to “make it”. Also, pretty sure they can afford homes. I really don’t think this article is about them.
Why is it a bad idea? Because it’s basically subsidizing landlords. Instead of paying for public infrastructure you’d be helping out landlords to increase the rent, since you know, you have more “disposable” income
I own a home with a mortgage. I’d sell my house to an llc, and rent to myself. The. I’d be able to deduct the profit of the llc from the expenses (the mortgage and upkeep of the home), and then deduct the rent I’m effectively paying to myself from my income.
I mean I’d love for this to happen, but if every home in the country did this, no one would pay taxes, and communities would be underfunded. Goodbye water treatment, police, firemen, teachers. Probably not great for society as a whole.
Home owners get to write off interest, so us renters should get something.
The real bitch is that I could totally afford a mortgage. I’ve lived in the same place for 11 years without missing a payment on my rent, but because it’s rent it doesn’t count towards my credit score, so fuck me right?
Homeowners get to write off interest but rarely ever do. You need to exceed the standardized deduction in order for an itemized deduction to save you more money. So unless you are paying more than 20k/year in interest you are not writing anything off and are in the same boat as a non homeowner.
Lots of people exceed the standard deduction. It’s not just home interest that can be written off taxes, and the home interest plus other eligible expenses often exceeds it.
My side job has me working on contracts so I write off enough business expenses to exceed the standard deduction every year. Getting to write off a portion of my rent would be huge.
Actually I think they went and did the math and found that the average mortgage on a house is actually less expensive than rent nowadays. To the point where Banks turning people down because they can’t afford their rent is a complete non sequitur, they still do it, it just doesn’t make any sense that they do it. You know besides greed and keeping the peasants in their place
That’s how landlords operate. They don’t buy the properties cash. They get loans and have the renters pay the loans back for them, plus some more for profits. All they do is make housing more expensive.
I know the game is rigged but shit, and I thought people who couldn’t get the bank to understand that they can afford to pay $500 a month for a mortgage, but only if they can stop paying $3,000 a month for rent had it bad.
Someone told me recently that one should only spend max. 1/3 on housing. After showing them the price for housing and the average salary, they connected the dots. But they didn’t seem to realize the Elephant in the room. I wonder when society is ready for the elephant.
I personally like how it is from the boomer generation that the 1/3 rule comes from as well. Keep in mind that is 1/3 for ALL housing expenses (water, heat, electricity,insurance, etc.), The US median is $1085 a week. This means all in a median Joe/Joette should find a place for under $1500 ALL IN in order to meet this rule.
Always remember that paying rent is a never ending cost while pay mortgage is limited. If you rent, you rent when you are retired. If you can buy, you don’t pay for your house anymore when you are retired. In other words, not buying a house/Appartment means that you will have less money in your retirement… Up to 2/3 of your current salary.
I know you are joking, but there is actually a YouTube series that is intended for landlords that teaches them how to milk tenants.
One of their videos literally suggests asking for tips alongside the rent, and threatening to include gratuities in all future versions of the lease, which is downright illegal but it’s not like people who rent can afford lawyers
swear as a culture we’re not just headed toward being only renters, but we’re being primed for the cultural dialogue around home ownership to be about what a pain in the ass it is and how renting is just so much better. This weird, Deleuzeian dystopia where the thought of owning land is just completely foreign to most people.
It doesn’t help that companies like Blackstone are buying up homes at auction, lightly flipping them and putting them back on the market as high-priced rental properties.
A boomer I know blames young people being in house debt because “they all buy houses with quarts and granite counters, hardwood floors and heated tile floor bathrooms. They skip the starter homes and go right to the forever homes”.
He doesn’t consider the fact that no one is building starter homes anymore. Everything has heated tile floors, granite counters and hardwood floors because the contractors are demolishing all the older “starter” homes to build luxury houses and 55+ only condos to sell to boomers who throw all their money at it. There’s no profit in building starter homes anymore.
At least in our area, most of the starter homes were purchased and then completely redone internally to fancy up and then flipped. All of the homes went up about $100,000 at minimum because of people trying to profit off the housing market.
My first house, I bought in 2009 (so right during the crash). We offered full asking price, only to be told there was 3 higher cash offers, which I couldn’t compete with as a mortgage (FHA) offer. The seller made living in the house for 1 year a condition of sale, and all the higher offers disappeared. Guarantee those were just flippers looking to make a profit, rather than homebuyers.
Only problem, is that house flippers are also the only ones you can rehab old POS falling down shacks I to a saleable and occupiable house. So many houses near where I live have been rehabbed from a teardown into a usable house.
Maybe exempt if the purchase price was a certain amount below the average for the market.
Like if the price per sq. ft / acre of the house was 75% of market average when purchased it’s exempt, that way the houses that really need to be repaired and fixed with get the attention they need to keep them in the market.
Then people can’t just buy a house, slap a coat of paint on it and some new counters then sell for $100k over the purchased price 6 months later.
Ehhh, I disagree with this a bit. People are still putting LVP instead of hardwood in new builds, with granite instead of quartz countertops, and no fancy heated floors, and the cheapest carpet they can find at Home Depot. I feel like most new builds I see going up are more on the “starter home” side of things, but maybe it’s an area specific thing.
The real problem though, is even these cheaper options still end up being unaffordable.
Ha, jokes on them. I moved to the countryside, and purchased a former starter home.
The joke on me is that it was 3/4 of a million dollars. I would have not been able to buy it at all if I didn’t have the support of my SO, who works full time like me, and my brother AND his wife, who all had full time jobs at the time of purchase…
Six bedrooms, two bathrooms, nearly 2800 sq ft. At least 15 minutes from anywhere, and at least 30 minutes from mid sized cities, and an hour and a half from the nearest major metro area. It’s quiet here… Like, weirdly quiet.
Around me all the 55+ condos are dirt cheap and price controlled, while the regular condos and sfh are 2-3x price. So, when the boomers want to downsize they can just sell their that the vigorously fought to keep zoned without density to a millennial for a huge profit and then buy a cheap condo (conveniently dense and conveniently 55+) and live off the rest of the proceeds. It’s as if the boomers get to use their kids future earnings as a piggy bank for their retirement. It’s the same story with offloading the climate change impacts of their gluttonous lifestyle to their kids as well. They really did pull up the ladder.
I was fortunate enough to buy a house this year and the options seemed to be:
Under $250K: needs $100k of work
$250k to $350k: houses with less sq ft than my apartment that are >80 yrs old
$350k to $400k: okay house/location, probably with one glaring issue. If you’re lucky you’ll find one of those ‘starter homes’ will be here
over $400k: acceptable
over $500k: built within the last 15 years
The new starter homes seem to be townhomes, me and my wife considered buying one instead and the market for them was blistering as they were all that most people could afford that aren’t shacks/fixer-uppers… and people buying those will usually have to pay steep HOA fees on top of the increased interest rates, which is less going into their equity.
No one is building starter homes and with investing being so more accessible, you might as well do that while living in a nice apartment and wait to buy a nicer house.
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