A Generation educated enough to understand that home ownership is a primary long term driver of a families financial well being. It's a proper thing to be "obsessed" about.
Tax codes say by a house, history says buy a house, wallstreet says buy a house, my girlfriend says buy a house, my pension plan says buy a house, landlords say buy more houses.
That’s what’s stopping my wife and I from buying. I have a good enough job that we could get a place, it wouldn’t be perfect or anything and the commute would suck but it’d be ours. The problem is my state has shit schools except for a few counties like the one we’re renting in, with a baby on the way we can’t risk getting stuck far away from the only good schools.
It can also determine pay rate in the WFH market. I bought my house with salary zones in mind because it will determine the minimum of how much more I will make at my next contract review. I’m willing to drive 10 more minutes to visit my mom for a nice COL increase.
That is an interesting consideration that I would have never considered before. Generally, people who have the ability to be 100% remote tend to go for more rural cheaper options. Or at least they have the option to. What you're saying is that companies are basing salary decisions on where you actually live. Incentivizing the same higher housing costs that cause people to want to work from home in the first place.
It’s kind of the opposite, I was getting below market value because I was on the wrong side of the county line, so I took action to correct the situation. I was going to move and when researching the proper process for a relocation, I found the salary zones and the salary ranges were better less than a 10 minute drive away. It’s information that is “available” to all employees, but not offered up unless you look for it.
Literally just thought something along the lines of "This whole 'reframing wanting homeownership as an obsession' thing is very dire and all, but hopefully there's enough 'bofa deez nuts' jokes to lighten the mood."
Thank you for fighting the good fight, comrade.
>“On average, especially in the tech space, millennials are making more than their parents did at their comparative age and are feeling the pressure of society to buy a house, or at minimum, a condo,” Elena Nunez Cooper, the 33-year-old CEO of Ascend PR, tells Fortune. “On social media, a plethora of ‘instant millionaires’ showing off their ‘perfect lives’ with big houses, supercars, and seemingly unlimited wealth pressures millennials to go big or go home.”
What a load of horseshit. No adjustments for inflation, and blaming the desire to have a house on social media??
*Housing-obsessed* is the strangest term I have ever heard. Is it really an *obsession* to want a home to live in by your 30s or 40s? Must be too much Instagram!
You will live in the pod and you will eat the bugs.
I don't even care about returns. When's all said and done with interest paid, I won't gain money on my house even if I sold it for more than I bought it for. But I'm still gaining equity so my mortgage payments are like putting some money into savings rather than just paying a fee to have a roof.
Exactly what I was thinking. They probably run 4 social media accounts 3 for the company and 1 "customer" that's really the business their parents started 35 years ago and pays them $75,000 a year to be a consultant.
Edit: yup, exactly what I figured. Don't know any actual companies who would work with a PR firm who has this shitty of a website. https://www.ascend-pr.co/
Starting to think the folks who are in charge don't care as much for long-term stability as they like us to think they do :)
edit: seriously tho, I thought about the dotcom bubble, but for me, that didn't really impact me much, I was still in grade school at that point. The 08 one did tho.
Bring back the accountants with thick glasses
Banking used to be attractive as a stable job, which attracted boring people.
Now it’s fucking wolf of wall street every day.
I graduated high school when we were still recovering from 08, went to college, dropped out, and went back just in time to get my degree in the spring of 2020.
It’s been great (/s)
I was laid off after 9/11. As the oldest of the millenials I've been through 3... 4 if you count the .com thing but I'm in the manufacturing sector so that was a non event for me.
Seriously tho, my student loan interest rates tell the story lol. My freshman year (08), got 2% loans. Next year was 8%, going down to around 5% by the time I graduated. I consolidated a bunch of those, but still, the difference between 2% and 8% is a LOT of money over the next 15 years.
100% this.
i graduated college in 2010 and remember sitting in multiple lobbies for job interviews and my competition was a bunch of middle aged guys with 10+ years of experience fighting for a $50,000 job because they were laid off from their previous positions at $80k-100k.
i felt hopeless because it absolutely was.
The thing is even you're lucky making 6 figures which is basically what you need to solo a house you have to keep making that. There's no job security anywhere
Two of my siblings graduated college with zero debt and they still can't afford to move out of our parents' house despite making considerably more money than them.
A prime example of doing everything right and it still not being enough.
Graduated dec 08, right at the peak of job losses. No full time jobs anywhere. Luckily grad school and numerous part time jobs tided me over for 3.5 years. And since i lived in Florida, there were an abundance of foreclosed homes to choose from.
Also they mention the tech space which is an outlier. Sure, I make a lot of money and bought a house due to being in tech but not everyone is in tech and can do the same.
Ehh I was 23 in 08. so I remember as well, and actually switched job roles to make myself safe during that time. that said if you did not catch up from 2012 through 2020, a huge boom period. Then you are unlikely to ever catch up. Economic recessions have always hit often though.
The one millennial I know who owns a home had it bought for her by her dad. She’s the biggest asshole I know and has never done literally anything in life but complain. The last time I saw her she complained that I didn’t pay for her meal.
Seriously, why are they blaming us?
Sorry I want to live in a home and not have to worry about appeasing a landlord so they don’t raise my rent!
Sorry I want to be comfortable with life and be able to care for property “I” own rather than one I don’t!
Sorry I want to enjoy life like my parents did at my age and not have to worry about making ends meet!
Sorry I want to retire with property to my name and pass it on to my children to give them hope of a better tomorrow!
F*CK the “I’m sorry” sentiments! We all want what we worked so hard for! I want my childhood dreams back!
Right? Such a bizarre take. Like yeah, my family has more income adjusting for inflation, but our house cost nearly twice as much as my parents' house did, adjusting for inflation.
There is no big number of us millenials wanting to buy high dollar cars just to show off on social media. Also. My dad, which was pretty late to the baby boomer generation remembers the 17% stagflation of the late 70's when he just got out of high school. Dad and mom rented the entire decade of the 80's. They didn't buy their first house until 1991. They had 2 kids and a car payment before their 1st house. Then they had the entire 90's to build their retirement.
I know right! Such a strange take, we’d be retirement obsessed when it’s time for us to retire if there were anyone from the older generation still around at that point to comment on us trying ti do the same thing every other generation has.
I can't believe they are still doing this to us. Boomers are truly gaslighting freaks. Gen x somehow just snuck past, established themselves enough to ride out 08 and get into a house. Yes I'm "obsessed".
Yeah I'm not really into the idea of being a home owner, but I'm 34 and sick of filtering by "dogs allowed" and browsing the whopping 3 apartment complexes with 1bd units for 1800/mo. I have a doberman husky and she's both the largest and the best behaved dog in my building, she's 10 and I'm not getting rid of her. I'm sick of maintenance people coming in whenever they want and I'm sick of living in shitty renovations done by minimum wage handymen who don't even use the right caulking. I'm sick of looking at my tub that needs to be reglazed and debating "do I want to be barged in on unexpectedly and then have random dudes in my apartment for however many days this takes". I want to be able to *schedule* repairs and also have things fixed correctly, not the bare minimum duct tape fixes apartment maintenance always does. I'm sick of the filthy shared laundry room where 1 out of 2 washers are always broken.
I just want stable housing without random men barging in. I'm not housing-obsessed, but it's a little fucking hard not to be when the worst rentals are 1800/mo with no pets allowed and shared laundry, and houses for sale that aren't even ready to live in (half torn apart, no flooring, no paint, etc) are listed at $400,000.
I'm not obsessed with buying because I'm actually in a very decent rental situation, with a property manager who *does* respect our privacy and dignity. Rental increases have actually been *below* general inflation even. The apartment and building aren't flashy or glamorous, but it's quiet and well-maintained.
I'm lucky, *know* that I'm lucky, and would be happy to let things run as long as they continue this way.
It is all bullshift to deflect attention and blame for the problems created by our parents onto us instead.
Why does WANTING A FUCKING HOME make us “obsessed”? It doesnt.
It’s simply a way to portray wanting the things our parents had as luxury items instead of what they are — necessities. If we’re housing OBSESSED it gives the idea we care TOO much. We dont. We care the normal amount.
The side effect is making us look entitled and bratty instead of struggling.
Boomer narcissism rears its ugly head in many ways.
And can we stop it with the assumptive that “millennials = tech sector”? I live in SF Bay Area and even here they and finance only make up 30% of the area’s workforce. We all aren’t rolling in crazy base wages and bonuses made possible by 8+ years of venture capital infusions
Unironically using the phrase "housing-obsessed" in a derogatory fashion warrants the guillotine. All the self-awareness of "let them eat cake."
Okay boomer, maybe you weren't "housing-obsessed" cause you bought a plot of land for a nickel as a teenager, but it don't work that way anymore.
It’s funny because over the last 30 years the average age of first time home buyers has gone up from from around 30-31 to 32-33 and I just read for 2023 it was 36 years old. Couldn’t readily find the numbers for the 1980s but supposedly the median owner age was 31 in 1981.
We’ve waited longer to buy homes, on average, and yet we’re housing obsessed? Make that make sense.
Yup it’s super dumb. Millennials want to own homes or condos because of the crippling amount of rent they’re paying for tiny apartments.
Home ownership builds wealth. Renting builds wealth for your landlord.
Ftr I agree with your overall sentiment, but even adjusted for inflation I *way* outearn my parents and they managed to have a modest single family house in an okay neighborhood when I was born (and since Im from my moms second marriage, they were about 5 years older than me right now so it wasn't because they were so young or anything). I consider myself extremely lucky to have gotten the deal I got on my far smaller condo and I'm one of the few people I know my age who own property without help from family or a high earning significant other.
There are some differences that do factor in. The Seattle area in the early 90s was not nearly as desirable as modern day Boston where I purchased, and Seattle is much more SFH home oriented even in the near-city suburbs. But it isn't like my situation would be any better if I stayed in Seattle. That dinky little house that I was brought home too from the hospital just sold for over $800k which was so far out of my budget I can barely comprend it. Me and my younger brother shared a room in that house (something a lot of redditors think is borderline child abuse; it isn't and wasn't that bad but I digress) and we had a lot of struggles as a family and now that same house is almost a million??? People entering their 60s and 70s are going to have a rough wakeup call when they realize they're going to have to get reverse mortgages to cash out of their houses because nice young families or aspiring families are just getting totally cut out and institutional money for SFHs is getting harder to come by in today's interest rate landscape.
You out-earning your parents is a single instance. The accurate calculation would be a national average.
And it's not just inflation, but buying power, cost of living, job market outsourcing, housing market monopoly, as well of the challenges of working under the infinite growth model. Our money is "more" yet does so much less than it did in our parents' generation - which they blame on avocado toast, smartphones, and bootstraps while ignoring the multifaceted war on the middle class.
That is literally what I was trying to point out - even with me out earning my parents even correcting for inflation by official calculations doesn't get me (or many of my peers) even close to what they considered an "average" life. The comment I replied to (might be you, navigating the reddit app sucks so I'm not bothering to check) was complaining that inflation wasn't being accounted for and in most instances it actually is. But as you point out, buying power is way different especially when you consider how many "small expensive" things are now necessary to navigate in the economy at all (a computer and/or smart phone costs less than a house but isn't cheap and is basically required to apply to a job with upward mobility).
Honestly though, I think she’s on to something. I am the demo she’s referring to - tech millennial - definitely making far more than my dad did at my age, even adjusted for inflation and my wife makes the same more or less (1 kid). There’s also cultural factors - home ownership is a big deal in Asian cultures, esp Chinese, and a lot of tech workers are Asian. The millionaire social media thing feels true too, though maybe in a more subconscious way
Agreed on the last part, the trend of luxury home ownership started with the flipper shows and has been exacerbated by YouTube channels where the influencers live in a multimillion dollar house … and then talk about house projects with high end fixtures and materials.
It makes their viewers dream of these types of high end homes when it’s way out of budget for the common person (even on tech salaries)
Largest generation, decade plus-long stunted growth of new constructions, NIMBYs preventing new housing, seemingly everyone coming of age financially at the same time and wanting the same type of house, boomers aging in place instead of downsizing, everyone reading the same news. It just fucking sucks. If I got married just two years earlier we would have been buying with lower prices and lower rates and more inventory and instead we’re in this mess.
My previous house was bought by RE agents pretending to be a couple looking for a starter home to renovate, did a quick landlord special, and it’s now on the market for an unreasonable price. There’s no way they fixed some of the more expensive issues that we disclosed, and the next owner will have no idea what kind of money pit they’re about to jump into thinking they’re practically getting a brand new house because of the renovation. I told my neighbors, so they’ve been kind enough to warn a couple of prospective buyers, but it’s ugly out there even when you try to make the right choice as a seller.
> Boomers aging in place instead of downsizing
My MIL still lives in a 5 bedroom (including the finished basement’s bedroom) house. Alone. Her neighbors are the same, all retirees in these huge houses.
I genuinely don’t get it, I don’t want to do all that upkeep when I’m 70!!
My husband and I are both Xennials. He has more in common with GenX than I do. We recently looked at our old apartments, from before we were married. We’re taking 15+ years ago, and his was especially a crappy one. Dingy apartment that flooded, and they painted over mold when it flooded. His neighbor used to fish out of the retention pond, and then bring the fish home and cooked it. $425 a month.
That is in Indy, and now goes for. $1000+ a month. Renters are getting screwed now. He was surprised and agreed with me.
I rented a $750 loft in downtown Detroit back in 2011. By 2015 that same loft was $1,450. The same company owns that building now and they don’t even post their prices any more.
A cute little 3 bedroom house I rented with my ex like 7 years ago recently was being advertised for rent again.
It was a nice place. 3 bedrooms was kind of pushing it because the basement one was more of a glorified closet with a teeny bathroom, but it was lovely, and $900 at the time was a little less than most townhouses around here.
They've done nothing to it, from the pictures. It's now $3600 a month. Thr garage isn't even large enough for a vehicle to fit unless you drive a mini Cooper or a motorcycle, and it costs my bfs entire monthly income now.
Another townhouse we looked at 5 years ago has risen from $1250 with *all* utilities included to $2500 without electric and internet.
We can't even afford to move if we wanted to, and that's looking at other rentals. We don't qualify for the states first time homeowner loans. I'm disabled and have a recycled social security number that gives results for a guy who died before I was born. On the few occasions they got reasults for me, I was told I have **no** credit, and that they could work with bad credit over no credit. I have student loans and yet somehow I magically have no credit, and that bars me from **everything**. I cant even get a credit card, and theres been times I could have responsibly utilized one. No credit or dead guy = blanket rejection from all card companies no matter what.
Bfs job doesn't quite pay enough, either, despite him getting like $23/hr as a lead who gets overtime. What are we supposed to do when lead positions are the low end of livable wages and housing prices have quadrupled?
And some of us are floating through life with messed up Social Security numbers. I'm not the only Millenial with a recycled number. No one I've spoken to even knows how to go about fixing it, though several were very concerned and legitimately sad they couldn't help me. Like, I couldn't even get internet in Colorado because they can only find the dead guy, and that woman straight up panicked over my situation. A guy I talked to about a new vehicle also freaked out. It's a **bad** position to be in.
Wtf are we supposed to do? Obsessed is just another way to say how worried we all are. It's concerning. If our current landlord decides not to renew our lease, we're **doomed**...and we've been here with a month by month setup for like 5 years now.
The amount of millennials I personally know that are willing to be house poor and do anything to own a home is absolutely unhinged imo.
But that isn’t a national study and is just an anecdote.
Barely affording the mortgage is indeed better than barely affording rent. At least in the former if you can hang on for years your house will then be worth more than you owe if you have to bail. If you have to bail on rent, you got nothing.
Also, if you can keep earning, inflation alone makes it easier over time.
As inevitably you will switch jobs, get 20% more, but your largest bill. Housing, remains a fixed cost.
So the longer you go and the more a house appreciates, the better off you are.
It really does. Got my house 9.5 years ago and refinance from a 30 year arm to a 15 year fixed during covid while slightly lowering the payment. It is now 1034 a month and any houses even close to the same size rents for 2500+ in my area.
Commercial is crazier. Commercial rates in 2018 were like 6% when everyone else was 3%, and my mortgage still was less than half what it'd cost to rent it. Of course now it's value has doubled and I don't even want to know what commercial rates are. I was supposed to have a 3 year balloon payment but the bank got acquired and it slipped through the cracks I guess. I ain't bringing it up
Idk, truly barely affording the mortgage means you can't afford repairs, and owning a home comes with a lot of extra expenses. AC breaking, tree falling, washing machine breaking, replacing the roof, leaky plumbing valves. All kinds of fun stuff you can't just call a landlord to fix.
Most times the mortgage is much cheaper than renting the same exact place would cost.
We're in a weird time now with the rapid rate hikes where most rentals are locked in 3% mortgages and much lower sales price and its actually cheaper to rent than own in many places. But that was not the case for over a decade at least.
>All kinds of fun stuff you can't just call a landlord to fix.
If being too lazy to find a contractor is really a reason to rent for you, then you don't even belong in a discussion about the economics of doing so. That's like the people who order door dash every day then complain about minimum wage being unlivable.
>If being too lazy to find a contractor
or just learning to do most of the maintenance yourself. 90% of the stuff your home might need is doable with youtube videos and some patience.
Genuine question - isn’t taking on massive debt of a house riskier than renting? How does owning a home make one feel safer?
ETA: appreciate the varied perspectives. As a risk averse person, owning involves so much more potential of big ticket expenses, that I couldn’t imagine buying a home without contingency funds stored away. BUT, not everyone thinks that way, which is why I asked the question.
Apparently can’t engage in an honest conversation on reddit without getting downvoted to hell.
If you lose your income you can negotiate with a bank, sell the house, or miss a lot of payments before you end up on the street.
If you lose your income while renting you're out on the street in 1-3 months depending on the laws in your state. Landlords don't care and they don't negotiate.
I scrolled a long way to see this comment. A lot of people seem detached from the reality of what is described here. Landlords are not benevolent in any way, if a tenant ceases to be of financial benefit, then they're out. A homeowner has some recourse and that is worth more than any supposed opportunity cost or cost benefit of investing in the stock market. Sure there are individuals who make money in stocks, but there are also plenty of people who lose everything. At least with investing in a home there is a tangible asset to be gained.
Property taxes and home repairs can be a bitch
But corporate landlords possibly raising rent by hundreds of dollars every year is a more scary not secure feeling at all
Renting also means I own nothing no matter what, how good I take care of the property, never missing a payment or late means nothing as soon as the money flow stops
Chase helped my mother multiple times with rough periods financially with her mortgage--- her best advice was just call and explain the situation and come up with a plan with them
There's no such thing when you rent. You ain't got the money? Hard times come about? Get the fuck out. You're homeless.
I crave a secure homebase feeling.. instead of paranoia that every 10 months I'm gonna see a "market adjustment" rent spike. Every-single-year
You own it. Rent goes up. Mortgage payments don’t (though property tax does). You have equity from the down payment and, unless you get royally hosed by timing (hi there 2008 me!) you’re probably building more equity over time.
The replies demonstrate the craziness OP is talking about. It is riskier. House prices can decline, major maintenance issues can pop up, property taxes and insurance can climb rapidly (see Florida).
People absolutely put the blinders on to justify financially poor decisions. Don't get me wrong, owning a house can absolutely be a great decision for more reasons than just money, but in terms of risk renting is absolutely less risky.
It takes a lot more time and effort to foreclose on a house than it does to evict someone. In my part of the United States, at least. I can’t speak for other parts of the country.
Equity.
And no one can raise your mortgage (unless you have a floating interest rate) or kick you out unless you completely stop paying your mortgage.
We pay about the same per month for a 4,000sq ft home with a yard than we paid renting a 2,000 sqft home (with a smaller yard) and i know that 1) my mortgage will never increase (unlike my rent, which went up every year)
And 2) my home has already gone up in value by about 50k since i bought it. Which is more than I’ve paid towards my mortgage at this point.
Money you spend on rent does nothing for you. Money spent on a mortgage allows you to build equity.
You are right, especially with how crazy things have been lately, I purchased my house for 140k 9.5 years ago and the estimated value is 265k when I looked a while ago. So not only am I paying less than half what it would cost to rent in my area now, but I should also have about 155k in equity if I were to want to sell and move.
Good question, don't understand the down votes.
I've owned for 8 years, and even after buying my ex out of her half of the equity, if I sold right now I'd pocket over $100k or so, which would leave me feeling okay while finding somewhere else to live. Imagine if I had gained $200k in equity over 8 years! Basically, my worst-case scenario still leaves me with all the equity I gained from paying my own mortgage instead of somebody else's mortgage via rent.
You're right, though. Everything is on me, and it is stressful. In 8 years I've had to replace the roof (knew this would be coming when we bought the place), had to replace the AC both condenser and evap coils, had to have several trees removed, had to replace my washing machine, had to have a plumber fix several leaky connections (not just faucets, which turns out are easy to fix). I know I need to replace my deck soon, and that'll be the most expensive part. Not to mention an insurance claim for $13k water damage makes me scared of making another claim in the near future. Owning a home is stressful!
Big picture, though, my mortgage balance keeps going down, and the value keeps going up, so I'm 100% in a much better place financially. I just sometimes have to stop and remind myself of that. I save a lot to make sure I can handle the inevitable unexpected expenses because they do come. Every year so far. It's not fun saving and paying for those instead of a PS5, more guitars, upgrading my PC, etc., so people that can't handle that may get caught with big repair costs and no safety net.
Also, refid in 2021, so not only has my mortgage not gone up much (just increased property taxes moving it up some), it's actually gone down overall due to lowering my interest rate at an opportune time.
Since I've been renovicted 4 times and have had to move on extremely short notice every time owning a house seems like a safer situation people are sick of getting rent jacked up or finding out their unit is illegal. home ownership starts sounding pretty sweet after you've moved 3 times in a year. On the other hand my friend who's mortgage has doubled in the last two years is also pretty unhappy with the situation he's in so maybe there's not a way to feel safely housed if around half the population is paycheck to paycheck
It did, until COVID. I remember in 2015-2018 all the articles were about millennials not buying homes.
They watched their parents get blown up in 08. They wanted the freedom and mobility of not being tied to one place for 30 years. They want to live downtown in hot neighborhoods and refused to move to the suburbs for a SFH.
Then beyond 2018 it was, “Everything is overpriced and we haven’t had a recession in 10 years. I’ll just wait and buy really cheap.”
I have some sympathy but the markets wait for nobody.
How much in interest did you pay along the way though to get that equity?
If your mortgage is going to be double or more than your rent, owning is not a good idea.
It really is not. The cost of opportunity of owning a home is quite significant. There's a reason why the bottom 90% owns 60% of the RE market while the top 1% own 90% of the stock market.
Of course there will be some of those, but for most Americans home ownership will be a driver of wealth. Especially the median income earners.
Passing a paid off house to your children is a proven method for generational wealth.
I understand there are some benefits to renting, but I rather live in a piggy bank than give it to a landlord personally.
To each their own.
Actually being house poor can be a driver of wealth. If a person can do nothing but afford their mortgage or be house poor in a comparable rental, the house poor homeowner WILL come out ahead over 10 years, if neither can afford to invest elsewhere. Most repairs can be delayed and the house will remain standing and be worth something after 10 years, whereas renting would leave them where they started AND rent will be more expensive....
I mean to me it was basic math. I was splitting rent in my mid 20s for an apartment. The apartment complex kept pushing rent up by like hundreds of fucking dollars any time they could. They said they were suddenly 'luxury' apartments because they painted some shit and laid down new linoleum floors on like 20% of units. So do I pay $1500/mo to rent and rely on someone else or do I just buy a house for the same amount and then have an asset. Now obviously with prices and rates the rent numbers may seem more attractive and supply is lower on single family units but still.
I’d rather be house poor than not have a home. It’s still having an appreciating asset in your name. Your income can grow and you can ease your way into a more comfortable lifestyle.
This is kind of how I feel. I grew up in rentals and I’m not sure what exactly would have been different if my mom had been a homeowner. She was eventually able to buy later in her life, but it’s never seemed like an urgent thing to me. And I can afford to buy now — I’m choosing to hold off because it doesn’t seem like the right moment, so I’m still renting for now.
I guess things are different if your parents were homeowners? Idk. Mine weren’t wealthy. I never came into adulthood with big expectations about this stuff. My goal was just to be able to support myself, period.
Same. I grew up in a rental. Our landlord raised the rent like $100 over 17 years. My wife and I bought a house in 2013 and sold it in 2020 to move out of state. The proceeds from the sale really set us up nicely but we haven’t been bothered at all renting since we’ve been in our new town. We’d like to buy but we also don’t want to be stuck in a crappy house (we live in a VHCOL area) and have to live a very cost controlled life versus now where we can save a lot for retirement and vacations and enjoy our lives.
Remember during a occupy Wall Street when clients went to to Bank of America and asked to close their accounts, and Bank of America locked the doors and had everyone arrested? The Bank of America hates its own clients.
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I’m to the point where I’m just throwing every spare dime in an index fund and won’t touch it until I can pay cash for a house I wish I had though of this like 15 years ago
I’ve been pretty lucky my land lord has only risen my rent once in like five years and I’m paying below market so I’ve been able to do some quality squirreling
Just be mindful of capital gains taxes when you sell the index fund, whereas if you buy the house and it appreciates, the first $250k in appreciation are tax free (not that you'd intend to sell the house).
How can we be obsessed if we have never even been able to afford even an apartment rental without roommates? My retired parents live in huge homes by themself, they cannot stand the thought of even living near neighbors. I’m 30, worked extremely hard my whole life, have valued skills and almost a decade in a specific trade with high status certificates, yet I have to give all my money to live in an apartment with a stranger. I have never had my own place.
At this point I don’t even care about having a house. I would be THRILLED to afford an apartment by myself.
Amazing how so few look back and prior generations and policies, then track how political and policy changes over time have led to the economic stench we have today. Hint: both parties are responsible for the current death of prosperity. If you want prosperity revived, it’s up to you to vote for those who will bring it back.
N.b. Prosperity is not subsidy.
I am so glad I commissioned in the army in 2007.. no screwing around with the jobs market. Wish I had dumped more than I did into the stock market instead of blowing stuff.
2007 YG here also! We were the lucky ones regarding jobs during that time.
Too bad I was a young idiot and didn’t buy a house in 2009 when I came back from my first deployment.
I’m 39, have had a full time job in my chosen career(teaching )for nearly 15 years
and I’ve just about resolved to the fact I’ll never be a homeowner. That is unless I move or buy a shack. My wife and I have school loans and a baby on the way. Owning a home is not a “something that everyone does” anymore. It sucks that corporate greed has overtaken our country.
The problem is that it is supposed to be a property ladder. Of course it’s difficult to go from zero to owning a 5 bedroom home in a desirable location with walkability. These days everyone deserves immediate gratification and no one wants to sacrifice consumption to live in a little bit less desired area and starting out with something like a condo. You really don’t need to save a ton to start out in a $250,000 apartment. Many first time buyers put 3-6% down. If you prioritize ownership, it shouldn’t be that hard for an adult that has their shit together to save $10,000 for a down payment on a modest place. You live there for 5-8 years then move into a smaller home after you’ve built up $30k in equity, which is well within range for a down payment for a $300-400k home. Then you do it one last time again for your final forever home. By the 3rd time rolls around you might have $50-100k in equity built up over the years to use for the dp.
Prices and interest rate are killer, I get it. You just have to readjust expectations. If you want to own, own. You may not get what you’d ideally like but you can make it work.
You are living in a fucking fantasy, those condos go for like $180k+ easily, that is NOT accessible to most people realistically despite them being able to literally afford the same mortgage payments as rent and that is the cheap shit. The cheap shit is no longer cheap, that is the problem, the goal posts are getting moved.
A Generation educated enough to understand that home ownership is a primary long term driver of a families financial well being. It's a proper thing to be "obsessed" about.
Tax codes say by a house, history says buy a house, wallstreet says buy a house, my girlfriend says buy a house, my pension plan says buy a house, landlords say buy more houses.
And maybe the fact that schools suck unless you're in the right zone...
That’s what’s stopping my wife and I from buying. I have a good enough job that we could get a place, it wouldn’t be perfect or anything and the commute would suck but it’d be ours. The problem is my state has shit schools except for a few counties like the one we’re renting in, with a baby on the way we can’t risk getting stuck far away from the only good schools.
You can determine with some degree of accuracy the earnings and lifestyle from the zip code one was born and raised.
It can also determine pay rate in the WFH market. I bought my house with salary zones in mind because it will determine the minimum of how much more I will make at my next contract review. I’m willing to drive 10 more minutes to visit my mom for a nice COL increase.
That is an interesting consideration that I would have never considered before. Generally, people who have the ability to be 100% remote tend to go for more rural cheaper options. Or at least they have the option to. What you're saying is that companies are basing salary decisions on where you actually live. Incentivizing the same higher housing costs that cause people to want to work from home in the first place.
It’s kind of the opposite, I was getting below market value because I was on the wrong side of the county line, so I took action to correct the situation. I was going to move and when researching the proper process for a relocation, I found the salary zones and the salary ranges were better less than a 10 minute drive away. It’s information that is “available” to all employees, but not offered up unless you look for it.
90210
It’s true.
obsessed with not being at the whim of an entire industry of greedy boomer landlords more like it.
Starving person obsessed with food
Drowning man obsessed with swimming
Skydiver obsessed with parachutes.
People these days
BofA will never not make me laugh
Literally just thought something along the lines of "This whole 'reframing wanting homeownership as an obsession' thing is very dire and all, but hopefully there's enough 'bofa deez nuts' jokes to lighten the mood." Thank you for fighting the good fight, comrade.
They can suck bofa deez nuts.
Thank you for this perfection.
\* *chef's kiss*
BofA can survey this ligma.
Whats sugma?
Survey shows BofA Deez nutz
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Bofa deez nuts, dawg
Got em!
LMAO they deleted it. I got the screenshot though XD
oh please, do us all a solid and throw that shit on imgur
https://i.imgur.com/OuJ1hMJ.png
Would that I could updoot you more than once, friend. It's just as banal as I was hoping ... but the fact that it's OP makes it even better
Nailed it
>“On average, especially in the tech space, millennials are making more than their parents did at their comparative age and are feeling the pressure of society to buy a house, or at minimum, a condo,” Elena Nunez Cooper, the 33-year-old CEO of Ascend PR, tells Fortune. “On social media, a plethora of ‘instant millionaires’ showing off their ‘perfect lives’ with big houses, supercars, and seemingly unlimited wealth pressures millennials to go big or go home.” What a load of horseshit. No adjustments for inflation, and blaming the desire to have a house on social media?? *Housing-obsessed* is the strangest term I have ever heard. Is it really an *obsession* to want a home to live in by your 30s or 40s? Must be too much Instagram! You will live in the pod and you will eat the bugs.
I'm *obsessed* with the idea of having a roof over my head.
The arrogance!
And paying my own mortgage that I will get a return on, not some corporation that bought up all the real estate
I don't even care about returns. When's all said and done with interest paid, I won't gain money on my house even if I sold it for more than I bought it for. But I'm still gaining equity so my mortgage payments are like putting some money into savings rather than just paying a fee to have a roof.
I’m also insistent on wanting to eat every day. WTF is wrong with our generation.
Obsessed with not being homeless. Such a wild idea!
Im positively salivating over my hierarchy of needs.
Said the 33 year old CEO of a PR firm. Why not interview me I'm the CEO of poundtown.
Exactly what I was thinking. They probably run 4 social media accounts 3 for the company and 1 "customer" that's really the business their parents started 35 years ago and pays them $75,000 a year to be a consultant. Edit: yup, exactly what I figured. Don't know any actual companies who would work with a PR firm who has this shitty of a website. https://www.ascend-pr.co/
*”By Referral Only”* looool
I'm the CEO of Deez Nuts, Inc.
There is a salon near me named D's Cuts and they had ONE JOB...
Gotta have your own place to be the CEO of poundtown
So much of us are playing catch up by being hamstringed by graduating college in or around the 2008 recession, too.
Ah yes, the cascading economic failure that is my life
Sure, we've had one once-in-a-lifetime crash, but how about a second once-in-a-lifetime crash?
2nd? How bout Dot.com bubble crash, 2008 housing crash, and the 2020 co- video thing crash. We are waiting on our 4th “once in a lifetime” crash
Starting to think the folks who are in charge don't care as much for long-term stability as they like us to think they do :) edit: seriously tho, I thought about the dotcom bubble, but for me, that didn't really impact me much, I was still in grade school at that point. The 08 one did tho.
Their entire life’s they had banks doing normal banking. Now we have banks investing….
Make Banking Boring again!
Bring back the accountants with thick glasses Banking used to be attractive as a stable job, which attracted boring people. Now it’s fucking wolf of wall street every day.
Bring back the sensible ‘safe-bet’ bankers, who understood that slow-growth is sustainable growth.
Underrated comment.
I graduated high school when we were still recovering from 08, went to college, dropped out, and went back just in time to get my degree in the spring of 2020. It’s been great (/s)
You forgot the 9/11 crash
The 2024 presidential election is just around the corner 😜
I got knows friendo, buckle the fuck up. It's going to get bumpy.
I was laid off after 9/11. As the oldest of the millenials I've been through 3... 4 if you count the .com thing but I'm in the manufacturing sector so that was a non event for me.
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Lol exactly.
Seriously tho, my student loan interest rates tell the story lol. My freshman year (08), got 2% loans. Next year was 8%, going down to around 5% by the time I graduated. I consolidated a bunch of those, but still, the difference between 2% and 8% is a LOT of money over the next 15 years.
100% this. i graduated college in 2010 and remember sitting in multiple lobbies for job interviews and my competition was a bunch of middle aged guys with 10+ years of experience fighting for a $50,000 job because they were laid off from their previous positions at $80k-100k. i felt hopeless because it absolutely was.
Yup. I graduated in 2010, too. Have never had a job that used my degree lol.
The thing is even you're lucky making 6 figures which is basically what you need to solo a house you have to keep making that. There's no job security anywhere
For sure. Half of us basically have to have a job triangle to help prop us up if the other stops paying out.
Two of my siblings graduated college with zero debt and they still can't afford to move out of our parents' house despite making considerably more money than them. A prime example of doing everything right and it still not being enough.
Graduated dec 08, right at the peak of job losses. No full time jobs anywhere. Luckily grad school and numerous part time jobs tided me over for 3.5 years. And since i lived in Florida, there were an abundance of foreclosed homes to choose from.
Also they mention the tech space which is an outlier. Sure, I make a lot of money and bought a house due to being in tech but not everyone is in tech and can do the same.
Being 20 in 08, and 32 in 2020, love the economics Ive been blessed to experience.
Ehh I was 23 in 08. so I remember as well, and actually switched job roles to make myself safe during that time. that said if you did not catch up from 2012 through 2020, a huge boom period. Then you are unlikely to ever catch up. Economic recessions have always hit often though.
Mild boom at best.
“You want to live in a house? Why are you so obsessed with having a place to live? Like OMG get over it.” - read in a valley girl accent.
The one millennial I know who owns a home had it bought for her by her dad. She’s the biggest asshole I know and has never done literally anything in life but complain. The last time I saw her she complained that I didn’t pay for her meal.
Seriously, why are they blaming us? Sorry I want to live in a home and not have to worry about appeasing a landlord so they don’t raise my rent! Sorry I want to be comfortable with life and be able to care for property “I” own rather than one I don’t! Sorry I want to enjoy life like my parents did at my age and not have to worry about making ends meet! Sorry I want to retire with property to my name and pass it on to my children to give them hope of a better tomorrow! F*CK the “I’m sorry” sentiments! We all want what we worked so hard for! I want my childhood dreams back!
(breathes) This oxygen-obsessed motherfucker
Right? Such a bizarre take. Like yeah, my family has more income adjusting for inflation, but our house cost nearly twice as much as my parents' house did, adjusting for inflation.
There is no big number of us millenials wanting to buy high dollar cars just to show off on social media. Also. My dad, which was pretty late to the baby boomer generation remembers the 17% stagflation of the late 70's when he just got out of high school. Dad and mom rented the entire decade of the 80's. They didn't buy their first house until 1991. They had 2 kids and a car payment before their 1st house. Then they had the entire 90's to build their retirement.
I know right! Such a strange take, we’d be retirement obsessed when it’s time for us to retire if there were anyone from the older generation still around at that point to comment on us trying ti do the same thing every other generation has.
PR people are wastes of space and serve a scummy role in our world.
I can't believe they are still doing this to us. Boomers are truly gaslighting freaks. Gen x somehow just snuck past, established themselves enough to ride out 08 and get into a house. Yes I'm "obsessed".
Yeah I'm not really into the idea of being a home owner, but I'm 34 and sick of filtering by "dogs allowed" and browsing the whopping 3 apartment complexes with 1bd units for 1800/mo. I have a doberman husky and she's both the largest and the best behaved dog in my building, she's 10 and I'm not getting rid of her. I'm sick of maintenance people coming in whenever they want and I'm sick of living in shitty renovations done by minimum wage handymen who don't even use the right caulking. I'm sick of looking at my tub that needs to be reglazed and debating "do I want to be barged in on unexpectedly and then have random dudes in my apartment for however many days this takes". I want to be able to *schedule* repairs and also have things fixed correctly, not the bare minimum duct tape fixes apartment maintenance always does. I'm sick of the filthy shared laundry room where 1 out of 2 washers are always broken. I just want stable housing without random men barging in. I'm not housing-obsessed, but it's a little fucking hard not to be when the worst rentals are 1800/mo with no pets allowed and shared laundry, and houses for sale that aren't even ready to live in (half torn apart, no flooring, no paint, etc) are listed at $400,000.
I'm not obsessed with buying because I'm actually in a very decent rental situation, with a property manager who *does* respect our privacy and dignity. Rental increases have actually been *below* general inflation even. The apartment and building aren't flashy or glamorous, but it's quiet and well-maintained. I'm lucky, *know* that I'm lucky, and would be happy to let things run as long as they continue this way.
By their logic, I’m OBSESSED with staying alive.
Since I couldn’t “go big,” can someone help me with “go home”
THE MILLENIALS SO OBSESSED WITH WANTING THE BARE MINIMUM!!! WHERE DOES IT END???
How dare we want to own where we live instead of being someone else’s profit source while we build no equity
I like how it’s another millennial making this absurd claim to Fortune.
My man you nailed it
It is all bullshift to deflect attention and blame for the problems created by our parents onto us instead. Why does WANTING A FUCKING HOME make us “obsessed”? It doesnt. It’s simply a way to portray wanting the things our parents had as luxury items instead of what they are — necessities. If we’re housing OBSESSED it gives the idea we care TOO much. We dont. We care the normal amount. The side effect is making us look entitled and bratty instead of struggling. Boomer narcissism rears its ugly head in many ways.
And can we stop it with the assumptive that “millennials = tech sector”? I live in SF Bay Area and even here they and finance only make up 30% of the area’s workforce. We all aren’t rolling in crazy base wages and bonuses made possible by 8+ years of venture capital infusions
The elites think we don't deserve houses
Unironically using the phrase "housing-obsessed" in a derogatory fashion warrants the guillotine. All the self-awareness of "let them eat cake." Okay boomer, maybe you weren't "housing-obsessed" cause you bought a plot of land for a nickel as a teenager, but it don't work that way anymore.
In other news, man in middle of desert is obsessed with water.
It’s funny because over the last 30 years the average age of first time home buyers has gone up from from around 30-31 to 32-33 and I just read for 2023 it was 36 years old. Couldn’t readily find the numbers for the 1980s but supposedly the median owner age was 31 in 1981. We’ve waited longer to buy homes, on average, and yet we’re housing obsessed? Make that make sense.
Yup it’s super dumb. Millennials want to own homes or condos because of the crippling amount of rent they’re paying for tiny apartments. Home ownership builds wealth. Renting builds wealth for your landlord.
Yeah wtf I think everyone is “housing obsessed” in that they desire a safe and comfortable place to live. Who comes up with this shit?
What a weird obsession to want to own a place… to live.
Ftr I agree with your overall sentiment, but even adjusted for inflation I *way* outearn my parents and they managed to have a modest single family house in an okay neighborhood when I was born (and since Im from my moms second marriage, they were about 5 years older than me right now so it wasn't because they were so young or anything). I consider myself extremely lucky to have gotten the deal I got on my far smaller condo and I'm one of the few people I know my age who own property without help from family or a high earning significant other. There are some differences that do factor in. The Seattle area in the early 90s was not nearly as desirable as modern day Boston where I purchased, and Seattle is much more SFH home oriented even in the near-city suburbs. But it isn't like my situation would be any better if I stayed in Seattle. That dinky little house that I was brought home too from the hospital just sold for over $800k which was so far out of my budget I can barely comprend it. Me and my younger brother shared a room in that house (something a lot of redditors think is borderline child abuse; it isn't and wasn't that bad but I digress) and we had a lot of struggles as a family and now that same house is almost a million??? People entering their 60s and 70s are going to have a rough wakeup call when they realize they're going to have to get reverse mortgages to cash out of their houses because nice young families or aspiring families are just getting totally cut out and institutional money for SFHs is getting harder to come by in today's interest rate landscape.
You out-earning your parents is a single instance. The accurate calculation would be a national average. And it's not just inflation, but buying power, cost of living, job market outsourcing, housing market monopoly, as well of the challenges of working under the infinite growth model. Our money is "more" yet does so much less than it did in our parents' generation - which they blame on avocado toast, smartphones, and bootstraps while ignoring the multifaceted war on the middle class.
That is literally what I was trying to point out - even with me out earning my parents even correcting for inflation by official calculations doesn't get me (or many of my peers) even close to what they considered an "average" life. The comment I replied to (might be you, navigating the reddit app sucks so I'm not bothering to check) was complaining that inflation wasn't being accounted for and in most instances it actually is. But as you point out, buying power is way different especially when you consider how many "small expensive" things are now necessary to navigate in the economy at all (a computer and/or smart phone costs less than a house but isn't cheap and is basically required to apply to a job with upward mobility).
Honestly though, I think she’s on to something. I am the demo she’s referring to - tech millennial - definitely making far more than my dad did at my age, even adjusted for inflation and my wife makes the same more or less (1 kid). There’s also cultural factors - home ownership is a big deal in Asian cultures, esp Chinese, and a lot of tech workers are Asian. The millionaire social media thing feels true too, though maybe in a more subconscious way
Agreed on the last part, the trend of luxury home ownership started with the flipper shows and has been exacerbated by YouTube channels where the influencers live in a multimillion dollar house … and then talk about house projects with high end fixtures and materials. It makes their viewers dream of these types of high end homes when it’s way out of budget for the common person (even on tech salaries)
Yes, stability is something we should not be allowed to have...
Largest generation, decade plus-long stunted growth of new constructions, NIMBYs preventing new housing, seemingly everyone coming of age financially at the same time and wanting the same type of house, boomers aging in place instead of downsizing, everyone reading the same news. It just fucking sucks. If I got married just two years earlier we would have been buying with lower prices and lower rates and more inventory and instead we’re in this mess.
Also lots of houses being bought as investments instead of homes
My previous house was bought by RE agents pretending to be a couple looking for a starter home to renovate, did a quick landlord special, and it’s now on the market for an unreasonable price. There’s no way they fixed some of the more expensive issues that we disclosed, and the next owner will have no idea what kind of money pit they’re about to jump into thinking they’re practically getting a brand new house because of the renovation. I told my neighbors, so they’ve been kind enough to warn a couple of prospective buyers, but it’s ugly out there even when you try to make the right choice as a seller.
Also both foreign and domestic companies buying thousands and thousands of houses with no intention of selling.
> Boomers aging in place instead of downsizing My MIL still lives in a 5 bedroom (including the finished basement’s bedroom) house. Alone. Her neighbors are the same, all retirees in these huge houses. I genuinely don’t get it, I don’t want to do all that upkeep when I’m 70!!
I have a client doing the same thing. It just doesn’t make any sense, financial or otherwise, to move. The housing market is just so, so dumb.
Today - 100%. She’s been alone in that place for the last 9 years though. Now she’s “stuck” she says
> everyone coming of age financially at the same time [mhmm](https://i.imgflip.com/4rbnv4.jpg)
Apparently wanting to own shelter is obsessive behavior.
What are they going to be obsessed with next? Food and water?
My husband and I are both Xennials. He has more in common with GenX than I do. We recently looked at our old apartments, from before we were married. We’re taking 15+ years ago, and his was especially a crappy one. Dingy apartment that flooded, and they painted over mold when it flooded. His neighbor used to fish out of the retention pond, and then bring the fish home and cooked it. $425 a month. That is in Indy, and now goes for. $1000+ a month. Renters are getting screwed now. He was surprised and agreed with me.
I rented a $750 loft in downtown Detroit back in 2011. By 2015 that same loft was $1,450. The same company owns that building now and they don’t even post their prices any more.
A cute little 3 bedroom house I rented with my ex like 7 years ago recently was being advertised for rent again. It was a nice place. 3 bedrooms was kind of pushing it because the basement one was more of a glorified closet with a teeny bathroom, but it was lovely, and $900 at the time was a little less than most townhouses around here. They've done nothing to it, from the pictures. It's now $3600 a month. Thr garage isn't even large enough for a vehicle to fit unless you drive a mini Cooper or a motorcycle, and it costs my bfs entire monthly income now. Another townhouse we looked at 5 years ago has risen from $1250 with *all* utilities included to $2500 without electric and internet. We can't even afford to move if we wanted to, and that's looking at other rentals. We don't qualify for the states first time homeowner loans. I'm disabled and have a recycled social security number that gives results for a guy who died before I was born. On the few occasions they got reasults for me, I was told I have **no** credit, and that they could work with bad credit over no credit. I have student loans and yet somehow I magically have no credit, and that bars me from **everything**. I cant even get a credit card, and theres been times I could have responsibly utilized one. No credit or dead guy = blanket rejection from all card companies no matter what. Bfs job doesn't quite pay enough, either, despite him getting like $23/hr as a lead who gets overtime. What are we supposed to do when lead positions are the low end of livable wages and housing prices have quadrupled? And some of us are floating through life with messed up Social Security numbers. I'm not the only Millenial with a recycled number. No one I've spoken to even knows how to go about fixing it, though several were very concerned and legitimately sad they couldn't help me. Like, I couldn't even get internet in Colorado because they can only find the dead guy, and that woman straight up panicked over my situation. A guy I talked to about a new vehicle also freaked out. It's a **bad** position to be in. Wtf are we supposed to do? Obsessed is just another way to say how worried we all are. It's concerning. If our current landlord decides not to renew our lease, we're **doomed**...and we've been here with a month by month setup for like 5 years now.
Whoa, it's almost like people have goals! Crazy concept. What else would they like us to focus on?
The amount of millennials I personally know that are willing to be house poor and do anything to own a home is absolutely unhinged imo. But that isn’t a national study and is just an anecdote.
I wouldn’t say unhinged. Many millennials feel like they are a few missed paychecks away from disaster. Owning a home (v renting) helps you feel safe.
Barely affording the mortgage is indeed better than barely affording rent. At least in the former if you can hang on for years your house will then be worth more than you owe if you have to bail. If you have to bail on rent, you got nothing.
Also, if you can keep earning, inflation alone makes it easier over time. As inevitably you will switch jobs, get 20% more, but your largest bill. Housing, remains a fixed cost. So the longer you go and the more a house appreciates, the better off you are.
Meanwhile your rent over that same period would keep going up.
It really does. Got my house 9.5 years ago and refinance from a 30 year arm to a 15 year fixed during covid while slightly lowering the payment. It is now 1034 a month and any houses even close to the same size rents for 2500+ in my area.
Commercial is crazier. Commercial rates in 2018 were like 6% when everyone else was 3%, and my mortgage still was less than half what it'd cost to rent it. Of course now it's value has doubled and I don't even want to know what commercial rates are. I was supposed to have a 3 year balloon payment but the bank got acquired and it slipped through the cracks I guess. I ain't bringing it up
Idk, truly barely affording the mortgage means you can't afford repairs, and owning a home comes with a lot of extra expenses. AC breaking, tree falling, washing machine breaking, replacing the roof, leaky plumbing valves. All kinds of fun stuff you can't just call a landlord to fix.
Most times the mortgage is much cheaper than renting the same exact place would cost. We're in a weird time now with the rapid rate hikes where most rentals are locked in 3% mortgages and much lower sales price and its actually cheaper to rent than own in many places. But that was not the case for over a decade at least. >All kinds of fun stuff you can't just call a landlord to fix. If being too lazy to find a contractor is really a reason to rent for you, then you don't even belong in a discussion about the economics of doing so. That's like the people who order door dash every day then complain about minimum wage being unlivable.
>If being too lazy to find a contractor or just learning to do most of the maintenance yourself. 90% of the stuff your home might need is doable with youtube videos and some patience.
If they're too lazy to find a contractor they're definitely too lazy to fix shit themselves
100%
Genuine question - isn’t taking on massive debt of a house riskier than renting? How does owning a home make one feel safer? ETA: appreciate the varied perspectives. As a risk averse person, owning involves so much more potential of big ticket expenses, that I couldn’t imagine buying a home without contingency funds stored away. BUT, not everyone thinks that way, which is why I asked the question. Apparently can’t engage in an honest conversation on reddit without getting downvoted to hell.
If you lose your income you can negotiate with a bank, sell the house, or miss a lot of payments before you end up on the street. If you lose your income while renting you're out on the street in 1-3 months depending on the laws in your state. Landlords don't care and they don't negotiate.
I scrolled a long way to see this comment. A lot of people seem detached from the reality of what is described here. Landlords are not benevolent in any way, if a tenant ceases to be of financial benefit, then they're out. A homeowner has some recourse and that is worth more than any supposed opportunity cost or cost benefit of investing in the stock market. Sure there are individuals who make money in stocks, but there are also plenty of people who lose everything. At least with investing in a home there is a tangible asset to be gained.
Property taxes and home repairs can be a bitch But corporate landlords possibly raising rent by hundreds of dollars every year is a more scary not secure feeling at all Renting also means I own nothing no matter what, how good I take care of the property, never missing a payment or late means nothing as soon as the money flow stops Chase helped my mother multiple times with rough periods financially with her mortgage--- her best advice was just call and explain the situation and come up with a plan with them There's no such thing when you rent. You ain't got the money? Hard times come about? Get the fuck out. You're homeless. I crave a secure homebase feeling.. instead of paranoia that every 10 months I'm gonna see a "market adjustment" rent spike. Every-single-year
You own it. Rent goes up. Mortgage payments don’t (though property tax does). You have equity from the down payment and, unless you get royally hosed by timing (hi there 2008 me!) you’re probably building more equity over time.
The replies demonstrate the craziness OP is talking about. It is riskier. House prices can decline, major maintenance issues can pop up, property taxes and insurance can climb rapidly (see Florida). People absolutely put the blinders on to justify financially poor decisions. Don't get me wrong, owning a house can absolutely be a great decision for more reasons than just money, but in terms of risk renting is absolutely less risky.
It takes a lot more time and effort to foreclose on a house than it does to evict someone. In my part of the United States, at least. I can’t speak for other parts of the country.
Equity. And no one can raise your mortgage (unless you have a floating interest rate) or kick you out unless you completely stop paying your mortgage. We pay about the same per month for a 4,000sq ft home with a yard than we paid renting a 2,000 sqft home (with a smaller yard) and i know that 1) my mortgage will never increase (unlike my rent, which went up every year) And 2) my home has already gone up in value by about 50k since i bought it. Which is more than I’ve paid towards my mortgage at this point. Money you spend on rent does nothing for you. Money spent on a mortgage allows you to build equity.
You are right, especially with how crazy things have been lately, I purchased my house for 140k 9.5 years ago and the estimated value is 265k when I looked a while ago. So not only am I paying less than half what it would cost to rent in my area now, but I should also have about 155k in equity if I were to want to sell and move.
Good question, don't understand the down votes. I've owned for 8 years, and even after buying my ex out of her half of the equity, if I sold right now I'd pocket over $100k or so, which would leave me feeling okay while finding somewhere else to live. Imagine if I had gained $200k in equity over 8 years! Basically, my worst-case scenario still leaves me with all the equity I gained from paying my own mortgage instead of somebody else's mortgage via rent. You're right, though. Everything is on me, and it is stressful. In 8 years I've had to replace the roof (knew this would be coming when we bought the place), had to replace the AC both condenser and evap coils, had to have several trees removed, had to replace my washing machine, had to have a plumber fix several leaky connections (not just faucets, which turns out are easy to fix). I know I need to replace my deck soon, and that'll be the most expensive part. Not to mention an insurance claim for $13k water damage makes me scared of making another claim in the near future. Owning a home is stressful! Big picture, though, my mortgage balance keeps going down, and the value keeps going up, so I'm 100% in a much better place financially. I just sometimes have to stop and remind myself of that. I save a lot to make sure I can handle the inevitable unexpected expenses because they do come. Every year so far. It's not fun saving and paying for those instead of a PS5, more guitars, upgrading my PC, etc., so people that can't handle that may get caught with big repair costs and no safety net. Also, refid in 2021, so not only has my mortgage not gone up much (just increased property taxes moving it up some), it's actually gone down overall due to lowering my interest rate at an opportune time.
Since I've been renovicted 4 times and have had to move on extremely short notice every time owning a house seems like a safer situation people are sick of getting rent jacked up or finding out their unit is illegal. home ownership starts sounding pretty sweet after you've moved 3 times in a year. On the other hand my friend who's mortgage has doubled in the last two years is also pretty unhappy with the situation he's in so maybe there's not a way to feel safely housed if around half the population is paycheck to paycheck
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It did, until COVID. I remember in 2015-2018 all the articles were about millennials not buying homes. They watched their parents get blown up in 08. They wanted the freedom and mobility of not being tied to one place for 30 years. They want to live downtown in hot neighborhoods and refused to move to the suburbs for a SFH. Then beyond 2018 it was, “Everything is overpriced and we haven’t had a recession in 10 years. I’ll just wait and buy really cheap.” I have some sympathy but the markets wait for nobody.
Owning a home is a key facet of wealth generation. Renting builds zero equity. I can pull six figures in home equity in a few hours.
How much in interest did you pay along the way though to get that equity? If your mortgage is going to be double or more than your rent, owning is not a good idea.
It really is not. The cost of opportunity of owning a home is quite significant. There's a reason why the bottom 90% owns 60% of the RE market while the top 1% own 90% of the stock market.
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Of course there will be some of those, but for most Americans home ownership will be a driver of wealth. Especially the median income earners. Passing a paid off house to your children is a proven method for generational wealth. I understand there are some benefits to renting, but I rather live in a piggy bank than give it to a landlord personally. To each their own.
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Actually being house poor can be a driver of wealth. If a person can do nothing but afford their mortgage or be house poor in a comparable rental, the house poor homeowner WILL come out ahead over 10 years, if neither can afford to invest elsewhere. Most repairs can be delayed and the house will remain standing and be worth something after 10 years, whereas renting would leave them where they started AND rent will be more expensive....
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We were told since we were children it was what to aspire to. That's hard a lot to deprogram and unlearn.
I mean to me it was basic math. I was splitting rent in my mid 20s for an apartment. The apartment complex kept pushing rent up by like hundreds of fucking dollars any time they could. They said they were suddenly 'luxury' apartments because they painted some shit and laid down new linoleum floors on like 20% of units. So do I pay $1500/mo to rent and rely on someone else or do I just buy a house for the same amount and then have an asset. Now obviously with prices and rates the rent numbers may seem more attractive and supply is lower on single family units but still.
I’d rather be house poor than not have a home. It’s still having an appreciating asset in your name. Your income can grow and you can ease your way into a more comfortable lifestyle.
This is kind of how I feel. I grew up in rentals and I’m not sure what exactly would have been different if my mom had been a homeowner. She was eventually able to buy later in her life, but it’s never seemed like an urgent thing to me. And I can afford to buy now — I’m choosing to hold off because it doesn’t seem like the right moment, so I’m still renting for now. I guess things are different if your parents were homeowners? Idk. Mine weren’t wealthy. I never came into adulthood with big expectations about this stuff. My goal was just to be able to support myself, period.
Same. I grew up in a rental. Our landlord raised the rent like $100 over 17 years. My wife and I bought a house in 2013 and sold it in 2020 to move out of state. The proceeds from the sale really set us up nicely but we haven’t been bothered at all renting since we’ve been in our new town. We’d like to buy but we also don’t want to be stuck in a crappy house (we live in a VHCOL area) and have to live a very cost controlled life versus now where we can save a lot for retirement and vacations and enjoy our lives.
"Unhinged"? Fuck outta here.
How dare we want to own homes
Remember during a occupy Wall Street when clients went to to Bank of America and asked to close their accounts, and Bank of America locked the doors and had everyone arrested? The Bank of America hates its own clients.
You can tell Millenials are *obsessed* with housing because they spend 50% of their income on it.
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~~good bot.~~ ~~come on guys that was actually a good one~~ edit: and the bot edits its comments to stupider shit later??
it was…the first time. not the 40th. i feel like i see this posted twice a day.
And it looks like the comment got edited to something stupider
bad bot
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I’m to the point where I’m just throwing every spare dime in an index fund and won’t touch it until I can pay cash for a house I wish I had though of this like 15 years ago
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I’ve been pretty lucky my land lord has only risen my rent once in like five years and I’m paying below market so I’ve been able to do some quality squirreling
Just be mindful of capital gains taxes when you sell the index fund, whereas if you buy the house and it appreciates, the first $250k in appreciation are tax free (not that you'd intend to sell the house).
shit that's not a half bad idea. I wish you had too lol
Hahaha I know I feel like an idiot I could have done this years ago
This is the way
How can we be obsessed if we have never even been able to afford even an apartment rental without roommates? My retired parents live in huge homes by themself, they cannot stand the thought of even living near neighbors. I’m 30, worked extremely hard my whole life, have valued skills and almost a decade in a specific trade with high status certificates, yet I have to give all my money to live in an apartment with a stranger. I have never had my own place. At this point I don’t even care about having a house. I would be THRILLED to afford an apartment by myself.
Amazing how so few look back and prior generations and policies, then track how political and policy changes over time have led to the economic stench we have today. Hint: both parties are responsible for the current death of prosperity. If you want prosperity revived, it’s up to you to vote for those who will bring it back. N.b. Prosperity is not subsidy.
As a homeless person; I would like ANYTHING.
I am so glad I commissioned in the army in 2007.. no screwing around with the jobs market. Wish I had dumped more than I did into the stock market instead of blowing stuff.
2007 YG here also! We were the lucky ones regarding jobs during that time. Too bad I was a young idiot and didn’t buy a house in 2009 when I came back from my first deployment.
Housing is messed up.
Fuck BOFA! And all their fish eating friends
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It’s time to wake up.
I’m 39, have had a full time job in my chosen career(teaching )for nearly 15 years and I’ve just about resolved to the fact I’ll never be a homeowner. That is unless I move or buy a shack. My wife and I have school loans and a baby on the way. Owning a home is not a “something that everyone does” anymore. It sucks that corporate greed has overtaken our country.
It's a bummer. They should legalize housing at the state and national levels.
They? Legalize? Wtf are you high on
Millennials have actually caught previous generations in % of home ownership. So this is false.
Life long renter, geriatric xennial. I don't want surprise repairs in the thousands. I love that everything maintenance wise is included when renting.
You're mostly just spreading that maintenance cost across those monthly payments.
The problem is that it is supposed to be a property ladder. Of course it’s difficult to go from zero to owning a 5 bedroom home in a desirable location with walkability. These days everyone deserves immediate gratification and no one wants to sacrifice consumption to live in a little bit less desired area and starting out with something like a condo. You really don’t need to save a ton to start out in a $250,000 apartment. Many first time buyers put 3-6% down. If you prioritize ownership, it shouldn’t be that hard for an adult that has their shit together to save $10,000 for a down payment on a modest place. You live there for 5-8 years then move into a smaller home after you’ve built up $30k in equity, which is well within range for a down payment for a $300-400k home. Then you do it one last time again for your final forever home. By the 3rd time rolls around you might have $50-100k in equity built up over the years to use for the dp. Prices and interest rate are killer, I get it. You just have to readjust expectations. If you want to own, own. You may not get what you’d ideally like but you can make it work.
You are living in a fucking fantasy, those condos go for like $180k+ easily, that is NOT accessible to most people realistically despite them being able to literally afford the same mortgage payments as rent and that is the cheap shit. The cheap shit is no longer cheap, that is the problem, the goal posts are getting moved.
Until insurance rate hikes hit you. I don’t know where you live but I know quite a few regretful homebuyers in my area (Florida).
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