Few milestones in life mean as much to the American Dream as owning a home. And millennials have encountered the kind of trouble totally befitting their generation, which largely graduated into the teeth of the disastrous post-2008 job market. Just as they entered peak homebuying and household formation age, housing affordability is at 40-year lows, and mortgage rates are near 40-year highs.
The anxiety this generation feels about the prospect of never owning their own home affects their entire perception of their finances and the economy, says Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi.
“If they feel like they’re locked out of owning a home it colors their perceptions about everything else going on in their financial lives,” Zandi says.
Millennials have long been dogged by a brutal housing market. They faced not one, but two, cataclysmic economic events—the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 and the pandemic in 2020. Both of which left them reeling financially and struggling to afford a home. The Great Recession decimated the real estate market as the economy nearly collapsed under the weight of tenuous mortgage backed securities. While the pandemic brought with it a remote work boom that caused millions of citydwellers to flee to the suburbs, sending housing prices soaring.
I’m not seeing any lies there. I worked my ass off my entire career and still have to go back to school to get a little piece of paper that lets me do what I do in a clinical setting. I’ve got 2 degrees already, almost a decade of experience and I’m even decently-paid, but thanks to the cost of being alive I was forced into even more schooling to open up a few more doors in the long run. I’m feeling exactly like this article, I’ve given life everything I’ve got and the bar keeps getting higher and higher, its soul-crushing, I’m just so tired.
So… you paid for two degrees already and are going for a third, and you are having financial issues?
Do you have all three of your degrees fully paid for (all debt on the first two gone, and enough money for the third without having to take out a loan)?
Otherwise it sounds like you are bad with money. Taking out huge loans you can’t afford isn’t the path to affordability. It’s pretty rare that degrees are a good financial investment.
Degrees are mostly a passion investment. You need to already be well off enough to afford all the extra costs to get the degree, abd you are paying money to do a job you like after.
There’s tonnes of jobs that pay incredibly well that don’t require a degree at all.
Taking out a large loan to get a degree is a terrible financial choice.
If you just care about finances, go work a job that pays well and has a low barrier of entry that anyone with a pulse can get into.
If you want to do something you are really passionate about and it’s financial investment sucks, that’s the tax you simply pay to have a job you prefer.
The intersection of:
Is extremely rare. There’s a couple trades that aren’t too bad, but they usually pay well due to a low demand low supply situation.
Wow, looks like you put a lot of effort into being condescending.
Am I wrong?
“I have taken out three huge loans and now I can’t afford stuff” isnt something I really sympathize with.
That’s a terrible financial decision.
Even if you could afford the loans, wasting all the time in school getting three degrees I stead if, you know, working, is also massjve money lost. Every hour in school is an hour that could’ve been spent at a job instead.
Even at minimum wage you usually “lose” another 10k to 15k a year you spend in school instead of working, best case scenario. If you can make better wage though that can balloon up to like 30k a year in lost potential income.
You sound 4 years doing that a d that’s *120k you can never get back on top of the actual cost of the degree.
And this person did that twice and is gonna do it a third time?
Bruh that’s like 360k+ now, that’s a whole ass house they just lost
Stop jumping between degrees, it’s not gonna magically make you stop hating work. Pick a lane and stay in it. Everytime you jump lanes you set yourself backwards 6-8 years
This person’s indecision and inability to just stick to it, combined with “grass is greener” mentality is why they can’t afford shit.
Terrible financial choices. I’m not being mean here, it’s just a stone cold fact.
I’m hoping they realize this and don’t make the mistake a third time.
Extra time in college is hugely expensive like you said. This is a cost people don’t realize and don’t like to admit. Each extra year “costs” around 100k between tuition costs and lost earning potential. The people I graduated with that took 7-8 years to get a bachelor’s were so much further behind financially they won’t ever catch up with those taking 4 years.
And those that spent 1 year getting a specialized certificate or two and entering into specialized markers that have low supply are even farther ahead.
Mind you, this isn’t an option for many industries… but it is an option for some and extremely lucrative. (Welding, machining, tonnes of “confined space” jobs, anything in waste management…)
Spending 7 years on a degree to get a high supply low demand job though was and is a scam…
I feel really bad for folks who fell for it though, they trusted people who told them it was a good choice and ot sucks watching so many people suffer for it.
Literally all I did at 19 was crunch the numbers. “Average salary for that field is this, at min wage I would lose this much a year not working and going to school. After paying off my debt it’d cost this, I’d make this much more per year if I get the job asap… so it’d take… thirty years for the investment to pay out? Wat?”
After comparing some costs vs others and contacting people in the fields, it became apparant that my dream field was actually a huge money sink, and my second best wasn’t much better… but my third option was actually very low barrier of entry, growing demand, and paid less but cost almost nothing to get into.
So I went with that.
No, your not really wrong, it’s just the tone that comes off as blaming others for their failures.
There’s a place for that but it is IMO not really on a public forum. Praise in public and criticize in private is good life advice. Maybe your tone is unintentional due to the nature of internet text communication.
To me, it seems like you could stop and realize that making sound financial decisions isn’t as big of a factor to most people as it is to you. There is more to life than worrying about money.
Corporate media does hyperfocus on that but I don’t think it helps make our (North American) society happy. It distracts us with escapism and temporary happy emotions.
Thanks for the judgment and assumptions, that really helped me out! I worked throughout my BSC, so yes that was paid for and a must-have starting point for my field, so no way around that. Then i did my Msc which comes with a stipend so I was able to come out of that with a debt that I paid off in 3 months. Right out the gate I was incredibly lucky and was hired at a top research institute and paid well since I was proficient in a relatively niche field. Things were ok then the pandemic blew everything up, my landlord sold my place from under me, rent is crazy high with few alternatives available, buying is out of the question, groceries and bills are insane… I get your point, I’m not exactly out to collect degrees like pokemon, I’m definitely done schooling after this and never again.
Ah, that changes things a lot, upgrading a degree is a bit different than getting another one, that makes more sense.
What’s stopping you from just moving somewhere better and applying your degree in a better market? Chances are there’s a big corporation somewhere that will hire you with your experience and masters degree, with an office in a better location that actually has an affordable cost of living.
Honestly thats not completely off the table, the upgrade will give me some freedom and a lot of options so I’ve been considering a move. Due to the nature of my program I have to be near a hospital, university or major research institute and the best opportunities are unfortunately in major cities, where things are expensive.
What field? There can be surprisingly financial options that are outside these scopes for industries that you typically associate with those.
Many private industries need to contract in specialists in fields for on site work. You end up away from home a month at a time often, but the pay can be very compelling.
Something I’ve noticed about lemmy is that people here love their anecdotes. Something I miss about Reddit is that data seemed to be held in higher regard.
I don’t mean to single out your comment but this is also a reply to the one above yours.
https://www.investopedia.com/millennial-homeownership-still-lagging-behind-previous-generations-7510642
So maybe lots of articles get written about this because it’s a growing problem but also our personal experiences might not be indicative of a larger trend (although yours seems to be).
That’s higher than the last stat I heard, which was 46% of Millennials owning homes compared to the average of 65% for other generations. Of course, I believe that was also comparing all generations in 2019, not from different dates.
Huh? If you want to talk data, this is directly from your article:
Do you understand what the implications of this figure mean for housing affordability though, cuz it’s not the indicator you may think it is.
Too many people think median/average/etc house price figure is meaningful for housing affordability, but it’s a mostly useless value for people buying their first home.
You’ll notice though most doomer “no one can afford houses” content build their entire info on average and median house prices.
The median or average house is a fucking mcmansion though, not your first home.
Once you realize that, the rest of the following info clicks into place as the entire premise is built on the assumption that you wanna buy a small mansion as your starter home, and suddenly its like “ya no shit that’s not affordable”
A median is a value at the midpoint of a frequency distribution, such that the probability of a value being above or below it is equal. A median value is going to be highly dependent on the area - cities with a boom in the building of luxury homes will have a higher median value that may not be indicative of the existence of more affordable housing but, in a larger market with an even vaguely normal distribution of home prices, it should be an indicator of a fairly average (in the non-statistical sense) home. But why take my word when we can test your hypothesis!
For example, the median home value in Portland, OR is $515K with a median household income of $78K, yielding a median home price to household income ratio of 6.60. So lets hop on realtor.com and look at the first three homes listed at that price, +/- 2%. Look at these McMansions!
$510K for 2500 square feet on 7000 sq.ft. lot built in 1910
$515K for 2,234 sqft on 6,098 sqft lot built in 1992
$525K for a 1542 sqft condo with admittedly nice views of the river
Such luxury! Oh wait, they’re just average homes. The largest home in that price range is 2,624 sqft. The smallest is this guy which, while nice, isn’t a McMansion. It’s a very nice but not luxurious 1200 sqft apartment.
Maybe Portland is a shitty example? How about Gillette, WY? Gillette has a median home value of $390K and a median household income of $72k, yielding a median home value to household income ratio of 5.42. Let’s see what’s in store!
$390K 2,880sqft 7,200sqft lot built in 2010
$410k 3,002sqft 6,199sqft lot built in 2011
$410k 3,944sqft 6,522sqft lot built in 1975.
The largest in that range is actually my third result, with the smallest coming in at 2706 square feet on 0.31 acres. Check that one out, it looks like they built two houses on top of each other. It’s weird looking!
Note: only the first house was close to the median. I had to bump the upper price limit to 5% above median to get more than two results.
You’ll get a lot more space for your dollar in Gillette, but a McMansion? They’re still lacking the ostentatiousness and cut rate luxury characteristic of the McMansion, so not really. Certainly not the best a man can get.
I’m not shaving just because your wordplay was ingenious. Thanks for the housing info though.
Comparing median house price to median income is an instant “doesn’t know how housing economy works” flag.
Those properties are all a fair bit on the large side as well, and are in extremely good quality.
The first link is a smaller home but on a large property and literally dead center of Portland on highly valuable land, so that’s an instant cherry pick.
The second is absolutely a mcmansion at 3000sqft, well over double the size of a starter home which usually ranges in the ~1500 range. Substantially more than anyone needs as a starter. It’s in the suburbs but a quick glance shows you basically everyone has RVs and boats parked on their properties. The house is incredibly good condition and looks newly fully renovated. Several tiers above a starter home by a large margin, it’s bizarre you thought thus house supported your argument. This is literally a textbook mcmansion.
The third is insane that you thought to even link it. Clocking in at nearly 3x the size of a starter home, double car garage, also newly renovated, and fairly close to the center of Gillette as well. This is less a mcmansion and just a huge bilevel. At what point did you seriously think that this house did anything other than support my statement, clocking in at that kind of Sq ft and with that location?
This is exactly as I wrote and you’ve done nothing but confirm, that the “median” house prices are many tiers above a starter home and only a fool thinks these are the houses first time home buyers will be saving up for.
Next time when you wanna try and find houses that aren’t affluent, maybe take the five seconds to notice the literal sailboats parked in people’s driveways? It’s a pretty big tell lol
That’s a long response that somehow still manages to miss nearly every point previously made, plus has a hefty dallop of bullshit.
I’m forwarding your comment history to Drs. Dunning and Kruger in case they want to do a case study.
I included median income because it’s interesting and at no point make or even vaguely suggested it has any significance. It’s funny how you just make shit up to counter points that aren’t being made.
I made this post to definitively test a theory: that you’re shockingly, blatantly intellectually dishonest, someone who doesn’t care about an honest conversation but who simply wants to be right at all costs, up to and including just lying. Like you did here, repeatedly.
My point was median valued homes aren’t McMansions, homes that are defined by their size, ostentation, and luxury, which are none of these homes. But you don’t care, you just want to be right, so you lie and use your own personal definition of a McMansion, which is apparently “big and/or nice house maybe with boat”, like watercraft ownership has any bearing on the type of home. I live in a 1300 square foot home and own a $95k 5th wheel. I guess I live in a McMansion too! You even move my goalposts for me by pretending my comment was about something it was not, that I was somehow claiming a median valued home was a “starter home”. It’s easy to refute evidence when you pretend the thesis is something that it’s not, but it makes you a liar.
So now we have, for all to see, clear evidence that talking with you is an absolute waste of time. Thank you for that. Easiest block I’ve made all year. Feel free to have the last word.
I think we all know this already. We’re poking the bear because it’s fun to watch him dive past points being made and scramble to fabricate data so he can ‘win’ every argument.
I love how they’ve done nothing but bitch about “no one showing facts” but they avoid the posts with citations like the plague because they already got theirs and want the poors to shut up.
Oh yeah, I suspect they just want their biases confirmed. Anyone who shows evidence that the premises upon which their biases are based are flawed gets ignored. It seems those that scream “it’s just facts and math, you can’t argue with math” the loudest tend to have arguments largely based in neither.
The median home should not be a McMansion, this is part of the problem. Look at median household income and you will see why.
No, it truly is, because that’s how numbers work.
Median income should not be buying Median homes because that ignores the entire existence of renters markets.
You have to factor in the enter renter market plus the buyer market combined.
And if you do that then the Median price of a home suddenly plummets, as now your average home is a very nice well off apartment.
People hate on the concept of renting, but the real issue is unregulated renting.
Renting serves a critical economic role for people so it needs to exist.
But collusion and bad actors have poisoned the renting markets in many cities unhindered and that does need tackling.
Renting may serve a purpose but a permanent underclass of people stuck renting forever does not. And a big reason this exists is the increasingly wide gap between median home price and median income.
The number of people who would choose to rent in a more just society is way smaller than those who are forced into it today.
Sure.
Doesnt change reality though, homes are affordable, you just don’t get to live in a mansion on a median income which isn’t a hot take.
No one is saying everyone should be able to afford to live in a mansion. But I’m saying the median home should not be a mansion, it should be a normal-sized house that ordinary people can afford.
The fact that most homes being built today cater to the wealthy and not average people is a symptom of the same extreme wealth inequality I was discussing above.
Yeah, and then people would say “why do people buy those useless apartments of 190 ft²?”
Because that’s the only affordable housing
Yes. I don’t disagree. The excerpt I quoted made that clear, I thought.
Oh, I read your comment as countering GingaNinga’s.
It would appear that you and a bunch of others didn’t really read it at all. That, or the reddit hate trumps the point I’m making.
The saying goes you get more flies with honey than with vinegar. Seems, however, that both you and pixxelkick have oddly chosen vinegar.
I don’t think it’s their choice. I think they’re both idiots.
Other people’s reading comprehension issues aren’t my problem. They’re the ones who will find daily living difficult.
The funny thing is this thread started with a comment about how people can’t manage their money. Maybe reading problems are a part of the issue too.
Nah it’s easier to blame everything else in the world instead of take responsibility for one’s own issues.
Not a new problem, an issue as old as time.
The amount of people I’ve met that frivilously waste money daily and constantly indulge in retail therapy, ordering out, etc, then complain they can’t afford anything is astronomical.
If I had a nickel for everytime I heard someone wistfully go “once I get my shit sorted out…”
Mate, go fuckin do it then, sort your shit out. Stop going to the bar after work, stop ordering mcdonalds, stop smoking weed, and do something constructive with your time.
Depression sucks, I get it, I’ve been there. But at a certain point you gotta just accept the only person to blame is the self, but that also means the only person who can fix it is the self.
Today in Lemmy News: poor writer with ambiguous thesis is adamant it’s everyone else’s fault their point isn’t getting across. Writer suggests their difficulties in communicating with others somehow translate to others having difficulties in everyday life. The smugness coupled with a complete lack of self awareness is palpable, folks!
Now back to Chuck in the Weather Wagon!
… but you catch the most (flies) with bullshit.
I didn’t even have that big of a problem with what pixxelkick said overall until they started in with the “maybe if you had better budgeting software, you’d have an extra $700 a month like we do” bullshit.
People on the internet? Reading things before responding to them?
I dunno, seems tough lol