this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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Americans are living through the toughest housing market in a generation and, for some young people, the quintessential dream of owning a home is slipping away.

Mortgage rates surged in recent years, hitting the highest levels in more than two decades last fall. While rates have come down slightly since then, home prices remain painfully elevated and a limited inventory of housing is still failing to keep up with demand. Such conditions mean that housing has become woefully unaffordable.

Falling mortgage rates in recent weeks have helped, but home prices could remain sticky, according to economists. It’s still a cruddy time to be hunting for a home, but it’s even worse for young, first-time buyers who need to save up for a down payment and build up their credit score during a time when Baby Boomers are refusing to part with their big houses.

The situation isn’t a whole lot better for renters, with rents barely coming down from record highs and half of tenants in that market saying they can’t even afford their payments.

The uneasiness over America’s affordability crisis is captured clearly in surveys and polls, but data that outlines the sentiment specifically among young people is limited.

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[–] [email protected] 102 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (34 children)

I did the math and it would take me roughly 90 years to pay off a 2 bedroom fixer-upper.

Surprise twist, said fixer-upper is the place I rent currently.

Double surprise twist, I pay more in rent then the mortgage for this place, but don't qualify to buy my own.

I'm stuck in the renters purgatory.

There are more twists still, but those are too personal.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Brit here. I’m 43, earning more than I ever have and have basically no hope of ever owning a home.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

It's "amusing"[^1] to me that millennials are still considered "the youth" even though the oldest of them are in their 40's. I mean I knew I wasn't ever going to be able to afford a home by the early 2000's.

[^1]: Not amusing at all, really.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

I thought about this recently and realized -

Alot of it is because retirement is effectively a thing of the past. People are working longer and longer, many until they pass. Pushing-40 millennials are still "the youth" because the people calling us that are used to their parents retiring at 55-65 even though they're that age now and NOWHERE close.

Plus, many of us can't "move up" in our careers BECAUSE those older folk aren't retiring anymore and giving up the "good" jobs (those that aren't being eliminated entirely of course.) They call us kids for not having big baller positions that we can't get cause they've held it for 25+ years. Same with housing - we're kids for not buying, but they won't sell and move on like they used to anymore while they fight new development tooth and nail.

TLDR they see 30-40 year Olds as "kids" because they see themselves as 30-40 when comparing their progress to that of their parents generation.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (9 children)

And Canada has been struggling with this for something like a decade. I am not Canadian, just adding to what you are saying in how this is not a problem that is limited to the USA.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Australia has it ridiculously rough right now, too, when it comes to housing. Maybe, just maybe, making it an investment instrument instead of a place to live was a bad idea.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (3 children)

The trolly problem is designed to teach us that no matter what lies in front of us, we have to make choices. So whatever THEY did then, what will WE do now?

The answer ofc is that the USA will elect Donald Trump a second time. I wish I was kidding but... we are starting to see that there's a good chance of that at this point. We might have to find out whether a President can run the country from a jail cell, or if that acts as a "I can get away with rape" card, or what. We've got some tough choices coming our way...

One thing I've been expecting for awhile now to start seeing - just b/c it has happened before, therefore is inevitable to happen again - is corporations making some living arrangements as a "perk" of doing business. Some places do this already, but as the competition drives towards making that an option, corporations could buy out a building for that purpose, then offer an "optional" subsidized living arrangement (as in technically you could turn it down, assuming you had somewhere else to go). That way we, focusing on those in the USA for a moment, would have all of salary, medical care (possibly including preexisting conditions), and then living arrangements all tied up in your workplace. Thus if the boss says suck my... whatever, you do it, b/c you cannot afford to become literally homeless - especially with the pandemic (almost plural at this point) of the unvaccinated greatly increasing the chances of actual death. So that's slavery in the good ole USA, but also a step towards that elsewhere in the rest of the "Western" world as well (and the Eastern world already offers that iirc).

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[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 9 points 9 months ago

Same. 40 yo, nearing the top of my industry in salary, and every time I look at the housing market, it doubles.

[–] oakey66 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I was lucky enough to purchase my home before it doubled in value just under 6 years ago. And at a 2 and a quarter % rate. And now I’m locked into this house now because there’s no way I’m jumping out of a rate this low.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Homeownership is dead, it's time to build community land trusts instead

[–] Fredselfish 9 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Have 4.7 acres of commercial property how could I turn that into affordable housing?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

Talk to a real estate lawyer

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[–] shalafi 40 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Look into Habitat for Humanity. Pick up the phone, call and inquire. Just do it.

Attend the first meeting where they give a general outline of the program and put in your application.

5 of the 13 homes on my block were built by Habitat, and none of us would have got a mortgage without them.

Be glad to answer general questions, but the program rules vary by area.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Um, dumb question: I thought they only built very, very low-income homes. Which is fine, but as bad as the housing market is, I don't want to take a house out from under a needy family, for example. I'll survive, I always do...

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (2 children)

lol No shit CNN. What story is next, Water is wet, or maybe, Don’t stare at the sun?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

Um.... It's perfectly fine to look at the sun with your naked eye. Ask our last president.

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[–] YaksDC 25 points 9 months ago

I am 53 and live in DC. I bought just as the pandemic was starting when nobody knew what was going to happen and the rates were low. The market has since exploded and I could never have afforded the home I am in.

[–] EmpathicVagrant 17 points 9 months ago

Honestly I gave up a long time ago

[–] Shadywack 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

BuT tHe EcOnOMy iS GrEaT rIgHt NoW, EvEN FOx NeWS HaD To AGrEe.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

Wait, I heard this one before.....

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

Just gonna skip the sunset years myself and am gonna retire on a .38

[–] EdibleFriend 10 points 9 months ago

And the majority of those who haven't given up yet are simply delusional.

[–] Sterile_Technique 10 points 9 months ago

I'm considered young again! \o/

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

High time we break out the guillotines.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago
[–] shalafi 7 points 9 months ago

Look into Habitat for Humanity. Pick up the phone, call and inquire. Just do it.

Attend the first meeting where they give a general outline of the program and put in your application.

5 of the 13 homes on my block were built by Habitat, and none of us would have got a mortgage without them.

Be glad to answer general questions, but the program rules vary by area.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

In Canada, the average person working full time makes about $37k a year. The average house price in Canada is something like ~$900k. We're all super fucked.

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