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.
1 million is not a particularly high population. Not going to do a deep dive on infrastructure or culture because all of that is incredibly subjective and I am not going to really pretend that my opinion is that of the average Canadian
But I think I see the key. You still think that when Pewdiepie looked into the camera, he was looking into your eyes and speaking to you. He wasn’t. He, like most Personalities, was looking at a spot just above the camera lens to make it look like he was looking into your eyes. And he was saying general stuff to make you feel special.
Not everyone has your life experience. You appear to have gotten incredibly lucky. Good on you. That doesn’t mean everyone else did or that everyone else’s cost of living is low enough that they can save up in just two years on a 70k salary. And, ignoring the reasons people might not want to move out of a region, they likely also don’t have the savings or job skills to be able to pull off that move.
So maybe learn empathy? Or keep screaming about bootstraps and accusing the entire world of lying because people can’t possibly have a different life experience than you.
Math is a universal truth, not an experience.
I’ve yet to see a SINGLE person on this thread provide any concrete examples of locations that truly are as bad as people claim.
And as always, if it starts with using the “average” or “median” household price, reminder that that’s the price of a small mansion, not a starter home, starter home and median home are mutually exclusive.
Median home is the 50% mark, starter homes are closer to the 20% or lower mark. So you’re starting things off about doubled of actual home prices you’d be looking at.
Median vehicle price is a brand new sports car off the lot, remember that. You wouldn’t look at brand new sports cars as the price for your first car, would you? That’s what happens when you use the “median” or “average” price.l as your baseline.