Millennials and Purchasing a Home

Beezer

Beezer

Well-known Member
I really feel for this generation.

How are they supposed to get a toehold into the housing market when the prices are so high? I think homes will start to become paid off over generations instead of just one life. Rent is crazy everywhere I look as well. I sense my 19 year olds will probably be home til they're 30!

Thoughts?
 

If a millennial has waited this long my sympathies are limited. They are in their early 40s now, and saw not only low home prices in time-corrected currencies but also giveaway interest rates.

The generation behind them is feeling the pinch. Even so, it isn't really any worse for them than when I went through in the 1980s. I remember assuming an 11 1/2% VA mortgage because there wasn't any other possibility available to me that low. It was a steal.
 
Beezer said:
I really feel for this generation.

How are they supposed to get a toehold into the housing market when the prices are so high? I think homes will start to become paid off over generations instead of just one life. Rent is crazy everywhere I look as well. I sense my 19 year olds will probably be home til they're 30!

Thoughts?
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oooh please I hear this all the time. When my parents were married in the 50's it wasn't possible for them as 2 working people to afford any house, nor was it for most of their peers, and prior to that, my grandparents generation, most of them lived with their own parents for years as a married couple often with children in one small home because the prices of houses was so beyond their earnings..

It was only relatively recently that people started buying homes and expected to own a home when they got married in the Uk specifically .. late 60's 70's 80's.. and really I'm astonished that people feel its their right to own a home.. yet not prepared to do what out parents and grandparents did, and that is to make compromises, work 2 jobs and save...

My daughter bought her first house at 23.. she worked hard, 2 jobs ,,she was middle management with an international pharmaceutical company in the day.. and worked answering emergency calls at night.. and saved... and most importantly didn't have children that she couldn't afford to have...
 

dilettante said:
If a millennial has waited this long my sympathies are limited. They are in their early 40s now,
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GenerationsBornCurrent Ages
Gen Z1997 – 201211 – 26
Millennials1981 – 199627 – 42
Gen X1965 – 198043 – 58
Boomers II (a/k/a Generation Jones)*1955 – 196459 – 68
 
In Canada, for the month of November 2023, the national average home price is $646,134.

The average household annual wage in Canada is $75,452 for last year and has remained relatively consistent in 2022 and into 2023.
 
30 year fixed mortgages run around 7.5% right now. Sheer luxury compared with rates I faced.

Prices are probably somewhat skewed by supply issues. Gen X was rolling in dough and experienced very low interest, so builders turned from sufficient entry level building to more profitable Gen X McMansions.

Sorry, still not crying for the snowflakes. My kids are Millennials but like the ant they worked and didn't put off buying homes, unlike the little grasshoppers.
 
Beezer said:
In Canada, for the month of November 2023, the national average home price is $646,134.
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Canada has intractable structural problems going far beyond that. They placed their bet on megaubanization supplemented by high immigration to provide cheap services and consumption. The wheel has come up "double zero" for them. So bad that hardly a year goes by without calls for succession from the "left out" provinces.
 
Beezer said:
See what I mean? Now you have to choose between kids and accommodation?
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..but our parents and grandparents had to do the same.. most chose the children, and instead of demanding the right to own a house they moved in with their parents.. and worked and saved what they could... most could never afford their own homes, just took over the tenancy of their parents.. when they died.. and those were in the days long before public housing the right of which is pretty much abused these days...
 
hollydolly said:
my daughter is in her 40's.. she didn't feel screwed out of the housing market !
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I'm not one to usually split hairs, but if your daughter is over the age of 42, then she really isn't in the demographic I was talking about. If she is in her later 40's, she probably had a better housing market to deal with when she was in her working 20's.
 
Beezer said:
I'm not one to usually split hairs, but if your daughter is over the age of 42, then she really isn't in the demographic I was talking about. If she is in her later 40's, she probably had a better housing market to deal with when she was in her working 20's.
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she's in her mid 40's..
 
I bought my first house at 24 years old in the mid-80's and I had a variable interest rate on my mortgage that was 14% at the time, so I won't cry over current interest rates. However, I bought in a neighborhood of "starter homes" that were actually affordable.

Builders these days are no longer interested in building these types of neighborhoods. They claim the average American now wants a larger home, but the truth is they make much higher profits building large homes. This has created a shortage of affordable homes for younger people. Older, small homes in my general area are being torn down and replaced with McMansions.

More builders are BFR (Build For Rent), so yes younger buyers are pretty screwed. Very unfortunate because not only is there pride in owning a home but it is a decent way of building wealth as well.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/14/homes/build-for-rent-homes/index.html#:~:text=While initially smaller homes and,they want the bigger home.
 
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The difference between when my generation were buying homes with high interest rates and now is that the prices of homes were much less than in relation to our income than what young people are facing now.

In the states everyone I knew could only afford to buy older houses that needed a lot of work. We all had kids and most were one income families until the kids went to school. Everyone had one old car and no one had new things.

Young people now have a double whammy between interest rates and the high house prices. However, many are not willing to sacrifice to save for their desires instead wanting everything to be new.
 
hollydolly said:
and really I'm astonished that people feel its their right to own a home.. yet not prepared to do what out parents and grandparents did, and that is to make compromises, work 2 jobs and save...
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I read this all the time. They can be really naive in the effort needed to put together the down payment, the maintenance, taxes, etc.

Teacher Terry said:
Young people now have a double whammy between interest rates and the high house prices. However, many are not willing to sacrifice to save for their desires instead wanting everything to be new.
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There’s a lot of work and sacrifice in owing a home.

I don’t envy my grandkids. Some got help from dad for the down payment on a small house and have to work hard to upgrade it. One has moved on from her starter home to the next small place.
 
I bought a house in 2001 as a single female. My choice could not have been much worse. The house was OK in that I had repairs but nothing super major like the roof leaking. But horrible neighbors, I was harassed. And a few years ago, well after I sold, it was in a mandatory fire evacuation. The area did not burn but there years ahead. Who knows.

I started looking at that time when they were giving these loans to everyone and someone like me with excellent credit and the 20% down was competing with them and everything was sold sold sold.

I bought that house in another town in my county with cheaper prices and a less desirable area, though the area I bought in was supposed to be for this town. I should have paid the whatever more and bought in this town. If I could have found anything. I sold the house in 7 years right at the downturn and renting ever since.

My efforts to find a mobile in a park have been one mistake after another. Things happen to people. It's getting ridiculous. The powers that be care nothing about "affordable housing" rent or to buy.

I can't look at anyone and laugh or say all your fault. People deal with different things and different struggles. I remember my mother snickering that people in their adult park lived off social security. She got less than 600 dollars SS because she was an immigrant. Seemed to have forgotten her comfortable retirement was all her husband she abused.
 
Nathan said:
My son is looking for a house in /around Hollywood, Ca., trying to keep it below $2million.
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Daughter in same boat. Three attempts now. Hoping the third time is a charm. She wants to tear down and build. There are no empty lots.
 
It's kind of become an era of excuses. My philosophy has always been very simple, if you want something you make it happen.
 
Another real estate issue is location. Glamor spots and hipster digs and moneypots are always going to be oversubscribed. By now those areas have pretty firmly gelled, where in the past they may have shifted, making more room. Population has increased, but concentration even more so.
 
My kids sold their home near Atlanta and purchased a small home in the city in NC that they want to live.
They'll have time to wait and find their forever home.
 

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