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 don’t think this is as important as your making it out to be because it’s not far off from the truth for many. The reality is that a condemned or empty lot in my area starts at 6 times my annual salary. To get something that can be lived in starts around 9 times. That means I need at about a year’s salary to afford the land alone. To be able to live on that lot is closer to 2 years salary. Realistically this won’t happen because the rent in the area is 60% of my income and after required expenses like fuel, insurance, food, etc I can usually save about 5% of my income. Any unforeseen expenses like car repairs eat that away, so I’m left with an annual savings rate of about 3%. At this rate homes will inflate faster than my income will accrue. The math doesn’t work and I suspect it doesn’t for many others.
So, you live in a place that the local area has exceptionally high cost of living…
Why would you want to buy a home specifically there?
If you can’t afford the cost of living in a location, that just means you have to move somewhere you can.
Which usually just means moving to the suburbs or 1 town over and suddenly the price is 1/10th.
You’re mistaken, I already live 45 minutes from my job. Moving further from that would be untenable because it would increase my commute by another 30 minutes which wouldn’t leave enough time for me to care for my father in the area.
That’s your choice to make then.
Moving is an option, you are prioritizing your father’s comfort over your own life.
You can do that, but no one us forcing you to.
You can tell your dad “look I’m leaving, I can’t afford it here. You can come with me or not, but I have my own life to live and this place is killing me”
If he doesn’t come with you, then that’s on him.
He is a grown ass man, you aren’t his parent…
Often I see this case, if you purposefully choose to shackle yourself to a relative, that’s no longer "the economy"s fault you can’t afford life. You made a choice to live outside your means, and that choice has consequences.
You always have the option to leave and most if the time if push came to shove, your relative will cave and follow.
Of not, you aren’t responsible for them, stop lighting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.
That’s a lot of psychopathic assumptions I’m just going to pretend you didn’t say. The point is the reality for most is dire and your clearly more interested in winning the conversation than understanding those shitheads on social media are only getting views because they are validating real problems in the economy.
That’s easier than confronting reality.
Holy shit dude. You are an actual psychopath aren’t you? Fucking Ebenezer Scrooge pre ghostly trio levels of heartless.
Fucking hell…
See my write up in detail here, hopefully it helps shed more light on my point:
https://lemmy.world/comment/7448016
Heeeeellllll no. Seen enough that I am not touching that with a ten foot pole. I value my mental health more than that.
That does sound a lot easier, making assumptions about people and not bothering to read what they wrote sounds like it makes it easier to sleep at night, knowing there’s zero possibility you maybe were just mistaken about something.
Perhaps, but as far as assumptions go I have not neglected to notice you have not bothered to correct me either.
I have also experienced that some people refuse to give up and feel like they must deliver some nebulous and ultimately wanting ad hominem “parting shot” not persuant to the original arguement so they can self-rationalize their own position and feel like they came away saving face. You wanted to find a rationale to dismiss me and there you have it : I am not worth engaging with because I don’t “understand you”. Now back to your comfortable life you go.
Man you just keep finding new and inventive ways to continuously prove how much of a dick you are in this thread.
It’s a fundamental truth. Children feeling compelled to care for their parents is purely their choice.
I never said it was a bad choice, but it is a choice.
But if you do make that choice, it has consequences.
The concept of children “owing” their parents their lives is anachronistic and ignores the fact the parent chose to have them.
Any parent that feels their children owe taking care of the parent in their older age is an asshole, period. A parent that raised their child well should produce a child that wants to help their parent out of love, not a feeling of owed necessary.
The former is family and love, the latter is narcissistic parents that think they “own” their child.
BUT a child shouldn’t be killing themselves to take care of their parent. Any parent that actually loves their child would never ask their child to give up their own life to suit the parents comfort.
A good parent will do whatever it takes to support their child, and if that means leaving their old life behind to move (with their child) somewhere more affordable so the child can actually afford to take care of them, that shouldn’t even be a tough question for the parent to answer, it should be an instant “yes, if you are sure you want to do that I’ll support your decision”
Parents that compel their children to live outside their means just because they won’t move with them somewhere in their means because they dont want to leave their old home behind are shitty parents, period
Parents should never be prioritizing their own comfort at the cost of their children’s success in life. If you do that, you were never fit to have a child.
We get it. Your parents were shit to you, so the concept of loving and being loved is foreign and unheard to you. People choose to care for their parents because they love them, ya dink.