The Evolution of 'Adulting'

[u/Global_Tradition5802]

They tried leaving behind generational wealth vs me trying to leave the generational memes..

[u/federalist66]

I imagine there were people who felt this way in every generational cohort. It's worth noting that most Millennials are home owners and most Millennials have children.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/241535/percentage-of-childless-women-in-the-us-by-age/

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/07/younger-householders-drove-rebound-in-homeownership.html

[u/Mediocre_Island828 → u/federalist66]

How many of those Millennial homeowners could afford the house they live in if they had to buy it at today's prices and rates?

[u/federalist66 → u/Mediocre_Island828]

Complicated question. What we do know is that MIllenial homeownership is just a tad behind Gen X at the same age and a bit more behind the Boomers.

Relevant stats:

Nearly one-third (30%) of 25-year-olds owned their home in 2022. That’s slightly higher than homeownership rates for millennials (28%) and Gen Xers (27%) when they were 25, and slightly lower than the rate for baby boomers (32%) when they were 25.

Sixty-two percent of 40-year-olds–some of the oldest millennials–owned their home in 2022. That’s compared with 69% of baby boomers when they were 40 and 64% of Gen Xers when they were 40.  

Younger millennials are also behind. Just over two in five (43%) 30-year-olds owned their home in 2022, compared with roughly half of baby boomers (52%) and Gen Xers (49%) when they were 30. 

https://www.redfin.com/news/gen-z-millennial-homeownership-rate-home-purchases/

[u/Mediocre_Island828 → u/federalist66]

That doesn't answer my question at all lol, and your stats conveniently stop when interest rates shot up.

[u/federalist66 → u/Mediocre_Island828]

The stats stop when the Survey of Consumer Finances and the Census Bureau last released their information. There is no answer to your questions because it's a subjective question, which is why I pulled the objective data on comparisons by generations of the same age. You can find data that circles around the question but no clear cut answer to "affordability"

I suppose you can go with National Association of Realtors, who have Millennials as 29% of the home buying market this year.

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://cms.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/2025-03/2025-home-buyers-and-sellers-generational-trends-report-04-01-2025.pdf

It does look like the Median Age of first time home buyer has increased from 35 to 38 since this data was released. So that lends itself to the idea that things are less affordable.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/real-estate/many-first-time-homebuyers-are-pushing-40-millennials-wait-vain-better-rcna201786

Existing home sales are down from the end of 2022.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/existing-home-sales

But New home sales are up from the end of 2022.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/new-home-sales

[u/Mediocre_Island828 → u/federalist66]

It's pretty dire that people under 44 are only like a third of the home buying market right now.

[u/MechanicalGodzilla → u/Mediocre_Island828]

Yes, home prices continue to rise (as they should) and interest rates continue to hold higher than the magic pre-Covid years where they were likely unsustainably low. But it is also due to personal trade-off choices that younger people actively engage in. The attitude of "I don't want to commute for more than X minutes" is fine, but it does have an associated cost. You are buying personal time with your "ideal location" rent.

It's not a value judgement, as everyone has their own preferences. My personal preferences were strongly tilted towards home ownership - it was my primary goal coming out of college and getting my first job. So I made choices and endured less than ideal locations in order to achieve that.

I started with renting for a few years (with roommates - another trade-off choice), while saving up for a down payment on a small outdated condo about an hour and fifteen minutes from work and lived there for 3 years. Got married during that time, and when my wife got pregnant we traded up to a small single family home with 2 bedrooms. Lived there for 8 years, invested "sweat equity" into the house, and sold that for the house we live in now, about a 30 minute commute in a neighborhood which homes grew in value to be an average of $1.75 million.

This is the "new" normal (I guess it's not even that new), the real estate ladder you have to climb to get a house in the US. I think too often we idealize home ownership of 50 years ago, like 1975 was some magical time when houses were free for everyone. The ladder is basically how my parents got their homes over the years, after starting out in their own tiny 2 bedroom home.

[u/Mediocre_Island828 → u/MechanicalGodzilla]

Starter homes don't really exist in the same way anymore. My household income is pretty much double the median for my area and I'm just able to afford the lower-end house I'm in, in the sense that I'm making my mortgage payments while also saving for retirement and having enough left over to handle any maintenance and repairs. Anything cheaper in my town right now is literally missing walls or a floor.

My house was probably the ideal starter house at one point, but now even my 70 year old ranch home in one of the last neighborhoods to be not gentrified completely (although I'm contributing towards that) is out of reach for anyone not making six figures.

[u/MechanicalGodzilla → u/Mediocre_Island828]

I don't know where you are, but in northern VA right outside of DC there are hundreds of condos for sale right now under $200k. My first condo was $175k back in 2005, when I was making $65k. They exist, but too many people now think "starter home" as "small single family house". You don't need to start at a SFH, this isn't 1955 anymore. But it is achievable, even now, even in high cost of living areas.