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Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

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Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#111
post #97

Not sure if Australia's current housing situation is analogous to America's one, but one of the primary motivators on our side of the pond is financial. Rents within 60km/35mi of the main Sydney CBD have crossed well over 50% of the average persons wage, at around $700/week. I currently live 45km from Sydney and pay $800/wk for a detached house primarily because I don't want to live in a 1 bedroom box in the city. Un…

Wow is rental really that bad nowadays? I left OZ around 2001, and at the time lived in the hills district, and vaguely remember paying AU$200+/week for a 2 br townhouse. It was an hour+ drive to the CBD, but thankfully my employer was also in the hills district, so I rarely had to make that drive.

It's certainly got a bit out of control. I live further out in Rouse Hill, and my 4 bed with garage house is $800/wk not including utilities. Townhouses are more reasonable, but compared to a house still insane. 2 bed apartment thing in a new complex down the road starts at $650/wk.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#112
post #57

Not sure if Australia's current housing situation is analogous to America's one, but one of the primary motivators on our side of the pond is financial. Rents within 60km/35mi of the main Sydney CBD have crossed well over 50% of the average persons wage, at around $700/week. I currently live 45km from Sydney and pay $800/wk for a detached house primarily because I don't want to live in a 1 bedroom box in the city. Un…

I don't understand how politicians don't consider that a crisis. Too many fat happy landlords I suppose.

Too many landlords would lead to lower rents, not higher. The problem is caused more by the overly centralized structure of our cities (meaning a large proportion of jobs require you to commute to the CBD every day) combined with a cultural resistance to high-density living (meaning an undersupply of housing near to the CBD).

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#113
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and I feel like not living near a city is the only realistic option. My hope is the eventual completion of the western metro line to Windsor might allow my commute to drop below an hour each way. At the moment the M2 motorway costs me about 15 hours of my life every week, which I'd really love to spend sleeping in when I'm exhausted, or writing, or playing with some new code, or really anything that doesn't i…

I remember parking at e.g. Epping and catching the train to town. Is that not an option for you? You'd be able to catch some ZZZs on the train for part of that journey, rather than having to drive all the way.

I've tried it a few times. The closest station to here is Quakers Hill, which is roughly the same time on the train as I spend on the bus, with the added drive before hand. The comfort is much better but actually leaving my car there is a scary prospect.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#114

Cost of tuition continually grows, most graduates are not falling into extremely lucrative salaries and average salaries are not keeping up with inflation. This is far from surprising but is very concerning. Another avenue to pursue this discussion from is the % of income allocated to retirement savings. I have a sneaky suspicious most of my peers are saving less for retirement than the same demographic 10, 20, 30 ye…

I'm curious why anyone thinks it's a big problem.

SSI and SNAP have really high velocity. For one thing, velocity is a good thing on its own. For another, they're both composed of everybody's favorite convenient social fiction - money. The both run around 5% of GDP. So say that doubles.

People not working is only actually a problem if the overall economy experiences something akin to opportunity loss from them not doing anything. The map is not the territory and the books are not the company.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#115

I'm not a millennial, but it makes a heck of a lot of financial sense to live with family. I'm glad that with these shifts, the stigma is falling away. My immediate family has lived through rough times, with lots of "creative" living arrangements. Of course, we should still train general life autonomy, and not promote being able-but-incapable shut-ins, but being able to venture into housing (or back out of it if thin…

I'm glad the stigma is lifting. I've seen too many Americans, including myself, literally move across town to live in a dumpy apartment. All in the name of ego. I wasen't going to be that guy who lived with his parents. I wanted a swingers pad. "Yea--baby!"

All I really got was 50% of my income taken by a landlord. My landlord is very happy--always on a new vechicle. I still spent some weekends working on my parents empty house.

Millenials, Gen-X'ers, even later baby boomers need to stop letting societal norms drove us into poverty, or make us go crazy.

We need to watch where/whom are money is going.

Personally, I don't have a family room to go to, but if I did; I would take advantage of it.

I feel--the party is over. I much rather give my money to a family member than a rich stranger. This thinking goes father than just housing. I might be in the minority, but I do care whom is making money off my back.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#116
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's literally no work to do, you can meet the material demands of the problem by turning more machines on. (meanwhile lots of the US runs on cheap labor)

The machines have owners. How do you make them give away whatever they produce?

They may have to. If there is no money to buy these things, then they'll be back living at home, too.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#117

Not sure if Australia's current housing situation is analogous to America's one, but one of the primary motivators on our side of the pond is financial. Rents within 60km/35mi of the main Sydney CBD have crossed well over 50% of the average persons wage, at around $700/week. I currently live 45km from Sydney and pay $800/wk for a detached house primarily because I don't want to live in a 1 bedroom box in the city. Un…

This is why I moved to Perth.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#118

23 year old Indian developer here. The concept of 'moving out' of your parents home is baffling for most of us. I now live in a different city and I share a decent apartment with friends. I can afford to live alone in the apartment I now live in - the rent is 30% of my monthly income and the apartment is 15 minutes away from where I work - but living alone would be just awful. So I'm now paying 11% of my income for r…

> Also, in a way it is nice. You are NEVER alone. You ALWAYS have people waiting for you when you come back from work.

Glad it works for you, but that has got to be the third circle of my personal hell.

> 'Being alone' is seldom a reason for a depressed Indian - the family is always there.

That's nice. Some European countries are exactly the opposite. It's my hypothesis that this is the cause for many suicides, despite otherwise stellar living standards.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more that it only affects poor people, regardless of age, and they really don't care about poor people. Young rich people are doing just fine.

I'd certainly like to believe I'm above the 50th percentile of incomes for my age, and I'm struggling to bring the costs of living to under 75-80% of my take home income. Given many young people aren't as fortunate as even I am I feel like there's a very large portion of the coming generation for whom owning a home will never be a reality.

Correct. I can't find the exact news article I read it, though this one shows the trend [0]. The most recent HILDA report shows that over 50% of never own a home

[0] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-20/five-facts-which-show-...

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the time the young adults of today are too old to work, they will have long since inherited their parent's house. I would bet in 25 years when 10,000 baby boomers are dying every day, housing prices will be in free fall. So many of today's young adults will pay little, if anything, for the house they retire in.

Thanks to reverse mortgages, I doubt there will be a massive housing transfer when the boomers die out. Boomers in general will outlive their retirement savings and all that will be left is their home equity. We'll see tons of bank-owned homes but today's young adults still won't be able to afford them.

And I wonder if they will be sold by banks or merely rented out and packaged as collateralized investments.
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