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The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

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Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Among my friends that have bought houses, many of them have gone into significant debt just to buy a 3-4 bedroom house, even though they have no kids and only use one of the bedrooms, because they think that at some point in their life they will put them to use. Are you sure your friends aren't just being rational? I thought about the rent vs buy thing pretty constantly in my 20s and always came down on the rent si…

Sure. If you're being rational, it would possibly make sense to buy a 2 bedroom house or even a 3 bedroom if you think you might need an extra room for a kid plus a home office. But it's not as rational to insist that you need 4 bedroom house with a three car garage inside a top school district when you aren't even married/pregnant yet. Yes, life can change fast, but paying a premium mortgage for a top school distric…

With real estate prices in some of those areas going up %10+ per year, and the 6-8% transaction cost of selling a property, buying something that you may not need for 10 years starts seeming more rational.

It's a risk, because things change, but if you know you're going to be somewhere long-term, it's a rational decision in a irrational game.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One is because homes today are substantially larger and have more amenities than they did in previous generations. I have noticed that most of my fellow millennials seem to have completely forgotten the concept of "starter home" and assume that as soon as you turn 25 you should be entitled to a 4 bedroom house with a pool, huge yard, wonderful neighborhood, three-car garage, etc. Among my friends that have bought ho…

> I have noticed that most millenials seem to have completely forgotten the concept of "starter home" and assume that as soon as you turn 25 you should be entitled to a 4 bedroom house with a pool, huge yard, wonderful neighborhood, three-car garage, etc. "Starter homes" for young people is the stuff that was built 30-40 years ago that hasn't been updated. So they are buying those mcmansions because that's what was b…

This is a solid point; my house seems like a classic starter home physically: a 1930's brick duplex with less than 1,000 square feet. But it's in 1930s neighborhood close to the city... so my "starter home" has a market price well over half a million dollars!

Price correlates more with location than size, at least around here. "Starter home" prices don't start to show up until you get to the wrong end of a 1-hour commute. And most of those less-expensive houses are physically larger than mine, because no one has built houses under 1,000 square feet for decades.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in my mid fifties and I have never had a company pension, defined benefit or contribution. I saw my first house decline in value by 25%. We had interest rates peaking at 15%. I didn’t have student loans but only because I didn’t go to university, just like 90% of my peer group. Unemployment was much higher than it is now and schools were teaching subjects for obsolete careers. It wasn’t as rosey as it is often po…

RE: "unemployment was much higher than it is now" - I'm not sure what country you're in, but here is a graph of the US unemployment rate since 1950: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE (unemployment was higher this year than any other period on the chart)

Unemployment in the US has been at its lowest (3.5%) AND then highest (14.7%) levels in 50 years, both in 2020!

https://www.statista.com/statistics/273909/seasonally-adjust...

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#374

> Housing is more expensive for them than prior generations I harp on this constantly. But housing is not more expensive in the majority of American metros. Adjusted for inflation the median cost per square foot of new housing is almost exactly the same as it was in 1990. (This doesn't even take into account that mortgage rates are drastically lower since then.) We get skewed on this for two reasons. One is because h…

I believe that, while still low relative to SF or NYC, home prices in Tampa and Phoenix have risen rapidly in recent years. As for Cincinnati, not exactly a thriving job market.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have noticed that most millenials seem to have completely forgotten the concept of "starter home" and assume that as soon as you turn 25 you should be entitled to a 4 bedroom house with a pool, huge yard, wonderful neighborhood, three-car garage, etc I don't know where you live but I almost find this insulting. I'm from Amsterdam my self and friends of my are being forced out the city because of the high rent pri…

Housing in the Netherlands is really awful, in the '90 the boomers have build smaller apartments for their parents to move in and actually profit in an illicit way 2x of their real estate gains of sometimes 6x. No boomer is living smaller to make room for the next generation. I think the best way to combat current shortage in housing is putting up a limit on m2 that an individual could claim. 300m2 for a single perso…

So, someone who worked their entire life and paid off their house should be forced out of that house and made to move in retirement because...you'd rather be able to live there with a roommate?

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#376
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever actually look for small living spaces in the US? I would be perfectly fine with a 450sf apartment in northern VA, but their almost impossible to find in desirable locations. A large reason for this is the actual cost to construct a building doesn’t increase linearly with apartment square footage. Simply having a smaller apartment doesn’t reduce the amount of space needed for hallways, elevators, or park…

Maybe people in middle America already have enough space to not feel pinched so that extra space is viewed as an amenity not a huge factor that they demand? In my experience in denser high COL areas space is priced basically linearly on the margin. In NYC going from 1 br to 2 br can significantly affect your quality of life so people are willing to pay an extra $1000.

You see the same thing in NYC: https://www.apartments.com/295j-jersey-city-nj/dspz8fj/

457 sf @ $2,245, vs 636 Sq Ft @ $2,405. That’s 40% more space for 7% more per month.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#377
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fact is though, it doesn’t matter much where in the world you’re looking to buy. If it’s a capital you’re expected to pay close to $1m or more for a house, even in places like Beirut where the houses don’t have central water, electricity/internet infrastructure is extremely poor. Prices are the same. This in a moment in time when the majority of people barely can afford food due to the pandemic and financial meltdown…

When the world is awash in debt, pricing turns into a game of future-mortgaging chicken. Who's willing to promise more of their future to buy an asset?

That is actually really insightful! I cannot believe this is the first time I see the issue stated so clearly.

So the whole thing comes down when you run out of other chickens.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#378

> Housing is more expensive for them than prior generations I harp on this constantly. But housing is not more expensive in the majority of American metros. Adjusted for inflation the median cost per square foot of new housing is almost exactly the same as it was in 1990. (This doesn't even take into account that mortgage rates are drastically lower since then.) We get skewed on this for two reasons. One is because h…

> But in places like Tampa, Omaha, Cincinnati, and Phoenix the cost of housing (per square foot) has barely gone up at all. Maybe if you stop looking at like 2018. But my on-the-ground analysis living on one of these cities is cost of housing has fucking exploooded. I built a house just two years ago, which I thought was incredibly expensive at 2 times the median home price in the area. I had it in the back of my hea…

YoY median home prices were up 13% nationally in August. That's largely driven by the diaspora we're seeing with WFH/COVID, with people pushing into more affordable communities and driving up prices. Until now we were all competing in major metros pushing up only the top end of the curve but now there's a push towards the median priced areas.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#379
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But in places like Tampa, Omaha, Cincinnati, and Phoenix the cost of housing (per square foot) has barely gone up at all. Maybe if you stop looking at like 2018. But my on-the-ground analysis living on one of these cities is cost of housing has fucking exploooded. I built a house just two years ago, which I thought was incredibly expensive at 2 times the median home price in the area. I had it in the back of my hea…

With the extremely low interest rates, I wonder if the monthly payments are about the same.

It doesn't help as much as you've implied since 1) you need 20% of the sticker price for the down payment, and 20% of $200k is more than 20% of $130k, and 2) in many jurisdictions you pay tax on the market value, so your taxes go up whenever mortgage rates fall and prices rise.

Re: The majority of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US are now living with their parents

#380

> Housing is more expensive for them than prior generations I harp on this constantly. But housing is not more expensive in the majority of American metros. Adjusted for inflation the median cost per square foot of new housing is almost exactly the same as it was in 1990. (This doesn't even take into account that mortgage rates are drastically lower since then.) We get skewed on this for two reasons. One is because h…

I'm not sure what you're arguing here. The simple fact is the amount people pay for housing is up since the 1990s. You can find this data on the BLS web site: https://www.bls.gov/cex/csxmulti.htm

Here is the data adjusted for constant 2020 dollars:

  1992 $9,799.06
  1993 $9,543.99
  1994 $9,760.55
  1995 $9,924.05
  1996 $9,825.29
  1997 $10,106.90
  1998 $10,473.38
  1999 $10,712.59
  2000 $10,506.40
  2001 $11,055.55
  2002 $11,121.33
  2003 $10,997.04
  2004 $10,800.20
  2005 $11,497.24
  2006 $12,317.69
  2007 $12,262.90
  2008 $12,447.28
  2009 $11,989.00
  2010 $11,503.97
  2011 $11,187.78
  2012 $11,070.20
  2013 $11,114.82
  2014 $11,481.16
  2015 $11,670.71
  2016 $11,844.36
  2017 $12,399.22
  2018 $12,015.43
  2019 $12,190.00
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