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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

#941

Post by bhupy »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #931
bhupy wrote: post #926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and there's a good breakdown here of the salary one must earn to be able to afford the median home: https://www.hsh.com/finance/mortgage/salary-home-buying-25-c... There are a lot of options for everyone, regardless of which trade-off one chooses to make.

> Pittsburgh 3.70% -0.15% $149,830 +1.39% $835.21 $35,794.87 Yea if you want to live in a crap, run down neighborhood with a crappy school district and a house built a century ago that isn't code and will cost 50k to fix. I lived there - these statistics are nonsense. They don't tell the whole story.

I don't think I've ever seen someone so confidently attempt to refute data via personal anecdote, so bravo for that.

The median home is not always "crap, run down with a crappy school district". Yes, there exists a quality distribution, and the bottom quintile often has the worst quality, but that's true in every State and every Country.

This data isn't groundbreaking either, Zillow shows a comparable median home value in Pittsburgh: https://www.zillow.com/pittsburgh-pa/home-values/

Just eyeballing some CURRENT listings, you'll find:

On Zillow: A 3BR house in a top 10 Pittsburgh school district (Greater Latrobe School District) for $179K https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/34-Loretta-St-Latrobe-PA-...

On Redfin: A 2BR house in a top 5 school district (Hampton Township district) for $130K https://www.redfin.com/PA/Allison-Park/2695-Ginger-Ln-15101/...

These are perfectly good homes in perfectly good school districts.

Again, single data points only get you so far in an argument — but most importantly, the aggregate data corroborates it. Nobody claims that outliers don't exist, but we're talking about medians here.

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

#942

Post by Pokepokalypse »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #94

I'm my early 20s and in the UK. I earn more than my Dad who is in his 50s. He managed to get a house, have money left over for an expensive hobby, decent car, the odd holiday etc. I'm a 90th percentile earner. Will 95+ percentile earner in a few years time. Yet it feels like I am not as well off as I should be. I don't live in an expensive area either. Yet I need to save so much money to even have the opportunity to…

As an engineer in his 50's (USA) - I am also a 90th percentile earner, but I absolutely agree, I'm nowhere near as well off as my parents were at my age.

I never had the money to take my kids on nice vacations every year like my parents did. Also never had the money to justify buying a new car. And while I do have a home, I have no hope of paying it off before retirement. (which, as an engineer, in the USA, could be 1-5 years from now, involuntarily - my father worked for the same company his whole life, while I've had to change jobs 6 times, due to either corporate buyouts or layoffs. NEVER had a bad performance review).

All of my kids, my brother and sister's kids (all in their 20's now), are all very much struggling, barely making it (and in a couple of cases, NOT making it). Only ONE of them (my son) got through college and found a reasonably decent job, and even HE is so bogged down with student loans, he may never own a home.

So as a picture of 3 generations, there's a very clear trend.

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

#943

Post by Pokepokalypse »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #893
Jugglerofworlds wrote: post #863

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that people ignore the fact that the population of the United States has dramatically increased over time. We now have 331 million people whereas there were only 210 million in 1970. So of course housing is going to be more expensive. The issue gets even more dramatic prior to 1900.

The USA has half of a continent to house all these hundreds of millions. The problem is with overcrowding in larger cities, not the lack of space (even if the location is suboptimal).

NOne of us should feel compelled to crowd into large cities anymore. NOT in the 21st century, and CERTAINLY not after we've clearly demonstrated as a workforce that we can very easily get our jobs done remotely. Sure, that's not for all workers, or even most, but a huge proportion of us could very easily move to small towns all across america to relieve the crowding pressure in cities or the most trendy suburbs.

IF and ONLY IF: employers join us in the 21st century, and embrace remote work where they can.

(and the real danger, as I learned in the 1990's, is not even being remote - it's being "not at the home office" of a distributed organization - it is a career killer, and when that "business cycle" inevitably hits, your remote-office workers are always the first to get cut. This shit has to stop if we're going to get out of this "crowded into cities" nightmare).

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

#944

Post by Pokepokalypse »

xyzzyz wrote: post #453
vertbhrtn wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how one would survive on 60k for even 10 years. This isn't an "investable" amount and it's not enough for food, yet along housing expenses.

Clearly nobody is in that situation. If you have any money at all in 401k, you almost surely have paid significant amount into Social Security, which pays out retirement benefits independently of whatever you might or might not have in 401k account.

>which pays out retirement benefits

. . . maybe . . .

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

#945

Post by Pokepokalypse »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #801
vertbhrtn wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What opportunities? Tell me how an average cashier can land an average 150k/year job in a metro area? Don't forget that the said cashier has mediocre intelligence, so-so appearance, zero charisma and little talking skills. He might swap grocery store for an oil change shop, but that's about it. Our society is mostly stratified now, with a little upward mobility left for high-tech workers.

> mediocre intelligence, so-so appearance, zero charisma and little talking skills That person is never going to move up the economic ladder no matter what rung they start on or what decade they are born in.

That person STILL deserves a modicum of dignity and stability. Most people in this category don't really care if they move up any ladder - they just want to exist and not be facing constant economic crisis and near-homelessness.

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

#946

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

bhupy wrote: post #941
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #931

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pittsburgh 3.70% -0.15% $149,830 +1.39% $835.21 $35,794.87 Yea if you want to live in a crap, run down neighborhood with a crappy school district and a house built a century ago that isn't code and will cost 50k to fix. I lived there - these statistics are nonsense. They don't tell the whole story.

I don't think I've ever seen someone so confidently attempt to refute data via personal anecdote, so bravo for that. The median home is not always "crap, run down with a crappy school district". Yes, there exists a quality distribution, and the bottom quintile often has the worst quality, but that's true in every State and every Country. This data isn't groundbreaking either, Zillow shows a comparable median home val…

I honestly can't help it but laugh. LATROBE. Latrobe is an hour away from Pittsburgh. Population? 7,885 (2018). There is nothing near Latrobe but St Vincent College. There are very few jobs. Oh and the commute? You take 376 E through the Squirrel Hill Tunnels. Easily a 2 hour commute. Sounds fantastic! Great pick!

Hampton is in Allison park which is a nice suburb. The median home price there is 295k. The house you selected is pretty small, 2 br, 1 bath, which makes a ton of sense - not a lot of young people looking for good jobs are going to want to live in a suburb with older people and families.

> Again, single data points only get you so far in an argument — but most importantly, the aggregate data corroborates it. Nobody claims that outliers don't exist, but we're talking about medians here.

But you cherry picked a value WELL BELOW THE MEDIAN IN HAMPTON. The median is 295k and rising fast. So tell me again, what cheap housing are you talking about?

Oh btw, unless you're lucky and at a FAANG (which have fewer jobs here) you ain't making anywhere near 6.

Go ahead, move to Braddock for that 50k house and breathe in the wonderful air from Clairton Coke Works and Edgar Thompson. I doubt you'd read that on zillow.

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

#947

Post by bhupy »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #946
bhupy wrote: post #941

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I've ever seen someone so confidently attempt to refute data via personal anecdote, so bravo for that. The median home is not always "crap, run down with a crappy school district". Yes, there exists a quality distribution, and the bottom quintile often has the worst quality, but that's true in every State and every Country. This data isn't groundbreaking either, Zillow shows a comparable median home val…

I honestly can't help it but laugh. LATROBE. Latrobe is an hour away from Pittsburgh. Population? 7,885 (2018). There is nothing near Latrobe but St Vincent College. There are very few jobs. Oh and the commute? You take 376 E through the Squirrel Hill Tunnels. Easily a 2 hour commute. Sounds fantastic! Great pick! Hampton is in Allison park which is a nice suburb. The median home price there is 295k. The house you se…

Again, I’m just playing by your rules — look up the top 10 school districts in the Pittsburgh metro area, and look up housing on Zillow and Redfin, it’s really not hard to find decent housing under $250,000.

> Not a lot of young people looking for good jobs are going to want to live in a suburb with older people and families

You’re moving the goalposts. You started off talking about school districts — not a lot of young people care about that. If you want affordable housing outside of nice school districts, and not in the suburbs, you’ll find plenty of that in the Pittsburgh city center, also.

The fundamental argument is that if you earn the median income, and you need to live in a good school district, it is more than easy to own a home and build equity in property — you just have to sacrifice being able to live near dim sum and access to “Hamilton”. If you don’t care about school districts, you can find a place with a short commute from work. You might even be able to get some dim-sum action. Trade-offs!

> Pretty small, 2br, 1 bath

Are young people looking for 4BR’s? I seriously think you misunderstand what the “median home” means — it’s not a McMansion. Also 2BR is large enough for a couple with one child.

> Go ahead, move to Braddock for that 50k house

Yeah but...you don’t have to do that. You can move to a far nicer neighborhood in the Pittsburgh area for $150k. It all depends on which trade-offs you’re willing to make given your personal circumstances. $50k is many standard deviations below the median, we’re not talking about that. You don’t have to be a FAANG engineer to earn the median income, especially at the household level.

> But you cherry picked a value WELL BELOW THE MEDIAN IN HAMPTON

No, I showed you the aggregate median home value in the greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area on 3 different sources now, and then made a cursory sweep of the current state of the housing market to corroborate the aggregate metrics. It was pretty easy to do. The data doesn’t lie. That’s far more than you’ve done in this discussion: un-verified personal anecdotes devoid of any citation or sources. It’s honestly pretty remarkable.

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

#948

Post by roymurdock »

cwhiz wrote: post #927
klmadfejno wrote: post #915

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A sizable percentage of people don't want to live in condos. And they aren't necessarily small, either. Most condos are small. If a sizeable proportion of people don't want to live in condos, that would make them cheaper. The fact that they're appreciating similarly that is further evidence that the premium for size is not the driver of what's happening. > That's an extreme understatement. A glitzy refrigerator mig…

> It's nonsensical to think that the price of housing has risen primarily because of quality increases because many, many houses have seen large appreciation with no changes. So it should be absolutely no problem for you to take me up on my offer. Locate a home, built in the 50s or 60s, without any additions adding square feet. Cheap counters, cheap flooring, and cheap fixtures. If what you say is true this should be…

My parents bought a 1400 sqft, 1950s-built home in 1993 for $350k. It still has all old appliances such as a 1950s oven that looks like this [1], old gas heating vents, no central cooling, no pool. No additions. The fixtures and flooring aren't cheap, but they're not luxurious, and are over 60/70 years old at this point - only real maintenance they've done is re-shingling the roof and repaving the driveway every decade or so.

The house is now worth $2.1M (+500% gain). Obviously if they sold a new buyer would tear the whole thing down and build some huge modern home on the land (which is the actual valuable portion of the asset) as has been happening in their neighborhood.

You are placing way too much importance on the relatively small value of fixtures and "nice" amenities vs. the global glut of capital chasing appreciating assets (made much easier through online platforms) such as land in desirable areas.

[1] https://www.oldhouseonline.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_...

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

#949

Post by iso1631 »

user5994461 wrote: post #885
iso1631 wrote: post #877

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where the fuck do you see a place for £737 in there? The area near "West Kensington" and "Kensington Olympia" tube stations. It's technically in Hammersmith+Fulham. Kensington borough contains(ed) Grenfell, it's not one of the most expensive places in the city, it's varied, like many boroughs. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/49989753#/ - £737 https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/66191535#/ - £758 https://w…

Wow, they are less than 3x3 meters (10x10 feet) including the corner for shower. The bed is literally touching the cooker/oven in the first one. That explains the £737. Can't even put a desk to do your homework. Nobody would want to live there, especially with COVID. Regular studios in student accommodations go for double that in this area. I've actually seen friends paying as much as £2000 a month, when they come fr…

Yup, but that's what I got for £520 in 2003, and managed to live there just fine. Hell for 2 months I lived there with my girlfriend (now wife) before we moved out towards Reading for an actual 1 bed flat. I was working shifts then though so could drive to work mostly off peak, get free parking, and it was only 7 days a fortnight.

The room in my hall of residence was smaller than that, although being in Exeter it cost far less (£90 a week, so £390 a month).

Of course I had an office to go to for that time, clearly it's different in the last 6 months.

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

#950

Post by iso1631 »

DanBC wrote: post #886
user5994461 wrote: post #885

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, they are less than 3x3 meters (10x10 feet) including the corner for shower. The bed is literally touching the cooker/oven in the first one. That explains the £737. Can't even put a desk to do your homework. Nobody would want to live there, especially with COVID. Regular studios in student accommodations go for double that in this area. I've actually seen friends paying as much as £2000 a month, when they come fr…

Communal toilet would be a miserable experience, especially during covid-19 or winter vomiting outbreaks.

Yes, I'd gladly have sacrified the room to have a private one, like the £737 rightmove property.
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