Let me guess, they all want to live in a major urban center?

There are plenty of places in the US where housing is still affordable. Sure, maybe it’s not your first choice and maybe you won’t be keeping up with the Jones’.

Places like Austin, Denver/Boulder hell, even Seattle were affordable not that long ago. But they weren’t cool (which is why they were affordable). Suddenly they become desirable, housing prices go up and people complain they can afford to buy where everyone else is buying.

Yes, no one wants the tradeoffs of moving east of the Rockies, and everyone wants to be within 45min of an airport. But that's the awkwardness I'm talking about, caused by the gap in the group of friends of those who can afford to continue living where they want to live without making tradeoffs that the others would have to.

Years ago, buying a home seemed like something you can easily share and celebrate with acquaintances. Recently buying a home in the Bay Area, I felt that's passed and I try not to bring it up. I don't feel any satisfaction from celebrating or bringing up something that 20 people in a gathering have very dim prospects of ever affording, and questions about it make me feel uneasy about their possible uneasiness.

No. Boasting about buying an expensive home was never socially acceptable. Well, except maybe among the rich.

I agree, because it's expensive. But a modest American home was never that expensive for most adults, hence "house warming parties", and thus I'm fairly sure was socially acceptable.

I mean, I went to house warming parties 5 years ago when housing was not a lot cheaper in the Bay Area. As long as you don’t throw it in peoples faces you’re probably fine.

And “can never afford” seems like an extrapolation of the last ten years ignoring corrections that came before that.

For those of us who lived through 2008 it’s amazing how quickly we went from “i’ve never over pay for a house again” to “housing only goes up”.

How could you be in your mid-30's, married, and not be able to afford a downpayment for a home?

Seriously, like lets say 100k combined income yearly. Save 20k/year. Should be fine for a downpayment on a 200k-400k house.

Some people are so lucky, but let's say you each have university debt, and you have 2 kids, and you need to pay for childcare, and you have 2 cars so you can each get to your jobs, and your 3-4br apartment rent is 2-3k/month -- good luck saving 20k/year on ~70k take-home!

And that's all if you can live in a small-town-enough place where homes "only" cost 400k -- in many cities in the last 5 years (i.e. places where there are easy jobs to find), that's just not a realistic house price anymore.

I was a brick/stone-layer's labourer back around 2005, and we built a home that cost ~400k at the time, on the edge of a mid-sized town in southern Ontario. It was a mansion. Stonework, 4-car garage, big lot, 3 stories tall, 5 bedrooms, 3+ baths, the works. Today, I think that house we built could sell for ~1.5-2M.

Having 2 kids by 30 without being financial stable is kind of bad planning. They deserve to get crunched.

Where would you need cars and have to pay 2-3k for an apartment?

Prob like 1.5K/month, two economical cars. Pay off debt and build a nest egg, married at 30, kids at 32. Cook cheap and healthy meals. Outdoors for fun. No big drinking or expensive hobbies.

They can easily make it happen if they do the above.

It’s not my fault that people can’t prioritize and strap down.

Because they're not willing to make the tradeoffs that come with a $200k to $400k house. I don't even think there are houses for $400k though, even before 2020.

Of course there are. Just not in the hot spots on the east and west coast. If you go outside of those you can get ridic cheap.

I meant where I live.