I’m a very well off millennial. My fiancé and I both have high paying tech jobs. We easily make the income of multiple families.

That being said we are strained to buy a 3-bedroom house like that of my single Mother who only has a high school education to her name.

Given our success, we don’t have the “burn it all down” mentality but I fear it building in many of my friends and totally understand the sentiment of this being a #1 problem for younger generations.

Depends on where you want to buy. SF? Probably not going to happen. Almost anywhere else? Houses are plenty affordable.

If you grew up somewhere cheap, you probably encountered the attitude that people moving to big cities and expensive states were insane because of the housing prices (and/or taxes and general living expenses). Actual concern over the wellbeing of friends and relatives who did so. For a large segment of people living cheap places, moving to California (as in, the whole state) New York (ditto, except maybe the extremely rural and also not-popular-for-vacations bits), several entire New England states, most big cities unless you're actually living way outside them, et c., was seen as simply impossible. Not in the cards. Cannot be done without ruining your finances. You don't buy somewhere expensive until you retire, and then it's probably in Florida or the Carolinas. On a local lake if you're not rich enough for those.

From that perspective, nothing's changed except that some people living in those expensive places are starting to realize the same thing, and the people experiencing that are a bit higher up the economic ladder than before. Welcome to the lower classes, folks. Don't worry, you've got plenty of company.

I'm not in SF. The last listing I looked at was 800 sq ft, run down, literally "as-is" property: $500k valuation from Zillow (it's listed for less … but not by much). That's about $2500/mo, in mortgage alone.

Decent properties, in suburban areas, at ~$1M.

Ir rural areas, yeah, they're cheaper … and salary would get "adjusted" the moment I try that.

Everyone sells 30 years of their future for a house, so you’re competing with that. On top of that, when prices rise people can leapfrog into more expensive houses, and you’re competing with that. Finally there’s a lot of corporate and private investing money in single family housing. It’s fucked up. But many do predict a decline or even crash soon.

Here's a decent 3-bedroom single family house in suburban Cleveland for $395K.

https://apps.realtor.com/mUAZ/313q9jxa

That's just one example but you can find thousands of similar listings all over the country. Outside of high-cost coastal areas, housing is still fairly affordable in most of the country.

And, as stated, I would take a "CoL adjustment" by moving there.

That particular property falls pretty squarely in the "exception proves the rule" territory for me; it's a 135 y/o dwelling, so I expect you'll be paying more than the immediate price tag. Like too many listings, it doesn't come w/ a floorplan, and with what photos it gives I'm a bit suss on the 3bd/3ba (piecing together the photos, I think we've converted a second story apt.'s LR into a BR?). It's certainly seen a remodel (although … IDK about the taste of the remodel. But let's say taste is unimportant!) No driveway. The backyard is … well it needs work. You're still batting $2k/mo in Cleveland.

I'd almost hazard a guess that my CoL adjust would be >$500/mo, but I don't get to know these things, being an employee.

There are a few intangibles in my situation that make "move to Cleveland" a "it's not going to happen".

There's a point where one needs to step back and ask oneself, if that's what's affordable on SWE's salary, what's affordable on a baker's salary?

That’s not the suburbs.

I guess it depends how you define "suburbs", but it's outside the core downtown area. If your prefer a house further out in the suburbs or exurbs then there are plenty of options to pick from.

Anyway, the point is that people on HN who have relatively high incomes and job skills, and still complain about lack of affordable housing are mostly just being picky about location. There are options available but it might mean living in a area with shitty weather or not being able to walk to trendy restaurants or among neighbors who don't share your political views. The real housing crisis is hitting people with much lower incomes who are being squeezed out.

I am from Cleveland, that is considered a very nice area these days including the proximity to Steelyard Commons, bars, West Side Market, St Ignatius HS etc

I think that's their "point", in that it's an urban home that's "affordable". I.e., if I only chose a city that wasn't part of one of the megalopolises, I wouldn't have problems.

Jesus where do you live? I moved from San Diego to Raleigh, didn't get a pay adjustment and even that place wouldn't be anywhere near that cost here.

I'm looking at moving to a significantly nicer [edit: than where I am now, that is], coastal region with excellent schools and within occasional-but-not-daily commute distance of two top-tier US cities, including by rail (some of you may be be able to guess the area, at this point), and the housing prices (4-bedroom with some land, even) are surprisingly affordable. Nothing like that, certainly. Houses within daily commute range of one (but not both) of those cities can be had for way under that, too, some miles away from where I'm looking, especially if you'll accept good-but-not-excellent schools.

I guess if you're somewhere insanely expensive and won't go somewhere that's not, then... you're gonna pay a lot for housing. Go figure. "Here's the 97% of the country that's not like that, just throw a dart at a US map and you'll probably hit a place with much cheaper housing"—"No, I won't, because reasons"—"Uh, OK then, kinda sounds like a choice, good luck"

This is what I mean when I say "kicked out." You're forced to move away from everything and everyone you know.

Where

The train comment makes me guess somewhere on the mid-Atlantic east coast: DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia or NYC are all fairly close together, and a train ride from NYC to DC I think is only ~3 hours

100% also, why do you need to buy a house in the first place?

Because my mother taught me that 100% of my value as a person is being a home owner because that's the only thing that matters. Not even a condo will do.

/s but only sort of

Mine literally told me every day you shouldn't have kids unless you own a house.

At least you have a partner. If you're on your own you're absolutely fucked. Not only are you alone but everyone else is out to get you. When we have the crunch in the near future I could see me and my peers torching things.

I don't even worry about this anymore; I look forward to it.

Based on your other posts, I don't think you would sound much different if you had a partner. You clearly have a lot of anger and I encourage you to find someone to talk to. I mainly mean a therapist, but if that isn't an option than a close friend. Those feelings will eat you alive.

Majority of millennials on social media sites like reddit share the same thoughts as that person. To be more specific everyone that isn't making six figures in a career like tech. I have anxiety about the resentment of my peers and I think the riots we've seen in the US non-related to the housing crisis have been bad but likely nothing compared to what's to come. The elephant in the room is that therapy isn't going to cut it and especially when almost all of young adults entering into the timeline of entry-homeownership years realize it's impossible while having flashbacks of how much easier it was for their parents while comparing homes on the market to what they lived in during childhood years. I think the older generation is naive to think that everyone is just going to adapt to apartment living without extreme resentment and torching things down. Even my tech colleague millennials are trying to prepare for what their peers are likely to do.

House prices more than doubled since 1965, yet incomes barely increased.

https://wtfhappenedin1971home.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/un...

I wonder when dual-income households became the standard.

What... I don't know if you realize this but plenty of young folks need healthcare.

Ultimately, we can do both (fixing healthcare and housing). But honestly more countries have solved healthcare than housing.

Maybe "plenty" need healthcare but all of them need housing. This sounds like some boomer whining about their issues and pretending to care about millennials.

I believe your perspective is limited by your experience.

As someone who is (a) a millennial and (b) has a chronic medical condition, I need medical care WAY MORE than I need to own a house. Or even rent a house. A crappy apartment will do. Right now I live in a relative’s basement.

I’ve learned to settle on living situations that I don’t love because medical care takes priority.

Me or the article? No need to go on the attack btw, I was pointing out the privilege / falsehood rooted in saying young folks don't need healthcare.

I stand by my statement, healthcare is much easier to solve (we have examples of places doing it right). AND we can try to tackle both.

Is it? What countries is it solved in? Do their demographics look like ours (hint: no.) Most of us get by just fine without healthcare. Some of us certainly could use it but that's not what nearly all of us care about right now, that is in every way another problem for old people (and probably another way they're going to fuck us all over.)

Edit: No Australia is mostly White with the largest minority (5%) being Chinese. Try again. Also, I'm done empathizing; I'm warning/threatening everyone.

Honestly, to me, this sounds more like an older person take than a young person take (ironic given your claim of boomer whining). America is not exceptional! Talking about demographics / geography, all that bs is how we get rooted in thinking America can't learn from other countries or change.

Australia, for one, does a massively wonderful job with healthcare. My friends there, young by the way, love the healthcare there. But, like us, the housing market is awful. Well, worse honestly.

And this is one of many countries who have great social healthcare.

I don't think you're talking to me in good faith though given you've fallen back to "most of us get by just fine without healthcare". I'm young, like you, and I need healthcare. Plenty of my friends do too, especially some with rare conditions like narcolepsy.

Did you honestly accept in an earlier comment that plenty need healthcare?

It sounds to me like you want someone to confirm your viewpoints rather than to talk / learn / empathize with others.

Hey, there is a chance that inflation pops the housing bubble. Why risks crimes yourself when you can let the Fed burn the whole thing down for you?

There isn't a housing bubble, they are fundamentally that expensive because there's a shortage of them.

Obligatory Fight Club reference.

Fight club: people fed up with the system decide to blow it up, release date movie 1999, book 1996.

Millenials: people born 1981-1996, thus a critical mass hits adolescence when Fight Club is released.

> Millenials: people born 1981-1996, thus a critical mass hits adolescence when Fight Club is released.

Millenials, except the affluent or very early ones before '83, were also the generation to see the 2008 financial crisis undo their entire Life's hard work (several times now) due to a broken and rigged economic system and were left to internalize how rather than address the corruption and malfeasance the very people who destroyed the Global economy were rewarded with bonuses and golden parachutes. Corporations were bailed out while people were forced to default on loans and forced into bankruptcy and were literally forced out of their homes: some who had already paid for them no less, because of arcane investments instruments like MBS and CDO that were so over-leveraged that they made the entire world' economy implode.

What's really f'd was that some of us who had to take time from our studies to focus on this saw it coming: I probably broke that 10,000 hour mark on studying Global finance and economics in 2007 by the time I was taking my upper division courses in my undergrad. I couldn't make sense of my degree because I realized by my junior year we were not just going to enter another temporary recession but that the entire economic model was based on short term thinking and gambling: derivatives and (re)hyptohetication were all that made the credit expansion possible. Unfunded liabilities, derivatives Markets and dark pools exceeded the Global GDP by many times!

Instead of focusing on the adverse affects of cytokine production in my experimental models, I was learning about Basel I. Instead of focusing on the long term implications of RNA-synthetase in possible therapeutics I had learn what the Glass-Steagall Act act was and why it would have to be violated to keep Goldman Sachs afloat etc...

I can keep going, but the point is: this wasn't about being an Edgelord quoting Tyler Durdan this was about the systematic and wanton destruction of the institutions we were FORCED into since birth; people also seem to forget that millennials represent the most Schooled generation that is walking this planet, I was coaxed into a head-start of sorts at age 2 and almost never had a semester where sports or extra curriculars/Summer School weren't involved until I left University at 23 as we were told this was the only way to get ahead in Life. We were also the first generation unable to expunge our University debt, all previous generations could and routinely did in order to get ahead for their advanced degrees, and these were for seemingly trivial sums compared to the immense increase in costs from that period assuming their were any costs at all: many universities in the CSU system were no cost for residents most of its existence.

This had cascading effects all over the World and with the advent of ubiquitous wifi connectivity we could see first hand the devastation of it happening in real-time.

I still recall with great clarity how austerity being imposed on Greece had children having nothing to eat and literately passing out form mal-nutrition while the EU stripped it's public assets away while rushing to get to my biochemistry finals because I had to work in catering in order to feed myself because I couldn't eat more than once a day otherwise.

I remember how JP Morgan, led by Blythe Masters, were consolidating their stronghold in the Global commodities Markets that spiked the cost of food that led to the Arab Spring after having been bailed out years before with NO ONE going to jail.

I also called the largest bankruptcy in US History (at the time) in 2007 a year before it occurred in what can only be called regulatory capture and blatant corruption by the SEC/FDIC and JP Morgan when it took over Washington Mutual: who I was a customer of.

So, your over simplification is not just vapid, it's insulting to our collective intelligence: we have more in common with our grandparents in terms of being scarred by artificial crisis after manufactured ones that only end up enriching and serving the most corrupt amongst us: to this day the fact that Nancy Pelosi still hasn't been indicted is testament of who this system really serves.