> if they are under 35, they may never have the chance. Home ownership seems to be going the way of the Dodo.

This is false.

Millenials are trailing previous generations a little, but > 50% of them now own homes:

https://rentalhousingjournal.com/more-than-50-percent-of-mil...

Hmm, given the average age of a millenial is ~33 the statistic and the claim (exaggerated as it is) don't necessarily need to be totally out of alignment.

The primary problem with this claim as it usually presented is that it tends to ignore that earlier generations did not go from kindergarten to home ownership in a year: you grow up with your parents' generation's condition as "normal" when it actually represents 30-50 years of "accumulation".

So yeah, 10 years ago, very, very few millenials owned a home. But that was true for 23 year old boomers too.

You can look at that data too.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/04/21/ge...

Millennials own less homes than boomers did at their age. Though based upon the data Gen Z is possibly turning things around.

Anecdotal though it is most millennials I know that have houses only have them because they were inherited rather than purchased outright.

Also anecdotal, none of the millennials homeowners I know inherited them, but all are software developers.

See also:

"Most US millennials finally own homes – and it’s not thanks to their parents"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/17/millennial-h...

Out of my international circle of friends between twenty five and forty, only one outright owns their own house. And they have a high paying internal software development job for a big European company. The rest of us either split rent or live with family. Those of us in said circle living in the U.S. will likely never own houses because of what ChrismarshallNY below stated: The few places that aren't McMansions and aren't in HOA developments and thus are actually affordable are being bought by massive investment firms and flipped into being duplexes for rental.

Even the trailer parks aren't safe, as the companies buy them from the owners, evict all the tenants living in their own houses, and then develop the land into more unaffordable HOA clone mega houses, luxury apartments, or McMansions. Near where I live six of the eight trailer parks have disappeared in the last four years and have been turned into two separate campgrounds, a car wash, a dirt parking lot waiting to be redeveloped, a warehouse, and a new luxury senior apartment complex, with intent to redevelop the others into retail or housing shortly. There's been a spike in homelessness because the people living in these trailer homes couldn't afford to move their houses and didn't have anywhere left to go even if they could.

I see a few options with this of anecdote.

1. just ignore it, on the basis that the statistical data collected by many private organizations and the federal government say that it is incorrect.

2. as much as I hate quoting Bezos, he does have a good line about how, if anecdotes and data don't align, there's probably something wrong with the way the data is being measured and/or collected.

3. Accept that the data is correct, and that this sort of anecdotal reporting is also correct, but represents conditions that were also the case for previous generations yet somehow never became part of the zeitgeist.

I don't know which to choose. Maybe there are others.

Depends. These massive investment corporations are buying up houses like crazy.

I have a friend that works for one, and he's making a lot of money.

They come in, overbid, pay cash, and frequently spiff the agents (in a legal way).

Then they gut the place, and turn it into a pretty decent rental.

How does that relate to records of individual home ownership, by age?

Huh?

If you don't think these rental investment corporations are a problem, then I won't gainsay that. I just have some local IRL experience in the matter, and have seen it discussed.

I'm not in a debate. I made an offhand comment, which was not unique to me (it has been bandied about in popular culture for quite some time), you called it "false," in a fairly harsh manner, and I didn't attack back, because I like to behave myself, here.

If my offhand comment offended you, then I am sincerely sorry, and you have my apology, but it won't change the way I think or interact, and I'll likely offend again. I'm a decent person, and don't mean to offend, but I also have the approach I have, and some people find it offensive. I'm not sure why, because no one ever takes the time to explain. They just attack. I've learned not to attack back, and make my best guess at what their problem was. Given that data (my guess), I may (or may not) choose to modify my approach in future interactions.

In the aggregate, I yam what I yam, and some folks like it, and some folks don’t. Seems most folks find me easy to get along with.

No worries. It's all good. Have a great day!

I'm not offended, and I'm not attacking you.

You made a remark about millenial home ownership that, according to data collected by the relevant agencies, doesn't appear to be correct.

I just pointed out that millenial home ownership is only a little behind the age-adjusted levels for the last 4 "generations".

I think this is important - if the data is correct, then it's essentially a myth that millenials have no access to home ownership, and there's a certain kind of psycho-social danger to this idea being believed (particularly among millenials).

It is of course possible that the data is incorrect, or misleading, and I'm interested in that possibility, because the "story" about millenials and home ownership is widespread, and perhaps we should be alert to the idea that the data is not representing reality correctly.

Then you mentioned corporate residential real estate investment, which I certainly agree is a problem, but that seems orthogonal to the basic question of whether or not millenials do or do not own housing at roughly the same level as prior generations. I wondered if you saw some specific reason to mention it. If it were true that they do not, then certainly corporate RE investment could be a part of the reason. But it appears that in broad terms, they do, and so although it would be nice to end corporate RE investment somehow, it doesn't seem to be a particularly large problem.

It's worse for renters. Any arbitrary thing could cause them to be denied for a rental. Good luck fishing out what that is at each rental company/landlord.