I moved from a high cost of living city in North America to Latin America. I bought a two floor penthouse overlooking the ocean for less than the price of a two bedroom apartment back where I came from. My mortgage is -$2000 / month. That's right, negative $2000 because I save the full mortgage payment plus an extra $2000 on taxes each month, completely legally and above board.
Now not everything is sunshine and roses (well there is a lot of both, but you know what I mean). The price is I have to work remotely, I had to learn a new language, and Amazon delivery is more like two weeks than 2 days and the shipping is not free. There are definitely things that I miss, but nothing compared to what I gain.
If you have the option, more power to you - literally.
Your point reduces to the idea that nothing can be true, because people can lie.
OP is doing it Legally. And in the process, he's REMITTING money from a developed country to a developing one.
Get a grip.
Yes.
(That question makes no sense.)
Can you elaborate?
It's a lot better for me personally!
you can try! but you'll find that this is basically impossible -- the folks that are good enough aren't going to take 1/10th of the comp they could be making.
I want to play games, learn about AI, 3D printing, CAD, mountain bike, go to trivia, travel to Thailand, travel to Europe, see family across the globe, get more flexible, build muscle, etc etc etc. None of them are at work.
I wouldn’t trade my life now to be a billionaire 70 years ago.
Even with that, the pay is barely enough to qualify me for my apartment, which is artificially low in rent since I moved in during peak COVID and have had low rent increases.
That, and what's the long term strategy? Do they turn 30 and flip from working part time at Pizza Hut to a professional salaried career? Good luck getting an interview with that CV.
I'm not saying it's an ideal situation to be faced with, but tuning out is just going to make it worse.
The CEO.
Trick question. None of them.
So what we're hand-wringing about is a ~$385 increase in rent, which comes to about 4% more of the person's gross salary than 25 years ago. That sucks a little bit, but it's not a catastrophe.
And on top of that, you can still make a ton of side money through bonuses and stock, in the industry that I assume we're mostly talking about. A few months ago I gave a $90K stock grant to a guy. Even if the stock price stagnates, that on its own is almost half his housing costs for the next five years, and it's all because he works harder than the guy in the next cube over.
For a different anecdote, an friend of mine briefly worked a pizza fast-food joint in Davis (CA), and the pay from that didn't even cover her rent and bills, she had to get support from others.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w...
Sure, few people would actively reject an opportunity to have a high footprint life, but the relative attractivity between footprint maximization and having other priorities in life certainly aren't the same as they used to be in the days of infinite growth illusions.
The effect you describe is much stronger I think, but they are not competing, they complement each other.
It’s reminiscent of the lead up to the drug war that was coinciding with the antiwar movement
Young people looked around and said this society is not working for us, and instead of creating a new society that actually takes care of people, people voted for Nixon and doubled down on maximum alienation capitalism
The premise of the relevant discussion is that the marginal value of additional work and wages beyond the basic requirements is largely nothing. You cannot accrue meaningful savings, but still probably have enough disposable income to live comfortably enough, so it’s just a bad deal to work more.
Very simply, the marginal utility of additional wages is much lower than the cost of working them at the rates being paid.
Marginal utility changed with each unit.
They don't want to work some last x% because they're happy with their current condition. The ants work the last x% so that when they retire they can continue to live in the style to which they've become accustomed.
The young folks are being offered money. They don't think it's meaningful because it doesn't enable them to afford some item now. So they can either decline the money or increase their estimate of its utility by taking their future into account.
They both freeze to death but at least the grasshopper had fun during the short summer first.
The financialization of housing means you’re competing with massive hedge funds when you want to buy a home or invest in real estate.
Incredible government defect spending ensures more inflation which will outpace salary increases.
This is how I’ve heard the late 70s/early 80s as being described: general malaise.
"Giving up on housing" is not the right answer. "Start small and work your way up", like most of us did.
See, when you hit 20, you're looking at your parents, and you're seeing them when they're 45 or 50. You're not seeing them when they were 20. You expect that you're going to be able to live like they do at 50, not like they did when they were 20. That's not realistic.
But the answer isn't to give up. The answer is to keep working on it, over decades, instead of expecting it to be handed to you on day one.
There are no guarantees and the odds are harrowing. Software engineering could completely dry up tomorrow. Then what? The professions that make any sort of thriving wage and have some semblance of career stability (medicine, finance, etc.) all have stringent gatekeeping pedigree requirements. What's left? Sales? Restarting in a trade where all the incumbents have been doing manual labor since they were in middle school, and you're no longer as youthful and full of vigor as you once were? Grind out for 10 years to get a foothold in the industry, and your body's breaking down, but now you have a shot at starting your own business instead of getting paid $60k/yr (disregarding backbreaking overtime) to do shit work. Great, you're 40 now and all of the economic tribulations you've faced means your retirement accounts are severely lacking. You will never retire and will have to keep on working until you die (either naturally or on the job). Healthcare: costs are going to go up. Housing: you never got the chance to own, so now you're stuck burning money renting. Inflation: everything is more expensive, but compensation hasn't grown with it.
Or more poignantly: can you keep on grinding forever? With all of the young bucks that come into this field with the drive to "make a name for themself" and reinvent the wheel ad nauseam. Can you keep up, old man? You're one psychological accident away from being unable to put bread on the table. Then what? Disability? Living in halfway houses because you can't pay rent anymore? Being surrounded by people who've fallen on hard times who can do nothing but drag you down with them? That's when you spiral further into a hole you can never get yourself out of. You're fucked.
I don't expect to live like my parents, but I won't pretend that life is not utterly and depressingly precarious. Lucky are the middle-aged and older; for they had grown up in utter blissful ignorance of things. Woe is the hyper-connected youth; unable to simply exist.
And that is the thing - they simply do not see path to better conditions in the long term either.
Being unaware of reality is also a personal issue too, bud.
I'm guessing OP meant San Francisco?
There is some truth in that message. One can't always live where you wish. In my 20s my #1 goal in life was to live in Manhattan. I tried and tried and tried, but could never afford it. I gave up. Moved somewhere much cheaper (but still jobs around, not talking middle of the desert) where affording a house was no problem. It's not exactly what I wanted at the time, but looking back after a couple decades, has turned out fine.
You're assuming it's still possible to buy when saving 5k/year (what my median friend is able to do). It really isn't, or requires complete sacrifice of much of what makes life worth living anyway.
Re: location, there are cheaper places but they're far enough away it's like asking most people to move a plane ticket away from everyone they know (and likely all jobs they have experience in) to restart life.
Instead, most of my friends just accept the studio apartment they live in which costs half their cash flow, and spend the other half on essentials and therapy to cope. It's hard to see this from a $1M house in the burbs
Median weekly earnings of the nation's 122.1 million full-time wage and salary workers were $1,118 in the third quarter of 2023 (1118x52=58136)
412,020/58136=7.09 years wages to pay off a home
Median house price 1980: $64,600
The 1980 median family income was $21,020
64600/21020=3.07 years wages to pay off a home
https://www.redfin.com/us-housing-market
https://www.gobankingrates.com/investing/real-estate/how-muc...
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf
https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1982/demo/p60-13...
edit
more detail
2023:
412020 30 year loan at 6.5% =
Total principal paid $412,020
Total interest paid $525,508.80
Monthly payments $2,604.25
58136/12=monthly salary of 4844.6
53.7% of monthly pay going to home loan (at 0 down)
1980:
64600 30 year loan at 14% =
Total principal paid $64,600
Total interest paid $210,953.77
Monthly payments $765.43
21020/12=monthly salary of 1751.6
43% of monthly pay going to home loan (at 0 down)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N
Also gen z has surpassed millennials and genx in home ownership (with comparable timing).
""In 2022, 30% of 25-year-olds owned a home. At the same age 28% of millennials, and 27% of Gen Xers owned homes, according to real estate brokerage, Redfin.""
https://www.marketplace.org/2023/09/14/how-are-gen-zers-buyi...
Im more inclined to believe the lazy mentality is from lifestyle and cultural stemming. Its cool to not care or try. And according to instagram if you're not a millionaire by age 25 then you're a loser. So why even try?
That being said I see nothing wrong with a 4 day work week.
For example, if you homeless you do not count. If you live with your parents even though you would prefer to rent if you could afford it, that is a home-owned household. If the owner lives in their home and they rent out a room, that's a home. If you used to rent with 4 people and now live with 8, that's a single rental. If you own and live in multiple homes, you count multiple times.
Without more analysis, you can not use this rate to come to any conclusions.
But not owned by you… so it wouldn’t end up in the 30% of Gen Z own their homes statistic. I’m not really sure what you’re going on about here but none of it makes any sense.
Here's backup from wikipedia, or are they also not making sense?
> The name "homeownership rate" can be misleading. As defined by the US Census Bureau, it is the percentage of homes that are occupied by the owner. It is not the percentage of adults that own their own home. This latter percentage will be significantly lower than the homeownership rate. Many households that are owner-occupied contain adult relatives (often young adults, descendants of the owner) who do not own their own home. Single building multi-bedroom rental units can contain more than one adult, all of whom do not own a home.
> the home ownership rate is created through the Housing Vacancy Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau. It is created by dividing the owner occupied units by the total number of occupied units.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeownership_in_the_United_St...
If this generation is on a par with previous generations, or even surpassing them, wouldn't that indicate they're less lazy? You can't have it both ways - either they're lazy and that explains why they're behind, or they're not behind and that has to mean they're not lazy. How can they be both lazy and ahead?
I'm assuming this is why you're being downvoted. It sounds like you're calling the new generation lazy, though I see now that it wasn't necessarily your intent.
Personally I fully understand those who don't want to spend most of their time and energy at work. Most jobs aren't fulfilling. Some even downright encourage a dysfunctional system.
I was impressed by tech companies in the late 2000s only to realize that they're not trying to "make the world a better place" and that they're just trying to make more money for their shareholders like every company before them.
So why would anyone sacrifice their family time, friends and hobbies just to work on another app that puts scooters on cities' sidewalks and build more hardware that'll end up in a landfill?
It has nothing to do with being cool or being a millionaire. It's just a generation that had their basic needs taken care of and are now getting their priorities straight.
I think there is a lot of data that says the latest generation is the most cynical and jaded yet. There is some crossover between cynicism and motivation. Of course if you ask them, it isn't cynicism, it is realism.
>It's just a generation that had their basic needs taken care of and are now getting their priorities straight.
I think there are is a bit of wanting to have the cake and eat it too. A desire to live a dense urban life, but also have a quaint country home. A desire to be financially independent, but also follow their passions.
In short, I think they have been taught and sold a contradictory set of ideals and desires.
Some of them are willing to take a pay cut in order to work less, and they're being called lazy for it. My argument is that it's not laziness, it's the belief that they're better off fostering their personal relationships and passions than adding the extra money in their bank account.
Perhaps the closest concern I have ever encountered on that front is "where do I put my stuff?" because US culture on average certainly does a lot more hoarding than nearly anywhere else in the world. But that's less to do with square footage of living space and more to do with square footage available to store hoarded items.
EG: such folk (now narrowing perspective to anecdotes of room mates I've had) often wind up placated by access to space in the garage plus a rented storage unit that they literally never visit between when they move in with us and when they move back out perhaps a year or two later.
Our place is a three bedroom unit within a triplex building built in the late 70s and falling apart. Its' rent has recently increased to close to half of all of our net incomes combined. We would like to live somewhere within walking distance (a mile?) of basic necessities, that we can afford, and if its not too much to ask perhaps also is not falling apart.
Number of square feet holds no interest to us but number of bedrooms would be nice so that each adult can have one to sleep in.
My apologies if that strikes you as too "quaint" and you'd rather force us to live 50 miles from the nearest store beyond the reach of basic utilities just because then the rent and/or mortgage payments would be half what we get here.
Perception of things being different is simply because everyone and their dog is trying to fit into the few most attractive areas where prices have indeed skyrocketed.
U.S. is by far the cheapest in housing prices vs salaries of all developed countries and nearly the cheapest of all large countries in the world. 5th cheapest to be precise, those 4 above are oil petrocracies plus South Africa, that's fucked in so many ways it doesn't need to be discussed.
And it's absolutely necessary for us to urbanize instead of the wasteful way we use our land, in order to avoid the impending climate, biodiversity, and energy crises.
Anyway --- with this square footage argument. End of the day, I'm still priced out of a house, whether it'd be a big one or a small one. I don't really care about the price per square footage, I care about the ability to get a roof over my head.
Edit: Actually, can you provide sources for this? From what I can find, home prices have been anything but flat, even adjusting for inflation: https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/ I have a hard time believing that in ~12 years we grew the entire housing stock square footage by 33%
I also found some data that strongly disputes your claim that the US is the 5th lowest house price to salary ratio: https://www.statista.com/statistics/237529/price-to-income-r..., in fact it seems to be comfortably in the top 10 _highest_
https://www.supermoney.com/inflation-adjusted-home-prices/
as for your link - easy, what's understood by "house" in Luxembourg is usually a "Soviet style apartment block". You need to be a billionaire to own a typical US-sized single family house there, these are passed down the generations from the people who were rich 100+ years ago.
https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_count...
This rating assumes same housing everywhere, not just "average house in a given country". In this case, easily U.S. can be among top 5, because being very rich, and as people say here in the same thread "everything apart from housing and healthcare is cheap anyway", a bigger chunk of expenses can go there.
For example, the western part of the country's $/sqft going from $140 to $220 from 2012 to 2022 -- including inflation adjustment?
Sorry but, "housing prices have only gone up by 20% in the last 10 years in areas that are hemorrhaging job opportunities and education!" is not a good counterargument.
But GDP is _absolutely irrelevant_ to the average citizen's purchasing power / income.
And sure, every country has a growing segregation between attractive, expensive areas and unattractive, cheap ones. That's normal. Fitting into attractive ones is a matter of competition and only the best few will - there can't be a place for everyone there no matter how the economy is doing and how high/low are the taxes "for the rich" (because it's not the rich who are buying up the housing).
In any case, the home ownership hasnt budged much in over 50 years. People just like to complain like they always have.
Upward mobility is probably something every generation has complained about throughout history. Economic nihilism isn’t the answer.
Our future generations count on us to improve whatever cards we’re dealt
We're at a unique point in that there was a brief period in recent history where upward mobility was true, and now it's becoming untrue again and those for whom it was true don't believe its becoming untrue again.
Perceptions of the past are filtered through media that The life of the top 5% was the average.
Now, whether that's right or if the norm is a good place for the majority of people - That's a different matter entirely.
Gone are the days of 10x emps, power badasses doing laundry and eating 3 meals a day on campus. It never was healthy for the emps anyway - it only ever benefits the owners.
Unless you own, the only incentive is to work as hard as you are paid for as we all exchange labor and limited lifetimes for wages that ensure someone else’s profit still meets its owners set marks.
That's not even true. I have a large set of anecdata, with people below median income buying houses, and people in the 5% being afraid to buy a house (too risk averse to the point of being detrimental).
If owning a house is your priority, you will make it work. My conclusion is that a large set of people just don't have the basic skills to maintain a house, or simply don't want that responsibility, despite being able to afford it.
> So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard?
What's your plan for when you're 50, broke and almost unemployable due to ageism? Who's going to rent to you and how will you afford it? Are you going to be a squatter? Do you plan to wait until your parents die and live off the inheritance?
That's cool if you don't have answers to those questions when you're 22-25, but what about 35+, like most millennials now are?
No matter how hard you work, unless you're in the top 5%, you're far priced out of most places most people want to live.
You can afford everything comfortably beside housing & health care (which you don't need much of when you're young) on a relatively low wage in the US.
So you've pretty much given up on housing. What's the point in working hard?