> Average age of first-time homebuyers is 38, an all-time high.

And why is this a problem?

What is wrong with renting for life, exactly? I’m seeing more and more people own rental properties, but do not own their primary residence by choice.

>"And why is this a problem?"

As a free person I want to own my place. I have better ways to spend my money rather than feeding some asshole

if you want to be a free person and own your place you may have to move out of the USA as in the USA you are not allowed to own your place. each year you have to pay (via “property tax”) for the right to occupy the property which you are not legally allowed to own. 23 states even prohibit people from owning cars… so not really all that free :)

I live in Canada, own house and pay property taxes. Cut the BS. You know what I mean under own. Yes ownership is limited but even limited it is much better than throwing away extra dosh to some middleman I do not give a flying fuck about.

this is “common wisdom” that owning is better, the “math” on that seldom checks out

https://www.kiplinger.com/real-estate/buying-a-home/renting-...

It checks out big time for me.

>"In 21 U.S. metros, the monthly cost of owning is at least 50% more expensive"

I am not in the US. 21 metros do not constitute country. When I bought house in major metro (Toronto) it was $200,000. So please do not feed me this pathetic propaganda.

Here in NL we first went from non profits owned by the members to gov housing. They just took everything without payment. Then they privatized everything and the corporation got the houses for free. All was fine for a few years then profit became the only agenda point while they were already swimming in free money and didn't want to build. Building was not attractive compared to getting houses for free. All rents are now maximized to the legal limit of course. They also run various inspection teams to force people to make their neighborhood look more expensive so the value goes up so that the rent can be increased further. For maintenance one can call 1 hour per week. They pretty much have lavish offices full of overpaid paperclip maximizers who don't do anything anyone needs, on the contrary, things would be better if they did nothing.

To add to the irony there are also self-made landlords who do similar work on similar scale on their own! They are usually available for defects and damages day and night.

Back when the people owned the non profits they build and fixed everything asap on the cheap. It might even be better than owning the home directly.

There's maybe an analogous situation in New York's Chinatown in Manhattan but it is running into problems - a lot of buildings owned by community "neighborhood organizations" but my understanding is they are somehow running out of funds and might need to sell

> What is wrong with renting for life, exactly?

Nobody wants to be your serf until they're 38, bozo.

I rent in the SF Bay and love it. My money does a lot better in the stock market than it does invested in dirt and bricks.

For better or worse, home ownership in the USA has been incentivized. Younger generations are now frozen out of the primary means to accumulate wealth.

Ways forward are a) continued denial (status quo), b) YIMBYs defeat NIMBYs, c) change policy (incentivize renting) or d) <insert radical policy proposal here>.