Should be no paywall for y’all on this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/u...smid=url-share
Printable View
Should be no paywall for y’all on this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/u...smid=url-share
I read that original essay and I thought it was pretty provocative. I do think that the "price of participation" has some merit, although I also agree that expectations in terms of lifestyle has inflated considerably over the past 50 years. The whole idea of housing four people in a two-bedroom house being an undesirable compromise for home ownership is kind of funny. My entire post-WWII neighborhood was nothing but little Cape Cods and kids sharing bedrooms was very common.
At the same time, we have friends whose newly-married kids bought a ittle Cape Code in a Boston suburb and it was $675,000.
I read that earlier today. The comments by older folks were interesting since many of us recall how frugally we lived growing up. There are so many complexities/differences to life today that it is hard to compare. I would love to downsize and have a young family buy my house but the economics don't work on this end of the age spectrum either. And then I have to say..."we" raised em so perhaps we made life too easy.
I think some of the younger folks whine entirely too much. Also, I’m not sure they can do math, as they seem constantly surprised that older generations have accumulated more capital. I suspect social media has reset their expectation of “How the Joneses live” to an unrealistic level.
With an Ivy League degree, my starting salary at the age of 21 in Silicon Valley in 1985 was ~$23,000. I lived in a 6-room house for 2 years after graduation, that a dozen of my fellow graduates had rented, and we lived dormitory-style while we accumulated $$$ to be able to start companies or buy housing.
I did not buy my first home until I was ~30, for ~$350k and that was after several quite successful startups. The house was a total beater and took 7 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore. My age peer group there that had chosen less-risky employment at solid companies lagged me in house-purchasing by 5-10 years.
More recently, my partner’s son just graduated from college last summer, and purchased his own home here in WA state at the age of 22. He bought a complete beater, out in a rural area, and is fixing it up with his own labor. His job allows him to work remotely most of the time, so this works for him, he didn’t waste his $$$ trying to rent a crappy studio apartment in Seattle for $4000/month. Similarly, her daughter, a year older, did exactly the same thing the year before. Neither of these kids is blowing their $$$ on flashy, trendy consumer goods and experiences. Neither of them had parental subsidies. Both, to accumulate some of their initial capital lived well below their income (both engineers), and couch-surfed about half the time to keep rents low.
Three of my kids own homes as you know, my son bought our house. My second son purchased his house in Burlington in his 20s through the Champlain Housing Trust (Bernie Sanders' program)--the agency fronts the down payment and maintains 50% equity. So it's not the greatest long-term investment for my son, but it's his own home. My daughter's partner purchased a two-family home in an old industrial neighborhood outside of Burlington. He is not a high earner. She does not like the house, but the town is growing, so I'm sure it will be a good long-term investment when they eventually get something more to their liking. Or they can rent both units out. My third son doesn't want to buy a house. He likes living in his 1-bedroom apartment that he's lived in for 7 years and pays below market rate because his landlord has only raised his rent $25/month each year.
So buying into the dream can be done but I think it's really difficult for many people. When you look at the monthly payment for pretty average homes in key markets, I want to know what people do to be able to afford 4000+ a month. The way houses have appreciated over the last few years is crazy. My crappy little Shanghai Shack is worth double what I paid for it in 2018.
my starting salary in 1980 was around $13,000. But I didn’t live in Silicon Valley. That was hard, bae.
I had a perfectly adequate salary to rent my own apartment. It was an old one bedroom apartment, but it was charming and I loved it.
my parents set me up beautifully with no school debt and a car that was paid for it. I had nothing to complain about in making my own way after that.
Kids today are saddled with 1) too much school debt 2) expensive cars
But sure, my lifestyle was much simpler. I didn’t have an automobile with air-conditioning until I married into one. I didn’t have a credit card until I was at least 35 years old, other than a JCPenney store card. But I bought a house on a single income.
Ya’ll don’t have to live in the Silicon Valley or in Boston. I’m telling you, flyover country has some nice reasonably prices houses. Our Hermann house was for sale at $79,000 the year before Covid hit. A family was living in it. It was basic but kind of cute in its own downhome way.
Go to community colleges and state schools. Get a middle class type job in fly over country. Pay cash for everything, don’t EVER pay interest on anything. You will have perfectly adequate money.
Even back when I got out of college with a job market as tight as it is today, then I knew I didn’t want to live on either coast or in
chicago because I couldn’t buy a house, and I wasn’t attracted to California anyway. Tho
chicagoland had great professional opportunities for my area of interest. But I wanted to be a homeowner so I didn’t even attempt those areas.
One of the real estate ZIP Codes I look in is a nice old suburb of St.Louis contiguous to the city that has very cute houses. There are three houses for sale around $160,000 there now and ALL of them are move in condition and updated cosmetically.
Seems like we debate this a lot. There is no simple answer and I know that my formula isn’t gonna make everyone happy, but a little bit of sacrifice until mid to late 20s will start you off in life pretty well.
I'm with Bae. They definitely whine entirely too much. They have unrealistic expectations about home, salaries, etc. They want to have NOW what their parents did at a much older age. There is no shame in renting. I saw so, so many young couples who bought into the mindset of "HAVE to buy" and then the Great Recession came along. They ALL lost their shirts. They had to move for a job, to be closer to family, etc., and they couldn't sell their houses or condos for even what they paid. They didn't break even.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
I will be a forever renter. I don't care.
These are also the ones who think it's beneath them to work in an office and they'd rather mooch off parents than lower themselves for an in office job. I have NO patience with them. I know way too many of these types.
Immdiately pre-Covid, I knew families who didn't want their kids to go to community college as it was beneath them. They had to go to four year schools only.Quote:
Originally Posted by iris lilies
I could speculate a lot of disparity among regions and localities. There are nice places in my state where an entry level banker, or teacher, or tradesperson might be able to afford a starter home. The same person living in the big city very well might be 40 before home ownership, like the article says. On the other hand, a petroleum engineer could probably do pretty well soon after graduation. Ski towns are in a separate league.
I generally agree that young people how too high of expectations.
and for sure Boomer and Millennial parents have encouraged those excessive expectations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogar
Dave Ramsey had a call in the last few days from a mother who was lamenting the fact that her son couldn’t afford a house. The son was 21 years old. For God’s sake mom, get real!
Dave set her straight right away. He told her to get her son out of her house where he was supposedly “saving money” and have him rent a place so he would learn adult responsibilities and be responsible for the roof over his head, etc. Dave said there’s nothing wrong with renting.
Though more of a millennial, I sometimes ponder DD's lifestyle and wonder how they do it...A 3000+ sf house, new cars, gym memberships, coffee and wine subscriptions, meals out, travel...it just seems to be ordinary life for her and DSIL. Their standards and expectations are so different from what I knew growing up that it boggles my mind. But...it's her life not mine.
Ramit Sethi always bangs the drum that home ownership is not for everyone and it shouldn't even be the symbol of the American Dream. Even he rents (right, IL? I think he's alluded to that). He always points out that the mortgage/taxes/insurance are only part of the expense of home ownership and if you really break it down, it's often not the "investment" people say it is. He said he got rich in part because he took the money that otherwise would have gone to home maintenance, invested it and he's come out ahead of the game--according to him at least.Quote:
Originally Posted by iris lilies
I think Ramit still rents but he’s in one of those very high cost-of-living places in California. Sure he doesn’t want to spend money on home maintenance and he himself doesn’t know how to do it anyway, besides, he’s gotta use that money on his Brunello Cucinelli sweaters at $3,000 each.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
Over the past 40 years, as investments, my stock market portfolio has massively outperformed residential real estate performance. I think “your home as an investment” is for people happy with low returns.
I've been through my home ownership story once, but I rented until I was almost 50 and found it totally satisfactory. It might be just right especially for young people who don't want to be tied down with home ownership chores. There are calculators out there to compare renting vs. owning financially. Mortgage payments are sort of like forced savings to build up equity, but it also has the black hole of interest expenses. There are other ways to save or invest without interest expenses.
I don't have a lot to add to this discussion. I've been a homeowner and have never benefited much from it. I'm a happy renter now in a 55+ neighborhood in the best home I've had for a long time. Saving the money I'd pay in taxes and maintenance and repairs.
That said, I think this young people doomed perspective plays exactly and entirely into their victim mindset...so tiresome.
okay-----Looka this(see photo)---Son of one of the richest men in the world---a dead member o' the mop-topped foursome---and the kid can't even afford a decent haircut and a shave! Plus, he's got them Dollar-store eyeglasses! Ha. But yeah---bet he's anxiously waiting for madadme Oh No ta kick. Then, he'll have some bucks. But he prolly don't go out in pubbblic looking the way he does, unless it's skid row. . Nope.Attachment 6667