These days, housing affordability is a struggle for nearly everyone.
But for young adults just starting out, soaring home prices and sky-high rents have become one of the greatest obstacles to making it on their own.
Nearly one-third, or 31%, of Generation Z adults live at home with parents because they can’t afford to buy or rent their own space, according to a recent report by Intuit Credit Karma that polled 1,249 people age 18 and older. Gen Z is generally defined as those born between 1996 and 2012, including a cohort of teens and tweens.
“The current housing market has many Americans making adjustments to their living situations, including relocating to less-expensive cities and even moving back in with their families,” said Courtney Alev, Intuit Credit Karma’s consumer financial advocate.
Overall, the number of households with two or more adult generations has been on the rise for years, according to a Pew Research Center report. Now, 25% of young adults live in a multigenerational household, up from just 9% five decades ago.
Housing prices are stupid. My house went up 150,000 since 2020 and the only “improvement” that occurred was me breaking the garage door.
Try breaking some more things and thank me later.
Get a second garage door. Break that. Instant profit.
We were so damn lucky to be able to get a house just before all this started back in 2017. And even then only because we don’t live in a very desirable town (although we do live in a nice neighborhood). We couldn’t afford one anywhere now.
No shit.
Story Time: Right before the Covid lockdown there were dozens of condos for sale in my area for under $200k. Today, the only available condos are $596k (800sqft).
The prices in my area are like that, and it’s cheaper to BUY. But since wages didn’t go up, few youth can afford that down payment or monthly payment. Meanwhile, buildings are empty.
Many people are more than capable of doing the monthly payments. We are all paying rent that is more than double a mortgage payment.
Cheapest thing in my area that isn’t falling down is like 600k for a 100 year old home with bad plumbing. I wouldn’t WANT to live there. My apartment is cheaper than the mortgage on that and it’s nicer.
I remember when they were saying the same thing about Millennials a few years ago.
Yeah, but it has gotten worse.
Especially since Id wager near a majority of those Millennials are still looking for houses too.
I’m looking, but there’s no way I’m paying those prices. I’d rather rent and have the ability to leave my job for another job when I can get more money.
Which is exactly what the investor class wants. Keep generating wealth for the landlords and no generational wealth because houses are too expensive.
Yup. Kill the rich. Cap home prices.
It would have to be a really low cap considering how low wages are now, but I’d be okay with that. I just doubt the U.S. government would allow it to happen.
Nothing is going to get better at this point. I think the rich know they can just do whatever they want, as usual. The power of the middle class is almost gone. The only solution is the mass extinction of billionaires as a message, and I doubt a single one will be removed in my lifetime.
And we’re only getting started!
This country Is such a fucking joke. My small family of three will be homeless in a month because we can’t afford to pay for food and our mortgage. We make to much got any government assistance but to little to live…My daughter already lost her asthma medication because insurance doesn’t cover it. I had to get rid of my insurance for myself because we couldn’t afford it and it wasn’t covering anything for me. I’d kill myself but the slim chance I’d live it would just bring on more fucking bills. Why even bother trying any more.
Yup. My low wage job made me ineligible for assistance. With normal medical bills rising, it was more fiscally responsible for me to quit and be fully unemployed with free healthcare than to continue employment but go into big medical debt.
I am so sorry. I really wish I had the money to give you some, but even though I can’t, have you tried doing a GoFundMe to see if anyone can help you stay above water for at least a little longer?
I really appreciate the kind gesture. I know I’ll land on my feet even if it takes time. There are people worse off who could use the money and I could never feel right taking money without paying back or providing something worth the money. Life has its ups and its downs and right now it’s my turn in the valley but I’ll be back at the next peak soon enough !
I wish you all the best and I hope your fortunes improve soon!
Just out of curiosity, how much did your home cost?
We bought it for $222,222.00 with a $1,600 fixed rate. At that time we had a grace of 20% of our income for savings and such. Had to change jobs and kiddo got some medical issues. We are now at a loss of about 5% each month. Food and insurance is $2k a month alone now and that’s after cutting everything we can.
Oh dang.
That’s like, almost 4x how much my house cost lol.
Food and insurance is $2k
Woah. Ever think you might be living outside of your means?
I’m sorry, do you think food and insurance are things you can just cut?
Insurance for what?
Food is something that the vast majority of people can be spending less on. I can’t tell you how many people I come across that use delivery apps almost daily yet still find ways to complain about not having enough money.
Something tells me the guy who spends >$200k on his house isn’t eating too many bologna and cheese sandwiches from Walmart.
In my neighborhood a house just burned down. Just the concrete parts are left. It’s listed for 250k. You can’t find a starter home for 250k in my city. Just saying.
I’m assuming he means health insurance, which for a family can be very expensive, and isn’t really negotiable if you have kids
Then move to a different city…
My house was $60k and 1,200 sqft. No burning down to speak of, lol.
There was an article recently about Vienna, I think, and they made progress on the housing crisis by just having the state own the houses. Nationalize housing.
edit: Found the article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-social-housing-secret-how-vienna-became-the-worlds-most-livable-city
while that is a valid point, i do not trust any government to manage them properly.
and also something something individual freedom to buy property and rent it out to have a little passive income.
In the US, the republican party would 100% try to sabotage any government program because they’re ideologically opposed to government. It would be difficult to run any program while they’re around waiting to sabotage it.
Also passive income from renting property is not really idealistic or healthy.
Anyway, I found the article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-social-housing-secret-how-vienna-became-the-worlds-most-livable-city
The GOP is not ideologically opposed to government, they believe the government’s sole purpose is punishment, keeping people “in their place”, and engaging in grafting / racketeering. They have no issue stealing our tax dollars for the purpose of giving them to the police, military, and business subsidies.
They’re ideologically opposed to anything but their government. Ftfy, they’ve shown that they love government. But only when they can use it as a weapon.
This is a good point. They want to use the government for stuff like banning queer books.
I thought for sure the housing crisis was over because the fed raised the rates. I mean lowered the rates! One of those two I forget which one makes the average house go from 800k to 250k where it’s more affordable. More as in affordable.
My plan was to leave the HCOL area I’m in for a number of LCOL places. Kept waiting for the official OK from my job to move as I work remote. By the time they gave me that OK, housing prices doubled in every place I was looking, and the rates got jacked through the roof. It’s not even that much cheaper to live out there. I feel stuck renting my slightly under market small 2 bedroom duplex unit. I light $3k on fire every month to do so. I hate it, and wish I could move back in with my Mom.
I burn $4500 every month and have little choice given work locations. Most of the units are empty and the corporate landlords are colluding to fix prices. I’m a single issue voter on affordable housing.
Do you know what we were paying for a large 2 bedroom in the NoHo Arts District (relatively nice area) of Los Angeles in the '00s? $1400 a month. We moved to a much less desirable area around 2010, but it was an actual house, and we were still paying only $1500 a month. We left L.A. the next year. I don’t even want to know what the rent on either of them is now.
In the case of my household, the 2 young adults can’t even find a job that pays whatever a “living wage” is these days.
No chance of moving out if you can’t find an adequate income or even full time hours…
This is so incredibly selfish of me… she’s only 13 so hopefully this will be over anyway by the time she’s an adult… but I’d be happy if my daughter stayed with me until I died. Once I become an empty nester, I will be lost without her. But I also want her to strike out on her own and become independent, so it’s not like I’m going to force her to stay… I’m still a little envious of parents whose kids are still with them as adults, even if those parents may not like it.
But, as I said, I also want her to be independent, so I hope this crisis is over in 5 years.
It’s the same. My oldest is still at home and decided to stay until the car is paid off… And I’ve been totally OK with it.
Multi-generational homes are the human norm.
Please get a hobby
It’s not about hobbies. I have plenty of stuff to do. It’s about losing something that’s almost a part of me, someone I’ve been putting so much of myself into for 13 years now. That’s just how parenting works.
They really shouldn’t be including people who aren’t even in their twenties in this statistic. It’s been the norm for a while now for kids to not move out until they’re in their twenties.
But yeah, we all know. No one can afford homes anymore and that will always affect those with the weakest incomes the most, which is largely the youngest group of adults.
We already knew this. It’s good to have data, but everybody already knew this.
Ban zoning and fix this problem or don’t and let it get worse.
This in turn feeds into lower birth rates, which in turn feeds into a future lower ratio of workers to pensioners, which means lower pensions for pensioners.
Of course, when shit hits the fan we will be told by politicians that it was totally not predictable that their decades of house-price inflation stoking policies (that handsomelly reward mainly rich investors for their great personal quality of having lots of money) would end up screwing the young and, through demographics, those who are now middle aged (and today’s young, again, when they’re old).
Young adults can’t afford home because this country votes for Republicans who make sure they don’t make enough money to live a decent lifestyle. Young people can change that IF they would vote.
The United States just refuses to allow any new construction of houses. It’s wild
What are you talking about?
They’re talking about why we’re in this situation, supply and demand. New homes are not being built at the rate of population growth and have been trending down for quite some time. But yes hyperbole doesn’t help.
Restrictive zoning laws that force expensive space inefficient single family homes on large lots.
This is a dumb take.
There are new neighborhoods going in all over the place where I live, but they are no more affordable than existing home and often much less. Guess prices on building materials and labor have gone up a lot, too.
