American dream of owning a home is dead, majority of renters say

When I was in my late teens/early twenties I truly thought that in ten years I'd own a home for sure, with some hard work and dedication.

Ten years later, I don't even get to buy groceries every week or eat every day. I've lost 30 pounds in the last year just from skipping so many meals.

I can't wait to see what the next ten years holds.

And if one more person tells me I should make sure to invest for retirement... I can't even feed myself, what you want me to invest? My retirement plan is work until I'm too old/sick/injured and then off myself.

Off topic tanget but I'm pretty tired of being told "housing is affordable, just not where YOU want to live" I'm in a midwest state and buying a home anywhere near a city is apparently now a luxury.

All my home owning friends keep telling me to stop throwing away my money on rent, and just move somewhere the nearest grocery store is quick 40 minute drive away. There are USDA loans to help, no city tax, no homeless or crime, if I could only stop clinging to "societal interactions and infrastructure" I could have a great homestead!

What a joke.

Veterans get their loans backed by the government, so no down payment.

It allowed me to get a decent sized 3 bedroom house on almost an acre inside of a metro location... For $400 more than a 1 bedroom apartment down the street a decade ago. I got two friends as roommates at first, paid lower than my old rent and they saved up their own down payments and both moved out into homes they bought in just a few years because I charged really cheap rent.

I just checked, my old apartment has went up $700 in that decade.

The Down Payment is the hardest part of buying a home. You can't save up 25k while paying what's essentially a mortgage payment.

Give first time homebuyers the same program, and loads of people who think they'll never own a home would be able to do so and pay less than renting within just a few years.

If we don't do anything, those people are going to be lifelong renters.

Corporations should not be allowed to own and rent out multiple dwellings beyond a single apartment building.

Renting by itself would be fine, it's just that there's barely any rent control in North America, and you're constantly at the mercy of your landlord, inflation and general greed. Put national standards for renter protection and rent increases in place and this would be much less of a problem.

Just saw a report in Georgia, cooperation owns tens of thousands of homes for lease only

I'm currently selling my house because I can't afford it anymore. When I bought the house I made sure it was 20% below my income. Mortgage went up $600 this year along with everything else I got robbed of home ownership. I worked tirelessly to buy the house and now being forced to sell I feel absolutely defeated....

The amount of people justifying this ridiculous housing bubble is disgusting.

So much love for landlords in this thread, on lemmy of all fucking places.

You know why they call it the dream right?

About 36% of US population rents (same as developed countries like Denmark and New Zealand), so I am confused why this is being framed as a uniquely American problem? I think the issue with real estate being sold to corporations is the main problem (which happens everywhere) as unreasonable expectations for continued growth and lack of new housing prices people out. Where I get the figures: link

I hope someday to be able to afford a plot of land to be otherwise homeless on where no one can legally fuck with me or put me in jail for doing it. In theory this might work as long as it's done far away from anything resembling a HOA. I'm sure there are measures in place to prevent people from doing that, maybe there's a minimum purchase price or acre requirement for land outside of population centers or something.

Out in the country you see people doing this with campers sometimes. Never talked to any of them though.

Very easy to own a home. Just buy a house in the middle of nowhere, and then have a campervan

seems about right. at this point my plan is to buy a small bit of land somewhere and plop some modular/tiny homes on it and call it good. not that it's just that easy, but i'd rather try to find some resemblance of normalcy than play the rigged game.

Poor Ron lost his tennis court and his property value may fall. Have a heart guys.

How is the average kid going to afford a home? They can't afford college, cause that's super expensive now, and none of the high school diploma or GED level jobs pay anywhere near enough for them to afford to live on their own, never-the-less afford their own home.

This is what class warfare looks like, and I'd also debate that this is what economic terrorism looks like, either way we need something better and we definitely aren't going to get any better under Trump and his GOP's leadership, because they're the ones helping cause and exacerbate the problems, and they have no intention on solving them, because solving problems is expensive and the Christian Nationalists among them see poor people as being "inherently sinful", and the racists among them see poor people as the minorities they hate.

The left needs to take the House back, keep the Senate and then do something about the corrupt supreme Court, while having a left adjacent President, which is certainly not Trump.

Those who don't have the cash to buy a home aren't terribly optimistic about being able to do so at the moment, compared to those folks who already do own a house/multiple homes?!!! This is more surprising than reading that kids fresh out of drama school aren't hopeful about making a living as actors, while Brad Pitt and Idris Elba aren't sweating this too much

There is a major disconnect between home prices and rent prices. Normally renting is more expensive because of maintenance. Right now homes are significantly more expensive, either home prices have to come down or rent prices have to go up because this economic environment isn't going to stick long term

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Perception doesn't meet reality in this case.

Admittedly we are at a high point and prices are strained, and we should work to reverse that trend. However, home ownership is still very much obtainable. Gen Z is already doing better than millennials.

https://fortune.com/2024/01/17/redfin-baby-boomers-gen-z-housing-market-homeownership/

Gen Z already is at 26%.

My wife is selling her first home now that we're in our first joint home. For reference, she's 26, I'm 28. I have some thoughts about this whole thing because the house is not selling and it's generally for stupid reasons:

1. Interest rates are high, so the monthly payment is going to be twice what ours used to be when the house was bought in 2020. Interest rates are never going to be that low again and anyone without a sizeable down-payment just can't afford it. Young people generally don't have sizeable down payments, because they're not selling a home to get their first.

2. People continually complain about inexpensive cosmetic work like cabinet doors and floors. They walk away from a house with zero real issues because they don't want to fix things like that.

3. Builders are offering great deals on new homes. No closing costs, paying lawyer's fees, etc. The problem is that new build quality has been fucking awful lately. Before my wife and I bought our current home, we took a look at a new-build neighborhood and even the example home had glaring issues.

4. Investors. We had an offer for cash, as is, and took it because people with loans just can't compete with that. Why wouldn't we take someone who can pay cash and doesn't care about inspections or cosmetics?

My take? Young people have no money, interest rates suck, but when a home becomes available that is affordable, they don't want to put in the work to fix up cosmetic issues. They expect new-build appearances, but don't realize that comes with poor new-build quality. It's a multi-faceted issue.

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Alternative description:

Perpetual efforts of media engines to instill apathy in potential home buyers appears to be working, as when queried on it many renters truly are under the impression that buying a home is impossible.

Weirdly, the other half of millenials that do own homes weren't asked at all, I guess they won't have any useful input on how affordable homes are 🤔