paultimate14 , 6 months ago

As a millennial that does own my own home, I’ll chime in and say houses are absolutely not affordable these days.

My wife and I put off getting married and out all of our money towards buying a home less than 10 years ago. A shitty 100 year old house in a rough neighborhood of a rust belt city. Terrible school district, but we were hoping to at least break the rent cycle and be in position to upgrade later on.

My career has gone better than expected, but the housing market is absolutely insane. The house I got for $85k now estimates over $165k, and that’s not even factoring in the home improvements we’ve done. Completely given up on ever having kids and pretty much given up on ever moving. We did everything right, followed the rules, and had pretty good luck. No major car accidents, no layoffs, no medical bankruptcy. Generally disciplined in our spending (I’m an accountant). The closest we’ve had to vacation in 15 years was a 2-day mid-week trip to Cleveland to see a band play. The only bad luck was neither of us were born into wealth.

If you only own and live in one home at a time it doesn’t matter a ton how the market is doing at any given moment. Low prices mean I get less for my house, but I can upgrade more cheaply. High prices means I’ll get more cash, but buying a new house costs more. There’s relatively minor differences to things like taxes and insurance, and you could dive into the math for exact examples, but for the most part it’s a pretty minor consideration as long as you have a house to sell and will need to buy a replacement. The people most affected by housing price changes are people who have 0 houses and people who are looking to sell without buying (owners converting to renters, retirees, landlords cashing out, estates, etc).