Few milestones in life mean as much to the American Dream as owning a home. And millennials have encountered the kind of trouble totally befitting their generation, which largely graduated into the teeth of the disastrous post-2008 job market. Just as they entered peak homebuying and household formation age, housing affordability is at 40-year lows, and mortgage rates are near 40-year highs.
The anxiety this generation feels about the prospect of never owning their own home affects their entire perception of their finances and the economy, says Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi.
“If they feel like they’re locked out of owning a home it colors their perceptions about everything else going on in their financial lives,” Zandi says.
Millennials have long been dogged by a brutal housing market. They faced not one, but two, cataclysmic economic events—the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 and the pandemic in 2020. Both of which left them reeling financially and struggling to afford a home. The Great Recession decimated the real estate market as the economy nearly collapsed under the weight of tenuous mortgage backed securities. While the pandemic brought with it a remote work boom that caused millions of citydwellers to flee to the suburbs, sending housing prices soaring.
The only way it’s remotely viable is if you’re willing to move out to the middle of nowhere. I’ve decided to go that route, with only about $200,000 to my name I was able to buy 4 acres of land and get a pole barn put up and turned into a house.
The trade-off is that I’m about an hour and a half out from the nearest actual City the only thing nearish me is a tiny town with a population barely reaching for a thousand of primarily retired elderly people
But I decided that this was better than feeling trapped in the city forever in shitty apartments with ever increasing rent
wut?
Got the land for 60k (was listed at 120 but had been on market for 2 years never be afraid to come in way low worst they can do is say no) pole barn kits can be gotten for almost nothing on Facebook marketplace all the time in my neighboring states so the inital structure was cheap. Took multiple years to be done as it was all diy
Buddy I think plenty of people would be able to figure out how to make things work if they “only had $200,000”.
Not unless they were willing to leave the city, any actual decent City you ain’t going to find Jack shit for $200,000 as far as housing goes or even just raw land
I mean yes, that is a lot of money but it was a mixture of living out of my van for 5 years. Working 50+ hours a week and some of it is mortgaged atm. It’s not like im loaded here lol.
The entire point of the original message was it’s possible, just not something the majority of people are willing to do and I don’t blame them. The build up to it was not fun and it’s not fun having to drive almost 3 hours One Direction to see friends and such
But I decided it was worth it to finally own my housing, I don’t regret the choice
Don’t get me wrong dude I’m happy for you and in no way trying to take away from your success or sacrifice. Sounds like you put in a lot of effort and deserve the payoff.