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Two things, the reason college meant so much to the boomers was not everyone got one.
Only about 30% of the population has a college degree now, which is more or less double from 1950. The real difference is actually in high school graduation rates, which have also doubled. 88% have a high school degree compared to about 50% in 1950.
You realize you have confirmation bias? You spend time with successful people and so you don't come across the average person. Many are struggling in a studio apartment with one or two other families to make ends meet
You realize you have confirmation bias? You spend time with failures, so you think everybody has to be a failure. Many of those "struggling" families actually squander thousands of dollars a year that could lift them out of poverty.
You realize you have confirmation bias? You spend time with failures, so you think everybody has to be a failure. Many of those "struggling" families actually squander thousands of dollars a year that could lift them out of poverty.
I don't squander a penny and I pick up loose change and, while I'm in a high percentile of
Net worth for my generation I cannot afford a home because of how ridiculous they are here. Some people can't win with the hands we are dealt
Homeowners may or may not have lower housing costs than renters. Most renters do not rent anywhere near the house they will buy.
A house in our area is 600k so we rent a 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment for a fraction of what buying and maintaing that house is.
Think of a family that rents a multi bedroom apartment with all the kids and then once the kids are out rent a 1 bedroom apartment. Are you trying to tell us a 3000 sq ft home with utility's and all costs will cost less every where .
We rent and while buying an equivelant co-op will be 6k cheaper when you figure the 12k income we will give up buying renting is stll 6k cheaper.
While we owned homes off and on renting woorked out the best. We would never have been able to take part in the lucrative investments we did if all that dough was tied up in the house.
Be careful with general statements , they may apply to some but never to all
Why would you buy a 3000 sf. house when 2 br 2 bath is adequate for your needs? An apartment like that would rent for about $1500/month in my area, while a mortgage payment on a house with those specs would be about the same, but 10 years from now the rent on the apartment would be $2700/month and the house payment would still be $1500.
Some statements are absolute. You lock in your housing costs when you buy. Renters do not enjoy that protection. Any profit on the value of your primary residence is still tax exempt because of the homestead exemption.
Population wise you have quite a few large city's with many millions of tenants who have some form of rent stablization. Most of the country's population are in city's
That may be NYC provincialism. The only cities I know of with rent control are NYC and SF, and even there most of the Bay Area is not rent controlled.
If you graduated from a lousy college in 1980 with C's in a useless degree, you didn't have any luck getting a job then, either. Double digit inflation. An unemployment rate higher than at the peak of the Great Recession. College grads today from good schools with good grades and a useful major have no problem getting a job. Two years in a community college doing remedial high school followed by two years in what used to be a state teacher's college doesn't open any more doors today than it did in 1980. There seems to be some myth that anyone with a college degree in 1980 was on the career fast track and earned 6 figures. That's not how it works. Only 7% to 8% of the population earns 6 figures. Most have elite skills that justify that kind of compensation.
The sense of entitlement blows me away. The rules of the game haven't changed. The expectations certainly have.
If you graduated between 1980-86, you were on the very end of the boom. According to some Gen X is the early 60s, making 81 the latest a boomer would graduate having gone to college at 18. Even then, someone who graduated in 86 has much better start than the children of boomers born in 86. No huge student loans, there wasn't a real estate bubble when they went to buy their first home, and having a degree was still a big advantage.
I don't squander a penny and I pick up loose change and, while I'm in a high percentile of
Net worth for my generation I cannot afford a home because of how ridiculous they are here. Some people can't win with the hands we are dealt
I live in NJ. Of the people I know of with high salaries, none of them got a house on their own. If their parents didn't help them (pay for college, pay for home down payment, pay for the whole home, or a combination of these) their spouses help them with the mortgage and taxes. People making 100K are having a hard time living by themselves with a home.
Why would you buy a 3000 sf. house when 2 br 2 bath is adequate for your needs? An apartment like that would rent for about $1500/month in my area, while a mortgage payment on a house with those specs would be about the same, but 10 years from now the rent on the apartment would be $2700/month and the house payment would still be $1500.
Some statements are absolute. You lock in your housing costs when you buy. Renters do not enjoy that protection. Any profit on the value of your primary residence is still tax exempt because of the homestead exemption.
The apartment is a compromise. I don't need a house , nor would i want to spend that much for one. Thst does not mean i wouldn't love a house like that but the econonmics of it make no sense.
In the long term you may lock in a tiny part of your housing costs owning depending on location.
Our first homes were 35k back in the 1970's . Today that 35k loan is paid off and taxes are 15k a year plus all other expenses and repairs. The fact that home is paid for accounts for less than your utility bills in the scheme of things . The fact that home is paid for adds little to the affordability factor.
You can rent something smaller for less money today.
Many comparisions between the two will never be apples to apples because renters are not usually going to buy what they rent nor even buy or rent in the same area.
Compared to our homes we owned the appreciation in our investments was so much greater that even subtracting out taxes and rent for those 27 years would leave us with enough of a difference today to buy multiple houses like we had.
Our building is filled with well situated renters who prefer to rent and choose to put their money in to other investments or their business
Last edited by mathjak107; 08-23-2016 at 04:18 PM..
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