As a GenX this narrative that Millenialls aren’t buying homes is weird.
Of the people born in 1970 about 41% of them owned a home by the time they were 30. Of the people born in 1990 some 43% of them owned a home by the time they were 30. Millenialls are actually slightly ahead of where GenX was at the same age!
GenZ shouldn’t really be a discussion as most of them simply haven’t reached “home buying” age yet.
https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/homeownership-by-generation
It’s a distribution thing. In rural and lower populated areas, hone ownership by younger persons is probably higher than 1989 (i remember when, in my home area, a house could be had for ten grand but that was a unimaginable amount of money then and there, more there being the issue than then I guess), but also that large groups of young people concentrated in cities can’t afford anything.
Actually this does make sense, because remember reading articles about how Millennials and gen Z we’re not buying groceries or eating out, which led to some article writers wondering if younger Generations even ate food.
The boomers are believing their own PR department about how lazy we are, they think that if we just walking to an office somewhere, shake the manager’s hand, and just cut back on whatever it is that brings us joy, that this surplus of cash will just come flowing in and we can buy a house.
Like they really don’t get it, I remember watching an old video where they were interviewing Generation X and Baby Boomers about why they thought Millennials were broke all the time, and the answers were just ridiculous. One guy who I just could not get out of my head, gave the answer that we were all lazy and trying too hard to get noticed on YouTube because being a pretend celebrity mattered to us more.
Even though at the time becoming a YouTuber was one of the fastest growing and well-paying careers. Like it never occurred to him that maybe YouTube actually was a job for some people. And it was around that time that Youtube Partnerships were a thing so yeah…
Yeah millennials got over a decade of news headlines like “Millennials are killing X! Millennials dont like Y! MILLENNIALS MAKING FINANCIALLY POOR DECISIONS BY BUYING EXPENSIVE LATE’S AND AVOCADO TOAST!” . I think some of it is pandering “kids these days” clickbait but a lot of it is also disconnect from how things have changed as well as people not understanding how to read data.
The funny thing is the articles didnt stop they just realized that elder millennials are in their 40s and shifted to gen z.
A weird trend I noticed that targets us now is gen Z making fun of millennials. That makes sense they changed what IT is and millennials are no longer with it and some elder millennials may even be their parents. So like yeah young people making fun of the on the way out trends and fashion is par for the course and they arent part of the same generation block so they can just target millennials all at once now. The thing that gets me is Im noticing gen X-ers coming in to join the shitting on millennials and thats just uncool.
It’s true. I am boycotting all the things I can’t afford, as well as all the things I can afford but no one has given me a good reason to buy.
Is there an obvious answer to her question? Why did they think they/we aren’t doing it?
The obvious answer is that she’s wrong. By the numbers Millenialls born in 1990 have a slightly higher rate of home ownership (43%) than GenXs born in 1970 (41%). Most of GenZ simply isn’t old enough to purchase a home. If we define them as being born 1997 to 2012 then the very oldest of them are 27 with the youngest still being in Middle School! The vast majority of GenZ is somewhere in the middle around 18-24 years old. They either about to graduate High School or College but either way they’re not at home buying age yet.
Some think “younger people” shun the responsibility property brings with it. And obviously that we spend our money on traveling, Netflix and expensive gadgets instead.
This, you have to remember this is the same generation that thought we were being antisocial by staring at our phones all day. Ignoring the fact that we are actually talking to people all across the world while we do so, and that we were not in fact just staring blindly at a screen.
Don’t you know, if you cancel Netflix you can afford to buy a new house or car!
At this point I barely even try to save up, because I know that the outcome is going to be the same either way. I will still be thousands away from ever realistically owning my own home. So what is even the point of trying to save beyond what I need for rent bills and a little bit for the occasional emergency? There isn’t, the only reason I stop buying junk food just because I couldn’t afford it anymore with inflation, and I stop by and games on Steam because I basically own every game on Steam. There is nothing for me to spend money on. I can’t make down payments on a house because the money I have to work with is nowhere near what they would even entertain as such a Down payment. If there are four digits in my bank account at the end of the month, I consider that a fucking miracle. And this is even after I stop spending because there’s nothing to spend on. I feel like the richest poor person in the goddamn world
Obligatory douchebag wealthy boomer remark about “avocado toast” and the outrage over man buns. They’re out of touch and their perspective of having afforded a house means they cannot understand a world in which they ruined opportunity for future generations.
This, I actually went to a program called Step Up that tried to help people out of work find employment in town, the program did not last long and I stopped seeing adverts for it very shortly after I graduated the program.
As I thought they were going to set me up with resources, or maybe there were some businesses in the area that worked with the program and directly hired from them, but no, they were just a bunch of Boomers from the big cities offering their practical advice and where to get yokels like me back to work.
Basically none of their advice was practical, and they kept getting the phone numbers and URLs we were supposed to call or click on in order to go to the next class mixed up, causing me to miss a few. They actually threatened to kick me out of the program over it, until I pointed out with screen caps that they legitimately did give me wrong urls.
So what was the advice that their needlessly complicated program offered? Well they kept asking me to show up at random businesses and just ask to talk to people, and if I was unwilling to do that I could just make a bunch of cold calls. I told them that I was not comfortable doing that and if they had any other help they could give me I would take
Eventually they threatened to drop me if I wasn’t going to take their advice, so I made cold calls. To pretty much every business I was qualified to work for, because oh yeah degree inflation has been a thing since these people were in the marketplace.
And exactly what I thought was going to happen happened, a lot of really annoyed customers sales representatives told me to never call them again unless I was buying something or had a question about store operation.
These people still think it works like it does in black and white movies, were you just go into a local mechanic shop, talk about how you know what a wrench is, and shake hands with the guy who runs the place.
These people believe that it’s a wonderful life, a movie where a 20,000 a year dollar salary is more money than George Bailey can imagine, and a house worth $5,000 is just this amazingly extravagant property, is an accurate representation of the modern Marketplace.
Ever wonder why baby boomers are so stingy even when they’re rich, to the point where they’ll throw a fit upon being expected to pay average price for things? They don’t have much of a concept of change, to them spending a dollar on a candy bar is highway robbery.
They are so stuck in their ways that they are constantly baffled when a nickel can’t get them a Coke.
This is one of my favorite genres of journalism. See also: why is everyone so mad about the economy? Meanwhile, the economy: 3 chicken wings, a carrot, and a 1/2 lb of lentils is $37.
Seriously, we are also seeing record high inflation, used to 20 bucks could get me a bunch of drinks, a few microwavable meals to take to work, and some butter flavored Crisco to make my popcorn.
Now it might cover the butter flavored Crisco to make my popcorn and maybe one thing of drinks if it’s on special offer. And that wasn’t me comparing growing up to now, that’s me comparing two years ago to now
Seems the ultra rich are doing quit well in this economy by sticking it to the not-so-rich. It’s not the economy, it’s the money & power that controls the price of everything, including wages, but go ahead and vote for the billionaire guy who says he alone can fix things while planing to rule you with an iron fist. If systemic change is what you want start by running folks at the ground level elections - it takes about ten years to really change things…
