Where Millennials Are Priced Out of the Housing Market


Source: Bloomberg

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  1. Moopheus commented on Jun 9

    18-34? What 18-year-old needs to buy a home?

    ~~~

    ADMIN: Its an accepted demographic age bracket.

    • Moopheus commented on Jun 9

      That doesn’t make it necessarily relevant to the point. Some kid fresh out of school doesn’t have the scratch to buy a home. So what? That’s always been the case. Life looks different from 18 and 34. Also, the chart fails to make its own case: it compares the income millenials with the average mortgage for the metro area, but an average value is going to be heavily skewed toward high-priced homes that would hardly be considered ‘starter’ homes for anybody. It doesn’t really tell you much whether there are properties available in the market that might be more affordable.

    • ReductiMat commented on Jun 9

      “Always”

      I don’t think that work means what you think it means.

  2. stonedwino commented on Jun 9

    Given the demographics and economics, it seems to me that the housing market is in serious short and long term trouble. If Millenials can’t afford a starter home, who will the boomers be selling all those McMansions too? Talk about mis-allocation of resources…

    • tagyoureit commented on Jun 9

      McMansions can be sold to investors converting them into multi-family rental properties.

    • wisconjon commented on Jun 9

      They won’t sell them; they’ll bequeath them in ‘The Great Transfer.’ Aren’t the 2020’s and 30’s gonna be so much fun with three generations under one roof again?

    • davebarnes commented on Jun 9

      Many (most?) Boomers are not down-sizing. They are staying put in their suburban (grandchildren-accomodating) large houses.
      Articles about this at NewGeography.com

  3. ch commented on Jun 9

    This also appears to only consider the income side of the bracket. Millennials have ~$1.3T in student loans collectively. Assuming a 4% coupon on that = $52B per year just in interest payments, assuming no principal repayment.

  4. Blue Guy Red State commented on Jun 9

    Excellent point stonedwino. WTF happens to umpty million Boomer retirement scenarios when there’s no one to buy the suburban dream house, paid off or otherwise? If the Millennials can’t find decent enough jobs to afford buying a home, what are the knock-on effects that ripple through the rest of the economy. BTW we Boomers didn’t have THAT great an economy to work with… remember the ‘rolling recessions’ that rumbled through various sectors of the economy while The Powers That Be crushed unions and outsourced whole industries? The Millennials get to live in the wastelands TPTB created and try to make a decent life for themselves.

    • jmay commented on Jun 9

      Are you freaking kidding me? If Boomers didn’t have a great economy to work with, there’s no such thing as a great economy. Boomers not only had a huge demographic boom on their side, they had women entering the work force and driving greater spending. When they were in their twenties, unions were in their hey day, and you could buy a house on one salary, even without a college degree. In their 30s and 40s, they had a massive bull market and the first internet boom. On top of that, they had insane tax cuts coupled with wrong-headed depressed interest rates during their prime earning years. After they had earned the bulk of their money, globalization made the things they wanted (TVs, clothing, computers) cheaper than they ever could have dreamed.

      If the Baby Boomers don’t have retirement nest eggs, they’ve got no one to blame but themselves. And they bear plenty of blame for the mess the rest of us are in.

    • AnotherKaren commented on Jun 10

      Well said, jmay. I would add that a boomer making minimum wage 40 years ago may not have been able to buy a home, but could afford an apartment, food and other basic necessities working just 40hrs/week. This is not the case today.

  5. hue commented on Jun 9

    those areas are not expensive for only millennials — the housing costs are expensive for generation x, y, z, betweeners, boomers, retirees, dead people, everyone except blue bloods, Waltons, hedgies & Malcolm Gladwell

  6. ReductiMat commented on Jun 9

    As someone who loves outliers, it’s a shame they didn’t throw Vancouver, BC into this.

  7. Futuredome commented on Jun 10

    They shouldn’t be owning homes. Let them save for it. Home “ownership” bias has gotten out of control.

  8. bigsteve commented on Jun 10

    Not saying it is easy today to buy a home today. But in the seventies when I came of age it was harder to buy one in the area I grew up in. For awhile interest rates were double digits . And it took close to half most family’s income to pay the mortgage. I was ten years older than my children were when they bought , before I finally bought a home. And I made decent money better than most. So my experience is different than this map suggests. And BTW the Miami area is the most expensive area in Florida to live. Hardly representative of Florida in general.

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