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.
I am so glad we managed to buy something in November 2019. Our state (MD) even had a first-time homebuyer program that gave us an interest-free ‘loan’ to get us out of PMI, only needs to be paid back if we sell or refinance. We make it work on 75k/yr total income somehow, although it’s gotten harder and harder. Seriously, we had a small car payment ($250/month, paid off in the last few years) when we bought the house that we could probably not afford now. We also have to basically restrict eating/going out to special occasions only, but that’s not so bad.
Just thankful we were able to find a decent modest home in a nice little town in our state. My heart goes out to everyone struggling now!
Edit: also meant to add that going by what Zillow says our home is ‘worth’ now, we couldn’t afford it today.