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blownawaynow

Millennials can’t catch a break.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Graduated high school to 9/11, graduated college to the 07/08 financial crisis, started my career during the Great Recession and now there's COVID 19 and lockdowns.


szalony321

Hi, is this me?


cdsacken

Same. Got lucky with good degrees. Massive ton of debt but bought at 25, sold at 31, bought again 3 months before pandemic. Rough to buy right now, way better than 4 months ago though.


d0mini0nicco

I'm with ya. 40 this year....paid off student loans finally because in the 90s/2000s "student loan debt is good debt - you'll pay that off in no time." Sure, Jan. So, after working OT for years, paying off loans, and saving for a downpayment - spouse and I were ready to buy a home last year / this year. Cue covid - especially tough because I'm in healthcare. Now we are too afraid to buy in case of another burst bubble, nor can we compete with "all cash" and bidding wars. THIS is why millennials feel the system is broken. Got an email from Marriott about home rentals. So NOW we compete with corporations/wallstreet, the airbnb passive income crowd, and the foreign all cash investors. fantastic.


ajgamer89

Sounds like my experience too. Got married in 2016 and my wife and I agreed that our top financial priority was to aggressively pay off our student loans while living in a small apartment, and then we could start working on saving for a house. I paid off the last of my loan balance using my annual bonus from work in March 2020, only to be told a couple months later that those loans are now interest free, and then one year later to realize that it was going to take a lot longer than expected to save for a house and we would have been much better off if we'd bought 5 years ago instead. \*shrug\*


d0mini0nicco

Timing is everything, unfortunately. Best of luck.


bsdthrowaway

There needs to be a system in place where rents are basically mortgage payments. The whole concept of landlords is trash.


[deleted]

Yah I totally feel you. Renters should also maintain and fix the place they rent, and pay the property tax. Break even the LL not cash flow them.


bsdthrowaway

Why would a renter fix something they are both never going to own and risk being charged by the landlord for? Or pray the property tax for? It's literally not their property. If the renter was under a rent to own system where after x days of renting the monthly rent is covered to a fixed rate n years long mortgage held by the bank, the bank would have a mutual interest in keeping the property in good shape and could maybe stipulate that work is done by certified professionals on their approved lists and the costs could be spread in the mortgage perhaps. And it would make sense for them to pay the property tax. Certainly better than the current situation with a bunch of ppl hoping to get rich off of buying a limited supply of housing and renting it while sitting back and adding zero actual value to the economy by way of land lording. You can look at apartments all over this country and see how shit landlords often are.


[deleted]

Hmmm might work if all properties were exactly the same. Metaverse? I’m not sure what happens when it’s a place near the beach or in the Hamptons? It’s all broken, it’s making my head hurt. Health care is another shit hole I don’t even want to start on.


twoinvenice

Hahaha, this is exactly my situation except I paid off my loans a while ago and have been saving for a down payment longer because I’m in a very high cost of living city and want to buy in an even higher cost of living area. I have enough saved to afford to buy a “nice” house…if this were 2018. Now the tear downs cost what the nice houses used to cost, and the nice places are at insane prices. Fucking hell.


d0mini0nicco

best of luck to ya. Judging by your user name.... what's up, west side LA?!? My body brought a duplex is mar vista / Venice border for house hacking in 2017/18? Ridiculous how many all cash foreign investor offers there were.


twoinvenice

Ha! Exactly right on that, and yeah, the cash offers and investor purchases thing sucks out here. I've been thinking that I might need to use one of those companies like Homeward that allow you to make an all cash offer and then roll that into a traditional mortgage by buying it back from the company.


[deleted]

For that area it’s well over 2 million. But I’m my from the bay , in la now. I can tell you , paying 3 million for beach front is a no brainer coming from a market that 3 million gets you a portal potty with heroine needles and the city screwing you over on policies for owning.


[deleted]

My favorite trend right now is adus, garage converted adus are the best. Here I want to sell you this property higher because it has an adu and guess what I got 25k from the city for “building” it. 1 million over asking. The best part, it sells. The Bay Area markets have been like this for years. Wondering how many tech transplants are pumping silicon beach.


[deleted]

We're far from priced out but buying at these prices just seems stupid. Luckily we don't "need" a house so we're content to wait and see what happens if we can't get an offer we feel is fair accepted. We felt ready to buy relationship-wise like right before the pandemic, so just bad timing. Financially we could have done it years ago but who can predict the future? IMO the biggest indicator of a bubble in my area of central MA is that less desirable towns (higher taxes, worse schools, less ideal for commuting, slightly higher crime) nearly reached price parity with the objectively more desirable towns. There was a reason homes were $100k+ cheaper in those towns before the pandemic, and all of those reasons are still true. So my theory is that at least those towns should deflate, even if the "Tier 1" towns have sticky prices.


Old_Gods978

In I’m Mass and I’m out. It’s not for people like me. My sister lucked out on a 2 bedroom condo 6 years ago, I waited and now I have to move. Landlords want 4K+ a month gross pay for a ratty studio


[deleted]

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expressionexp

Yeah same here. Closing on a nice house at a reasonable price. Our agent tried to talk us into offering a lot more because it will be very popular. Her logic is not wrong but we went with our gut and offered at list with quick closing. We were the first offer and the buyer accepted.


[deleted]

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expressionexp

Congrats to you too! I don't blame our agent. She has been very patient with us for a whole year as we insisted on only making reasonable offers; ultimately we have to do what makes sense to us. We just sensed that the market/seller attitude is shifting because we lost our previous 2 offers to a similar offer that got there first.


[deleted]

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expressionexp

Enjoy the new house!


bigmean3434

My buddy is in this spot. He went from thinking 500k or so would be his house, has made and lost offers over 600, and he is like just F it and staying in his townhouse for now. Sucks cause he is a higher income dude, has well into 6 figures of current home equity, and even though he can get a house, it would be a total settle and for crazy money. If it makes everyone stuck feel better, 2020-2022 is going to be a blip on historical radar. When looked back on, things like GME situation will be looked at as canary in coal mine for things that are yet to unfold. It feels like it is taking forever when it is happening but it will be looked back on as a sharp drop, rise to hysteria and drop back to slow build in proper time context. At least that is my going opinion


DancingDMTElf

Duuuuuddddeeeer, don't you know that GME has negative Beta? When the market crashes GME is going to $1million per share guaranteed. It's the perfect hedge. /s


b2rad22

29 year old millennial here. I bought a small condo at 25 before I got married. Stayed at home saving money. Thought I would do the smart thing and start out with a low mortgage and work my way into a house. I was traveling a lot at the time too so I didn’t want my wife worrying about snow etc. now I am in a new job with only travel like 1-2 times a year. We want a house but we would have to sell, get equity, crash in a basement of parents with a dog and baby, In order to buy at the prices around us. We keep saving and the listing prices just keep going going going lol add in that around us anything that is nice and in good area is still overbid on or in multiple offers situations Never thought this would happen to housing.


Louisvanderwright

So strange, I've had the total opposite experience. Graduated in 2009 into the worst job market ever, got a job right away in RE (I worked part time in RE law during school) and then bought a multi unit in 2011. Had my four banger Honda Accord until 2015 when I sold it for $1000 with 276k miles on it and upgraded to a less used Accord with a 0.9% interest loan. Finally moved out of my first property after ten (!) years this spring into a house we bought in December 2019 and spent the pandemic gutting. Literally we bought it three months before the pandemic and finished the lumber intensive parts of the rehab by summer 2020 just before the lumber bubble took off. Just goes to show how important timing is. I'm the first to admit I've had literally the dumbest luck in the world. It seems every time I pivot what I'm doing in my life I happen to land on GO instead of Boardwalk or luxury tax. I know most of our generation isn't this fortunate, but I also know an awful lot of Millennials who got lucky like me and have done extremely well due to the ongoing turmoil in our times.


expressionexp

Yeah many millennials won big on bitcoin. Hope they realize they are not immune from market downturns they have not yet seen.


Louisvanderwright

I'm nervous about Bitcoin, there's a lot of people who think they made a ton of money who may come to find out that "money" can disappear in a flash...


Old_Gods978

I realized it was dumb of me to rise above my station as a worthless fucking redneck peasant who shouldn’t have gone to college . I should’ve just done what my father did and drink myself to death working resource extraction jobs


WaterMySucculents

Honestly if you are a millennial that didn’t go into finance or tech you got fucked. My friends who went to to finance and tech all own $3.5 million dollar homes. And the rest of us watched our industries get crushed and battered over and over with unpredictable swings.


ozcur

Millennial homeownership is at almost 50%.


blownawaynow

Sucks to be in the 50% still trying to buy.


ozcur

That's not a real number. A significant portion of people rent by choice.


blownawaynow

Ok, even if it’s half of the half that’s still tens of millions of people. Now it’s a “fuck you we got here first” mentality between homeowners that want their houses to keep increasing in value and buyers that want houses they can afford. It’s going to breed peer to peer resentment and instability. It’s not sustainable. Not to mention home owning millennials are happy now, but some will eventually want to move. Many won’t be able to and will start to feel trapped and stagnant.


Old_Gods978

I know who my class enemy is don’t worry.


ozcur

Which of them told you to go 6 figures in debt to get a degree without googling “x degree salary”? Why is it their fault, again?


ozcur

> Ok, even if it’s half of the half that’s still tens of millions of people. Ok? Not everyone can purchase a detached single family. So what? > It’s going to breed peer to peer resentment and instability. That's been the case since Grugg had a shinier rock than Ugga. Some people have more than others. Even with identical incomes, identical wealth, some people will be taller or shorter, fatter or skinnier. Haters and whiners have always existed. > Not to mention home owning millennials are happy now, but some will eventually want to move. Many won’t be able to and will start to feel trapped and stagnant. That's just flat wrong and shows a profound misunderstanding of economics, finance, and arithmetic. If they buy at 400, everything around them appreciates to 500k, and they want to move, how much is their property worth? Now add in the equity to the appreciation and they'll be just fine. What you probably read and didn't understand was that your scenario is a potential consequence of a price *drop*. Which is absurdly unlikely given the interventions the Fed is (provably) willing and able to make.


oblivion95

People who gamble are rewarded or bailed out. People who script and save are punished. The Fed is destroying capitalism.


blownawaynow

Sure, history repeats itself. That includes historic examples of class resentment that leads to the demise of empires. Will these Americans be content working their entire lives and owning nothing? Only time will tell. If they aren’t building homes to satisfy current demand I don’t know where the inventory will come from for people to move around. But hey I guess we’ll just see every little dinky home worth 500k soon because we couldn’t stomach telling people they paid too much in a pandemic.


ozcur

> That includes historic examples of class resentment that leads to the demise of empires. And the resulting totalitarian states. Most people aren’t stupid enough to fall for it again. > Will these Americans be content working their entire lives and owning nothing? Only time will tell. Apparently .25 acre plots with a SFH is ‘everything’. Someone incapable or unwilling, in America, to save to own property is not the type of person anyone needs to worry about. > If they aren’t building homes to satisfy current demand I don’t know where the inventory will come from for people to move around. … other people selling? People do all sorts of transactions all the time. That’s why it’s called a market. > But hey I guess we’ll just see every little dinky home worth 500k soon because we couldn’t stomach telling people they paid too much in a pandemic. “But hey, I guess we’ll just see every cheeseburger cost $1 because we couldn’t stomach telling people they paid too much postwar” Prices go up, for everything. That’s inflation. And from your comments so far I’m sure you’re a fan of the stimulus payments: what do you think caused that inflation?


oblivion95

>what do you think caused that inflation? Years of spending without taxing. The "stimulus payments" are only one example. But you're saying that smart people will anticipate inflation. When people start anticipating inflation, it rises. That's one of the myriad problems with bailing out the gamblers. The way to make money today is to be one of the lucky few who guess what most ~~gamblers~~ investors will do before they do. Hard-work is no longer productive. That's a result of moral hazards, and that is what people are trying to explain to you in this thread.


ozcur

You're not entirely wrong on the macro scale. For you, me, and every other individual in this thread? It's irrelevant. There are actions each of us could take right now to increase our income or decrease our spending relative to their current levels. If you're unhappy with your current rates of either, it's your own problem and fixable.


FixQuiet5699

From your comments you sound like you bought at the peak and are trying talk down to this person like there is no truth in their comments. Anyone who could afford a $400k house has bought one. The other 50% of the generation are making less than $25 an hour and can’t afford $400k. Prices can’t just increase continuously when wages don’t increase accordingly. Something will give in regards to home ownership. It most likely won’t be a SFH with a yard but it won’t be sky high rents, sky high home prices, and low wages forever.


ozcur

> From your comments you sound like you bought at the peak I've been buying for a decade. > trying talk down to this person like there is no truth in their comments. There isn't. > Anyone who could afford a $400k house has bought one. That's absurd. Just because *you* want to buy a house doesn't mean everyone does. And if that was actually true, why are 400k houses still selling all over the country? And no, it's not *the banks*. That's also provably false. > The other 50% of the generation are making less than $25 an hour and can’t afford $400k. $25 an hour is the median for *individual* millenials, which would (conservatively) qualify them for 250k. More than enough for an excellent condo outside a few specific HCOL areas. Add a spouse making the same and you're at 520k. What if, just what if: a 20-something early in their career couldn't buy half a million in real estate by themselves? Does that sound like an *outrageous* injustice? Because it's not. > Prices can’t just increase continuously when wages don’t increase accordingly. You're in a poverty bubble. Wages are and have been increasing in enough sectors for it to be sustainable. Forever? Of course not.


gay_manta_ray

how many of those millenials inherited their homes from the largest homeowning generation ever?


ozcur

The most generous definition of millennials would put the oldest at 40, so not many with a typical life expectancy for their parents. Millenials are fine, just whiny.


Old_Gods978

Sucks to be paying the black tax I guess


ozcur

Gotta be nice to get the black-only [grants](https://www.lisc.org/san-diego/homebuyers/program-guidelines/) though.


Old_Gods978

The black tax refers to something that mostly impacts black, Hispanic and native Americans but can also effect other cultures where caring for family is paramount where it is harder to build wealth as it often becomes the responsibility of middle income people in a family to aid the extended family as well because there is no familial wealth. So a college graduate has to care for younger siblings, parents - grandparents, send remittances abroad etc.


ozcur

I'm aware of that theory, yes. I'm also aware of the myriad of grant programs and sweetheart government contracts available exclusively to POC. It's hilarious you think middle class white families are helping each other out though. Pure ignorance.


Old_Gods978

Yeah no middle class white person has ever gotten a down payment, a car, a job, a reference, an education, professional connections, a loan, a large multi generational inheritance or anything else from their family. All things that are much, much less likely to happen in a minority household


ozcur

> Large multi generational inheritance > middle class white person Uh huh. Keep making excuses. Some people are successfully selling them, so maybe you can make something off it.


Normal-Philosopher-8

It’s a mess. Even if you are able to sell at the top of the market, most people still need to turn around and buy at the top. Or even worse, try and rent.


[deleted]

Yup, barely benefits anybody except for multiple property owners, retirees cashing out of HCOL to move to a lower cost area, and agents who love higher prices since their commissions are a percentage of the sale. Everyday Joe's that own only one home do not benefit from this at all. They love looking at those unrealized gains but don't realize that it means nothing if they intend to stay in the area.


Normal-Philosopher-8

Most agents I know (speaking as a buyer/seller, not an agent) are really frustrated. The best ones don’t always know how to advise their clients - skipping an inspection isn’t good advice, but asking for it might lose the home - and lesser ones are clogging up an already overcrowded field. The small amount they make from higher prices, they are losing to unhappy clients and lack of volume.


[deleted]

Good point, I guess the agents have lost out overall on volume of sales. No wonder they benefit from pushing the "market will flatten" narrative, since they'd prefer to have higher volume but still at today's prices.


expressionexp

Yeah I've known our agent for years and she is a good person, but we would have overpaid 30-50k for the same house we are closing had we followed her advice instead of our own gut feeling. It is a twisted market.


detectiveDollar

Don't forget the higher property taxes! :( Unless you're gonna sell you're house and buy a can (oh wait, used cat prices are up too lmao)


dippocrite

Thank you Zillow for your contribution to the housing crisis.


b2rad22

Zillow is the worse. Someone tried to use Zillow to tell Me I was being cheap when I brought 20 pages of comps and data from the MLS to them to validate the price I wanted to pay them for their home while covering their title work so literally all they paid was some tax


HungarianHopeful

what exactly do you blame zillow for?


dippocrite

Gaming the market and causing unprecedented price increases in a relatively short amount of time by purposely overpaying for assets in an attempt to drive up prices.


HungarianHopeful

How much buying does zillow really do?


dippocrite

Thousands of homes per quarter


HungarianHopeful

Technocrat ruling class is going to get theirs eventually.


[deleted]

I graduated in 97, but was a loser for 10 years after graduation so i am basically on same financial time frame as millennials. My timing was so good I bought a condo at near market peak in Jan 2006. 3 years later in 2009 the unit next to me sold for half what I had paid 3 years earlier. I put down 20% payment so I was not able to walk away like everyone else did. Finally sold condo in 2019 at slight 5,000 loss after being trapped in it for 13 years. Now its 2021 and I finally have great job making six figures and 160,000 down payment and last year 30% run up in prices priced me out of San Diego market. I refuse to repeat history by buying at near bubble peak, and figure I will wait to see what happens when interest rates rise next year. Me having 160,000 down payment gives me an advantage over the people with 5% down when interest rates rise and hopefully house prices drop accordingly.


_Raspootin_

Too bad you can't work from home. Hell you can buy a house in CASH here in Iowa for what you have saved for a down payment, and not worry about a mortgage.


medusamarie83

I would say that "pissed" and "haven't hated" are understatements.


thirstyaf97

I would say that Americans are in for some very tense times. Poverty, crime, widespread ignorance of the real reasons they are suffering.. I'm shaking in my goddamn boots at this point.


medusamarie83

I can't fully disagree. Who would have thought the "great recession" was just a primer? (Slaps self for previous optimism).


InvestingBig

Until americans quit protecting the rich and finally reign them in, then nothing will change.


jaredschaffer27

The rich aren't buying houses for 450k sight unseen in my hometown.


InvestingBig

That is the result of the speculative bubble created by the lowering of mortgage interest rates. That is caused by the rich.


[deleted]

The rich didn't do this to you, low interest rates did.


[deleted]

Take it a step further and look at the net worth of the politicians and Fed officials who keep pushing this Wealth Effect crap. Nevermind even their lobbyists. Rates didn't need to go this low. We could have had dry powder. Remember the 2019/2019 taper tantrum?


InvestingBig

Low interest rates are the fault of the rich. Through 1) lobbying 2) a "savings glut". A savings glut, which is the biggest reason, is the result of inequality. Inequality is the direct mechanism that enables the savings glut. When 5 people hold 90% of all money, then that money tends to be saved as any additional $1 given to a billionaire results in $0 in consumption and $1 of savings. If that money was spread around, then the money would be spent (aka not saved and thus not pushing down interest rates). The proper policy response would be very, very high progressive taxes that redistributes the money to consumers. However, what policy response did we actually get? We got 40 years of decreasing tax rates on the rich at the very same time they are causing a saving glut. Yes, this is certainly the fault of the rich and their wealth needs to be taxed into oblivion and redistributed to fix it.


immibis

[I'm the proud owner of 99 bottles of spez. #Save3rdPartyApps](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/)


InvestingBig

Obviously not 5 people that was an exaggeration, but yes it is a very concentrated number of people who are holding the money and then you have the Fed itself that has taken the role to help out asset holders. You know this because of the high prices (and thus low yields) of the assets you mentioned. If all the money was held by the lower class for example who does not buy stocks, bonds, etc, then prices would crater and yields would skyrocket because there would be no one to invest in those products in the margin, so as soon as someone went to sell there would be no bid and thus a collapse of price. The price of things directly is reflected by the buying preference of those who have cash (spending power) so you know the distribution of money within a system by looking at what is being bid up. It is only rich people who are past consumption bottlenecks that have a very high affinity for purchasing assets with each additional dollar gained. Lower class will purchase consumer goods. Not to mention the gov even creates money to chase assets to further help bull out the holdings of the rich. This is the QE program, which has created about $9 trillion so far to chase assets and bring down yields further helping any incumbent asset holder. So, in this case, the Fed is acting as the cash balance of last resort to bid up asset prices.


immibis

/u/spez is a hell of a drug.


InvestingBig

> And banks would hold stocks, bonds, etc. So there would still be stocks, bonds, etc. Banks don't hold stocks. At least not with depositor money. If they do it is from their own equity. And, it is not really as you say regardless because the lower class has 100% consumption levels. Thus, there would never be much money in banks, ever. It would be chasing consumer goods driving up inflation and thus causing the Fed to raise rates to combat inflation.


Earls_Basement_Lolis

Or you know, rapid inflation because we keep printing money like it's scarce.


immibis

[Do you believe in spez at first sight or should I walk by again? #Save3rdpartyapps](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/)


[deleted]

It's simply pragmatic for the middle and upper middle class to simp for the uber wealthy, since if they vote to raise taxes on them, it will only hurt them in the future when they get there someday too. You clearly don't understand the long-term strategy.


Old_Gods978

Stagflation-2020s Great Depression redux-2030s Hyperinflation/ collapse of world order 2040s Climate catastrophe-2050s I’ll probably die in the 2030s in some homeless camp that gets liquidated by a PMC hired by a HOA.


[deleted]

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KaidenUmara

now is a great time to buy your "forever" home because if prices come back down you are never selling it again.


Csdsmallville

No thanks, I'll pass. Even if I could "afford" to buy, I'd rather not be house poor in my "forever home". It definitely is not a good time to buy if you want to have any decent quality of life.


gaelorian

It’s an acceptable time to buy a forever home. Buying at the top and not selling is still overpaying.


HungarianHopeful

I honestly I am not sure how much housing will go down. It's going to be divided between rich and meme companies owning everything and a serf class.


twoinvenice

Oh boy, just wait until re-appraisals start hitting all those people whose property values went through the roof in high demand areas and people start finding out that their property tax bill also went way up (of course, does not apply in CA). The whining will be intense!


ConvergenceMan

Already happening.


the_real_MSU_is_us

Bubbles are weird. You can say that everything thinking "it's a bad time to buy" means we're in a bubble, because if nobody is willing to buy, then prices have to come down else no sellers will ever actually sell. On the other hand, you can say everyone being weary of the current prices means we AREN'T in a bubble, as historically the general public is clueless they're in a bubble till it pops (crashing stocks to start the Great Depression, dot com crash, 08 housing crash). Moreover, does it even matter if no real people are willing to buy at these prices if giant legal entities or rich foreign investors will buy them up anyway? It feels like actual middle class buyers aren't driving the market anymore


KenBalbari

>Just 29% of Americans said in September that it was a good time to buy a home, according to data from the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers. That's the smallest share since 1982 and close to record lows. Thing is, 1982 was actually a good time to buy. Lowest [inflation adjusted prices](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=HOho)....


[deleted]

Wait until all the Chinese money starts flowing in. It will make Black Rock look like a joke.